Redwoods: A Recap
The cast: Lindsay, her husband, her 13-year-old daughter, her 7-year-old daughter
The setting: the northern California segment of Redwoods National Park
The time of year: August of 2023
The mission: a family vacation wherein the “indoor” children can experience nature (aiming for a mostly enjoyable trip with minimal tears, though expectations are realistic)
In Lindsay’s words:
Husband and I wanted to go on a good old-fashioned summer vacation with the kids before school started up again, and I had a few criteria:
1) We get away from the draining Utah summer heat and find a respite somewhere cooler
2) We go somewhere beautiful
3) We go somewhere new to all of us (in other words, no Disneyland this time)
I think I was the one who chose Redwoods, though I was also interested in going to Olympic National Forest (someday!). We chose to fly into San Francisco, rent a car, and drive up to Eureka, CA, where we’d stay for five days and play in one of the world’s biggest, most awesome forests.
Our first stop: Sausalito.
We landed in SF, picked up our rental car, and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in a sea of mid-morning fog. All of us were starving, so we found a delightful spot for breakfast and got ourselves some eggs, potatoes, and coffee at Fred’s Place. (So delish! And the most gorgeous seaside views.)
Properly caffed up, we made the 4.5 hour drive up to our AirBnB in Eureka, CA. Now, there are famously two routes you can take to get to northern California—the 101, which is faster, and the 1, which is prettier. We opted for the faster route, which honestly? Wasn’t that bad as far as scenery goes. The terrain changed often enough that it was interesting to look at: some vineyards, some scrubby knolls, a few small towns with roadside stands selling fruit, and, of course, the first of the Redwood trees.
Second stop: Eureka, a.k.a., home sweet home.
I picked a house in Eureka rather than a hotel since I wanted to be able to do laundry. I also wanted a porch and a little outdoor space (we don’t have a yard at home, so when I travel I always love when my girls can just step right out the door and see some green). It was a gorgeous, rustic, recently updated rental with one bedroom, 1.5 bathrooms, a huge bathtub, a spacious kitchen, and a porch that wrapped ALL THE WAY AROUND THE HOUSE. Seriously, this was such a score and made our trip feel perfectly woodsy.
We took the evening to explore the boardwalk of Eureka, which was bustling with locals and tourists alike—live music, fancy ice cream, seafood restaurants, walkable pathways all down the harbor. We got fish and chips and watched seals pop their heads up out of the sea and jellyfish bob in the water. It was the perfect warmup for a week full of unforgettable sights.
The first Redwoods encounter: Trees of Mystery in Klamath, CA
This place! This is a tourist attraction and a park, and it’s equal parts kitschy and magical. We headed here as a kid-friendly way to try a few trails and see the big trees up close.
Side note: as mentioned above, my kids are very much inside kids. Book readers. Movie watchers. Crafters. They love green spaces, love swimming, love feeding the chickens at Grandma’s house, but the closest they’ve really gotten to any nature exposure has been summer camp at the aquarium. The older one hates bugs, the younger one can be a bit timid.
Trees of Mystery was ideal for us! Lots of trails to walk, majestic trees with plaques explaining their history, chainsaw sculptures and Paul Bunyan statues, and ropes bridges and tramways through the canopy.
The next day we hit a couple of bookstores in downtown Eureka (did I mention we’re book readers?): Eureka Books, which was a big fancy indie bookstore, and Booklegger, a used bookstore where we could have dug for hours and hours.
Then it was time for the beach!
We love beaches. The girls love swimming and would happily swim out to their deaths if not strictly supervised when we’re near the ocean.
This was not a swimming beach, since it was way too rough and chilly, but we got to do the next best thing: beachcombing! Comb the beaches!
Did I mention beautiful? This is my kind of beach, personally—lots of rocks, tide pools, gray ocean, crags, sweatshirt and cuffed pants weather.
We stayed and played until teeth were chattering and high tide was climbing. Then it was take-out pizza and reruns of Family Feud back at the ranch.
Our last full day in Eureka, we got to do something so, so special, I kind of can’t believe we were there. We went to Fern Canyon.
This is a Redwoods trail/area that requires a permit and a reservation, and readers? I was not able to get one before we left. So I’d accepted that we wouldn’t be able to see Fern Canyon, but the night before, I decided to check and see if there were any cancellations, and SCORED A SPOT!
I don’t really have words to describe Fern Canyon, but I’ll try. It’s a level trail, following a shallow stream that’s carved out a fifty-foot canyon over millions of years, and the canyon walls are covered in green. Ferns. Trees. Leaves, clinging to the black rocks.
You walk along the stream, you’re nestled in the canyon, everywhere you look there are plants. We could have stayed and wandered along the stream forever.
We headed back to Eureka and did the harbor tour aboard the Madaket, the nation’s oldest passenger ferry. There were plenty of seabirds to see, lumber mills, ship yards, local history, and more seals!
Dinner that night was more sushi and ice cream (we literally ordered the same things because it had been that delicious), then it was time to pack up for the morning journey to San Francisco.
Cannot recommend enough taking your family to see the Redwoods. It’s not just about the size of the trees—although that alone is reason enough to go. There’s a reverence in the trees, a sense that you are lucky to be standing among the trunks. They are ancient and your brain knows it. The Redwoods feel both like an alien planet and the most authentically EARTH place you can visit. I felt so, so human and also aware of how small humans really are in the scheme of things.
Outcome? SUCCESS.
