One of California’s Prettiest Beaches Is Inside a National Park Most People Overlook

Point Reyes National Seashore just got a nod from Travel + Leisure as home to one of California’s best beaches, and anyone who has visited the park knows it is long overdue.

The outlet highlighted the national seashore’s wild, windswept coastline as a standout among California beach destinations, noting that the park offers something dramatically different from the crowded stretches of sand found further south.

Point Reyes sits on a peninsula in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, and covers more than 71,000 acres of coastline, forests, wetlands and grasslands. The beaches here are raw and rugged. There are no boardwalks, no lifeguards and no concession stands. What you get instead is miles of open sand backed by high bluffs, with the Pacific Ocean crashing in hard from the west.

Drakes Beach, Limantour Beach and the Great Beach along the Point Reyes headlands are among the most scenic and least crowded stretches of coast in the state. On a weekday, you can walk for an hour without seeing another person.

But this is not a swimming beach. The waters off Point Reyes are dangerously cold, with strong rip currents, sneaker waves and unpredictable surf. A 30-year-old Oakland man drowned at North Beach just weeks ago after being swept offshore. The National Park Service specifically warns visitors not to swim or surf at most Point Reyes beaches.

Go for the scenery, the wildlife and the solitude. Just stay out of the water.