BootsnAll Travel Network



A Day Trip from San Francisco to See Old Park, Big Tree, and Small People

Big Basin Redwoods State Park (see more photos here) is the oldest state park of California. It is a 18,000 acres of old growth forest in south of San Francisco. If you live in central California and want to see the big trees but don’t have time to visit Redwood National Park in the north or Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks in the south, this state park is a nice 1-day trip destination. The park is actually extended to Pacific coast and the elevations in the park vary from sea level to over 2,000 feet. You can hike to the nice beach from the redwoods in 2 days, longer if you will hike back.
We visited the park on a usual Saturday. It is about 2-hours drive from south bay area, 20 miles away from Santa Cruz. The road to the park headquarter is very curvy and one-way. You are expected to stop on the roadside/turnout often when there is no rooms for the coming cars to stop. It is hard to explain the feeling when into the redwood forests, even just in the car. Everything is so big and misty and you will have the impulsion to stop and walk around.

Big Basin State Park, California

We hiked for about 4 hours on two trails, 1) easy Redwoods Loop trail on which you will see the mother and the father of the forest; 2)first part of Sequoia Trail on which you will see Sempervirens Falls and Founders Monument at Slippery Rock. We tried to look for the “icon’ of Big Basin banana slugs but weren’t successful.

Tips: 1) do a little research on the park website ; 2) Buy a map (25c), 2 groups of people were lost and asked us for direction.



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