Home › North America › Central California › San Luis Obispo County
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"Then somewhere around San Simeon, in sight of the castle, he pulled over to check a beachbreak. There was no one out, nobody even looking. It was hot, lunchtime. The water was smooth glass with a sweet right peeling off a small sandbar offshore. Over the barbed-wire fence, down through the rutted cow pasture and on to an untracked, coarse-grained berm. Tug on the wetsuit and into the clear, crisp water. The bar was good, 4 to 6 feet, dredging up foam and sand in a symmetrical slant right into the shorebreak. Transparent lips throwing out onto flat water. Tube after tube. Sea otters basking in the channel, red-tail hawks watching from fence posts -- the only audience when Kidman snapped his board on a suck-out grinder." -- Sam George, Surfer magazine, June 1994
One thing Sam doesn't point out here is that Aussie explorer/writer/filmmaker Andrew Kidman is one of the lucky few who have blindly stumbled upon great surf along what is undoubtedly one of the most fickle coastlines in the state. Sure, San Simeon is a gorgeous chunk of geography, as close as you'll get to Ireland's pastoral hills and breezy, rock-strewn waterline without booking a flight to Dublin. But the inspiring backdrops don't do a lot for the area's small legion of surfers, who are forced to deal with the consistently shoddy hand that Mother Nature deals them. If you're intent on scoring in San Simeon, we hope that patience is your livelihood. There's a 97 percent chance that you'll be severely let down.
Warnings aside, your best bet is Pico Creek at the north end of downtown San Simeon. It will be either a thick, right-hand reefbreak wave during clean conditions or a peaky, rocky beachbreak on smaller days. The reef sits in front of the creek's mouth and is clogged with seaweed and boils, yet manages to produce a rather decent right which peaks on the outside, backs off, then reforms and bowls into the inside section.
Popular with surfers of all types, Pico Creek is a fairly reliable spot if the swell is bigger than chest-high. If it isn't, walk south of the short staircase. There you'll find a wide beachbreak punctuated with several boulders and patches of shallow reef. Unsurfable on anything bigger than overhead, the beachbreak proves valuable during the summertime.
-- Mike Kew
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lower for the reef, medium for the beachbreak
SW, W, NW
chest-high to a few feet overhead
NE
4
sand and rock
intermediate
shortboard or longboard, 4/3mm fullsuit with booties (gloves and a hood are nice, too)
summer and autumn
Take Highway 1 into San Simeon Acres, where all the hotels are, and turn west onto Pico Avenue. Park in the tiny cul-de-sac at its end and take the staircase down to the sand.
Medium. 10 guys is about the maximum occupancy for Pico.
Definitely there. Be polite. A more subtle form of localism comes from the resident elephant seals and invisible white sharks.
3 to 5
2
Sharks. Nearby San Simeon has a big elephant seal rookery.
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There is a handful of good eateries in San Simeon Acres, notably the Carriage Inn Restaurant (9290 Castillo Dr., 805-927-8607), Pezzulo's (Plaza Del Cavalier, 805-927-5433), the Castle Cafe (9070 Castillo Dr., 805-927-8101) and the Cavalier Oceanfront Restaurant (9435 Hearst Dr., 805-927-3276). The San Simeon Beach Bar and Grill (9520 Castillo Dr., 805-927-4604) is probably your cheapest and most casual option, replete with a full bar, fireplace, juke box and pool table. No Spanish-named town would be complete without a good motherland eatery like El Chorlito Mexican Restaurant (9155 Hearst Dr., 805-927-3872).
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Some of the cheaper places to stay include the Jade Motel (Highway 1 at Balboa Avenue, 805-927-3284), the Silver Surf Motel (9390 Castillo Dr., 805-927-4661), the Sands Motel (9355 Hearst Dr., 805-927-3243), and Motel 6 (9070 Castillo Dr., 805-927-8691).
More on the pricey side include the Best Western Courtesy Inn (9450 Castillo Dr., 805-927-4691), the California Seacoast Lodge (9135 Hearst Dr., 805-927-3878) and the Ragged Point Inn (19019 Highway 1, 805-927-4502).
Up there on the money scale, but well worth it, is the excellent Sebastian's Bed and Breakfast (442 San Simeon Rd., 805-927-3243) and the El Rey Garden Inn on Castillo Drive (805-927-3998 or 800-821-7914).
A decent campground (and the only one in the area) goes by the name of San Simeon State Beach Campground (201 campsites, 805-927-2020) and is located up San Simeon Creek Road, across the highway from a mediocre, walled beachbreak.
You can find a few more hotels at www.sansimeonsbest.com/lodging/san_simeon_lodging_listings.htm.
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By and large, the most popular thing to do and the biggest draw for tourists here is the world-famous Hearst Castle, perched atop the Santa Lucia Mountains with awesome views of the coast. Requiring 28 years to complete, this 123-acre state monument to the late William R. Hearst's personal wealth is pretty darn unbelievable, to say the least. Log on to www.hearstcastle.org, www.parks.ca.gov, or call 800-444-4445. Aside from that, there ain't a whole lot else to do other than cruise the highway, poke around the tidepools, watch the windsurfers or admire the coast from several vista points. If the wind is howling out of the north, as it often does, you can seek warmth and refuge at San Simeon Point (aka William Randolph Hearst Memorial State Beach, www.parks.ca.gov, 805-927-2068 or 805-927-2020), where pier-fishing, picnicking and sunbathing are popular.
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