When you think of California, you think of blue skies and beaches - but if you are visiting San Francisco  Bay Area or greater LA, what you're going to see are long lines, crowds and traffic jams. To experience spectacular blue skies and beaches on island time, take a trip to San Luis Obispo and its surrounding areas -  Paso Robles, Atascadero, Avila Beach, Pismo Beach and Morro Bay. 

San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded on September 1, 1772 and the mission church was built in 1792-1794.The mission church still stands and is a functioning church.  A large modern plaza in front of Mission San Luis Obispo is a popular site for community events - when we visited they were celebrating Pride month in the Plaza. All around the plaza there are restaurants and interesting shops, the history building and a park with a beautiful creek. 

Interestingly San Luis Obispo is a university town - with CalPoly (CSU) based there, so the historic town is alive and buzzing with young people. A fun find on this trip was SLODOCO, a great doughnut shop where we had a memorable breakfast :) Given that this was the first stop on our California roadtrip, we found that Avila Beach was the closest and went and spent a lovely, slow, relaxed afternoon on the beach, doing well... nothing!