My typical weekends away were mostly to Guerneville, CA, an easy 1.5-hour drive north of Berkeley. A little resort town that attracts people from all over during the summer. The year was 2012 and had just started to date a guy named Zack. He had just graduated from college and hadn’t ventured outside of San Francisco, so I decided to plan a weekend excursion to San Simeon.

San Simeon is 229 miles south of San Francisco. There are faster ways to get there, but the best way is to take scenic route 1, which goes all the way up the coast and the Pacific coast is some of the most beautiful I’ve seen in my years. The last time I had gone to Hearst Castle was back in the 90s and thought Zack would like the trip.

The town of San Simeon is only 510 square miles and has a population of 550 people so there’s really not a lot there to do except visit the castle and walk along the beach to enjoy the sunsets.

Photo from SFGate courtesy of Hearst Castle/California State Parks

Hearst Castle was built by William Randolph Hearst who was a newspaper magnate in the early 1900s; Hearst corporation still publishes magazines today. The castle sat on 250,000 acres that surrounded San Simeon. The Castle’s construction was started in 1919 by famed architect Julia Morgan and construction stopped in 1947 when Hearst started to have financial troubles, it was never finished. Hearst dies in 1951. and in 1957 donates the Castle to California as a state monument. The Castle has never been finished and never will be.

To see the Castle you have to have paid tours. Tours are broken up into various sections of the house, so there is no one mega tour; I do think you can walk around the grounds for free though and that in itself is spectacular as you’ll see by the pictures.

To get to the Castle you have to park at a lower entrance, buy your tickets and board a bus. The road twists and turns up to the summit of the hill as you pass by zoo animals are still grazing around the complex.

The Hearsts used this property as a camping getaway, using tents to sleep under. When WR’s parents died and he was left with all the money, he decided camping in tents wasn’t grand enough. The first thing they built was the “cottages”. I air-quote it because they weren’t exactly cottages in the sense we would think about it, but with a looming 110-room castle waiting to be built, the cottages were the first accommodations to be built.

We didn’t pay for the tour of the inside of the cottages, so only enjoyed them from the outside.

We only paid for the tour of some of the general rooms on the main floor as the tickets were $45 per person per tour and though not hugely expensive, with the ability to walk around the grounds for free we thought that would be enough. We did contemplate coming back the next day, but the tickets were all sold out.

The rooms will have a look of them as if they came straight from Europe’s grand houses and castles; well they did. Hearst had dealers finding him furniture and decorations from Europe and then shipping it over for his Castle. He would buy whole rooms from estates in Europe and then reassemble them for rooms in the Castle.

Walking the grounds is enjoyable enough if you don’t pay for a tour of the inside. The Neptune pool is stunning, especially with the view of the surrounding landscape.

As beautiful and interesting as the Castle and its grounds are, I think the jewel in the box is the inside pool. It’s tucked away, but worth the visit.

Hearst Castle is one of those gems that is located away from all the other tourist places travelers typically visit, but it’s worth the detour. If you are traveling from San Francisco, there are lots to see. Big Sir is along the drive so this trip will not disappoint.

We spent the last night walking on the beach and had dinner later on.