The hook
The windiest, foggiest point on the West Coast: 308 steps down to a lighthouse on the cliff, and in winter a beach heaving with elephant seals over the ridge.
01Why it's worth it
Point Reyes juts farther into the Pacific than anywhere else on the coast, which makes its tip the best whale-watching perch in the Bay Area and one of the most punishing places to stand on it. Forty-mile-an-hour wind is an ordinary day here. You walk out and drop 308 steps to a small 1870 lighthouse bolted to the rock. In winter and spring gray whales stream past on migration, and just over the ridge at Chimney Rock and Drakes Beach, elephant seals haul out by the hundreds to fight and breed. This is a raw, weather-beaten headland, not a gentle viewpoint, and that's exactly why it's worth the long drive out.
02How to experience it
Go for the season, not the scenery: gray whales roughly December through May, elephant seals December through March. Dress for real wind and fog even when it's warm inland, and know the stairs close when it's blowing too hard. On busy winter weekends a shuttle replaces private cars on the road out to the point.