A near-ghost town on the dried, salty shore of the Salton Sea that artists have turned into an open-air gallery of installations — post-apocalyptic and oddly beautiful in the Colorado Desert.
Road trips · California
California road trips & hidden gems.
The stops worth changing a travel day for in California — crowd-voted gems, events worth traveling for, and the public golf you can actually book. Curated by Roamward, the scenic road-trip planner.
Happening in California
World Cup 2026
Barely two dozen marquee events hit the whole country in a year — and California has one this June. Roamward builds the trip around it: the scenic route in, the detours worth a slack day, and when rooms sell out.
Hidden gems
What locals say you shouldn’t miss.
Crowd-nominated in the Gem Hunt. Add yours and vote the finalists into the app.
A genuine gold-rush ghost town east of the Sierra near Bridgeport, preserved in "arrested decay" — hundreds of weathered buildings left just as residents abandoned them.
A Fort Bragg shoreline on the Mendocino coast where decades of old dumped glass have tumbled into smooth, colorful pebbles among the tide pools.
California's least-crowded national park, east of Soledad, with talus caves you can scramble through and towering volcanic spires where endangered condors soar.
A hand-built hill of adobe and paint near Niland on the edge of Slab City, covered in folk-art scripture and flowers by the late Leonard Knight — wonderfully strange in the desert.
A glittering forest of metal trees hung with thousands of colored glass bottles along old Route 66 in Oro Grande — pull over in the high desert and wander one of the route's most photogenic folk-art stops.
Worth traveling for
Events that put California on the calendar.
2026World CupJune 11 - July 19, 2026 · North AmericaGuide →2027CFP Title GameJanuary 25, 2027 · Las Vegas, NevadaGuide →2027Super Bowl LXIFebruary 14, 2027 · Los Angeles, CaliforniaGuide →2027CoachellaApril 9 - 11 & 16 - 18, 2027 · Coachella Valley, CaliforniaGuide →2027U.S. Open GolfJune 17 - 20, 2027 · Monterey Peninsula, CaliforniaGuide →
Tee it up
Public golf you can book in California.
Pebble Beach · $$$$$ — Cliffside public crown jewel
Pebble Beach · $$$$$ — Brutal beauty in the dunes
Pebble Beach · $$$$$ — Bagpipes at sunset
Rancho Palos Verdes · $$$$$ — Clifftop Pacific golf south of L.A.
Half Moon Bay · $$$$ — Ocean views from every hole
Half Moon Bay · $$$$ — Clifftop closing hole
Plan the California trip
Get the scenic route, the stops, and the timing.
Roamward turns these into a real road trip — the drive, the detours, and the stays. Join early access for the iOS beta.