look at us Our mountains have more snow, our hills are greener, our waterfalls are wetter, our rivers are richer, and our flowers are blooming bolder than in years past.

In this moment when the drought pauses, pandemic restrictions are lifted, and spring awakens, California needs to be scrutinized from head to toe. I’m sure you have a lot to worry about, but in my 40 years of traveling the state, I’ve never seen anything like this.

That’s why I’m here with this year’s 101 best California experiences to give you a guide to what’s great and what’s different across the state as summer approaches.

For example, downtown San Diego has a swanky waterfront music venue (No. 85). Cheech Marin made Riverside (No. 16) an important destination for Chicano art. And if you can pull off a spring road trip between the increasingly bustling downtown Paso Robles (No. 23) and Cumbria’s cool Moonstone Beach (No. 63), the jaw-dropping hills of Highway 46 (No. 40). ). might fall.

Pop-up selfie spots, Hollywood Walk of Fame, and theme parks aren’t included in this alphabetical list (although there are plenty of fresh Disneyland tips here). Instead, these are all places that speak loudly and deeply to me about what California is, has been, and will be. These are also the places I felt I wanted to know more about. It is also a place that I would like to visit again at another time to hear a little more inside story and enjoy a long conversation with the people involved. The large list is in alphabetical order, but you can see that I specified the top 10 of his 101. I couldn’t resist this.

Many are luxurious. Some seem surprisingly obvious, but they have secrets you never suspected. Who knew California’s largest sequoia (#30) was named after Karl He Marx by a doomed group of communist lumberjacks. Or maybe Cary Grant donated one of the most popular Diego Rivera paintings to the Norton Simon Museum (#70)? Or is the Hollywood sign him a year younger than the Hollywood Bowl (41st)?

Of course, some of our history is painful, but whether it’s the Manzanar Barracks (57) or under the Coronado Bridge (17), Sonoma’s Missionary Cemetery (No. 91) .

You might notice inflation going on here as well. Fares for the Integratron Sound Bus near Joshua Tree (No. 48) have increased. So are the prices at my favorite drive-thru tree (#15) and dozens of other locations. Still, if they’re here, I think it’s worth it. And we tried to add budget options wherever possible. Several destinations, including Big Sur’s Nepente (67th) and Yosemite Valley (101st), are subject to detours during the spring and summer due to landslides and flooding.

Here is this vast, strange, flawed, spectacular, volatile, seismically unsound real estate that we call California. Like shiny pebbles slowly turning to sand at Fort Bragg’s Glass Beach (No. 32), this state is nearly infinite and eternally changing for us to explore.

Use our checklist to tick what you’ve done so far and let us know what you did lost treasure. I will continue to follow your suggestions over the next few months.

Let’s go.