Have These Five California Towns to Yourself

From the high Sierra to the high desert, from the baking inland valleys to the cool coastline of the Pacific Ocean, California offers a wealth of sights and activities you won't find on TV or in films.

If you have four wheels , you can find any of these places without too much trouble. Here are five California towns that offer up diverse pleasures, diversions and, sometimes, sheer oddities:

Nevada City

Rustic State Highway 49, named for the wealth-seeking prospectors of the 1849 California Gold Rush, offers a string of small towns, of which Nevada City may be the prettiest. A charming collection of wooden Victorian houses from the late 19th and early 20th century decorates Nevada City, along with church steeples, small heritage hotels from pioneer days and leafy trees that bring a splash of fall color reminiscent of the Eastern Seaboard. Route 49 winds through the Sierra foothills, providing ready access to the Gold Country.

Nevada City

Point Reyes Station

In this compact, welcoming Marin County town an hour's drive north of San Francisco on Highway 1, visitors get a glimpse of the historical Wild West: One wide, longish main street, a friendly but rough-around-the-edges saloon, a crusading local newspaper.

Most important to visitors, Point Reyes Station is the gateway to Point Reyes National Seashore, an unspoiled coastal retreat rich in photo-ready sand dunes, briny lagoons, lovely beaches -- check out the lonesome beauty of Limantour Beach -- wildflowers, sawgrass and sandpipers. The Station House Café, bang- on in the center of Point Reyes Station, is a reliably good place for lunch and a drink.

El Centro

El Centro? Yep. Some Californians would question the inclusion of this not-very-pretty and decidedly not-trendy place on a visitors' short-list, but it's a good place from which to explore the deserts of far-Southern California.

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