SLO Days, Fast Company

Photos by Samantha Drumm

To some, following the penance of the week by spending 36 of the 48 precious hours of weekend living in a Honda CRV may not sound ideal. But, for many of us, there comes a time in our college career when spending Saturdays drowning in Tito’s shots, making crappy choices at CalPhi and facing the betrayal of the Bronco’s Jagerbomb, only to spend Sunday suppressed under hangover clouds and academic-induced guilt doesn’t quite cut it either. 

While there are numerous options to escape the trials and tribulations of another weekend of boozing, car camping is a unique (and cheap) way to slum it outside of Santa Clara. 

San Luis Obispo’s very own TV Tower Road (yes, it is a road up to a TV tower) winds and wriggles through the mountains to dump drivers on a glorious sunset-facing view of the mountains against Morro Bay. 

This is a uniquely fabulous campsite because the sites are all free and require no booking. Though first come, first serve sites may seem like a point of competition, there are so many spots scattered through the mountains that there usually won’t be any trouble finding a foothold (though getting there earlier may aid your ability to get a good spot). 

Camping can mean cramming yourselves into one of Into the Wild’s rental tents supplemented by gently-used sleeping bags or cramming your twin-size mattress into the trunk of your car. I recommend the latter. 

Though our itinerary did include a 5 a.m. wakeup, I’m sure that this travel plan could be amended. The benefit to leaving early is less traffic and more potential for stops along the way. 

The drive to SLO, home to rival college Cal Poly, is roughly three and a half hours, though if you throw in a stop in Monterey on the way or Carmel-by-the-Sea on the way back, you sacrifice an extra hour of your day for the sake of breaking up your ride–but it’s worth it. 

Monterey’s Cannery Row is home to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, if you’re willing to spend some money. If you’re not, you can have a pleasant enough time milling around town and appreciating the remnants of old canning companies, most of which manifest in the rickety sky-bridges that stretch above the streets and peeling sardine signs. 

There is an endless stream of hokey gift shops selling near-identical items for window shopping and a tidal flow of tourists for people-watching. There isn’t anything you need to buy in Monterey (unless you want to stop by Fishermen’s Wharf to buy a watery bowl of clam chowder and see where they Filmed Big Little Lies), but Tidal Coffee is a good stop to buy your usual pretty-good-overpriced caffeine, with an expansive view of the big gray harbor. Seals pop in and out, tourists wax and wane, and though you may look haggard and out-of-place after waking up at 5 a.m., you will look even more so stumbling into Carmel after a night of camping. 

From here, SLO is a two-ish hour drive away. If you’re into it, there’s an REI along the route where you can purchase a Backpacker’s Pantry. For those unfamiliar with these strange and whimsical inventions, Backpacker’s Pantry sells freeze-dried food that you can put boiling water in to cook on the go. This is all well and good if the food tastes appetizing, which it surprisingly often does, though if you misstep in meal selection, you may end up dining on a pad thai that tastes like mushed-up grass clippings glazed with a special eau de dirt. 

But before the horrors of freeze-dried chicken pad thai, you must make the essential stop at Morro Bay. If you’re advanced enough to know how to surf, I’m told this is a pinnacle point for that sort of thing. If you’re landbound, this is a great place to toddle around collecting sand dollars. You will look like an idiot, but seriously, there are so many sand dollars that it's difficult to resist the impulse to take some home. 

From here, you can settle into your campsite. There is no Uber up to the top of TV Tower Road, so if you’re looking to spend a night out you will need a sober friend, and the capacity to tipsily set up a tent.

If you’re worried about a weekend away risking Santa Clara’s rep as the second-ranked Jesuit school in binge drinking nationally, take a deep breath and know that alcohol is still available for purchase in SLO, though for a weekend of slow living in the mountains, some may prefer to pack up their softcore Schedule I substances. 

Then, it’s dark before you know it, and if you’re lucky, you too will get to camp in such a torrential storm that rouses you from slumber and leaves you paralyzed with the fear of landslide and your little CRV tumbling down, down, down, splat. If you’re prone to worry, I recommend downloading a light-hearted movie to still your heart (I watched Marcel the Shell). 

If you’re feeling brave, and perhaps excited to face a Sunday morning sans hangover, you can wake to greet the sun, or you can take this as an ample opportunity to sleep in. If maybe you, like me, have been scarred by the hurt that freeze-dried food has wrought, you can stop in SLO for some breakfast. 

Kreuzberg California is a commendable quirky coffee spot for a killer breakfast sandwich. As you peer at the oil paintings adorning Kreuzberg’s regal worn wood walls, the bustling town of SLO waking up and coming outside, the line of slightly more attractive members of the student body waiting for their coffee, you will feel a rising regret at your decision to attend Santa Clara, where the most decent local coffee is Voyager. If you peer up at the mountains that hem SLO in and think of Morro Bay just 15 minutes away from the campus, you’ll start to feel queasy. 

To continue your avoidance of the reality that lies waiting at Santa Clara, you can take a trip to Pismo Beach for a day in the sun. Pismo boasts sand dunes, surf comps and wayward pirates perusing for photos. There is abundant colorful people-watching (especially the weather-worn pirate, who took a liking to my friend and informed her it’s take-a-pirate-home day), and food and beer sold on the pier. For some reason, there is also a goat riding a surfboard. 

If you’d like to sustain your vacation by lengthening your three-hour ride home, you can make a stop in Carmel-by-the-Sea and enjoy the exquisite Stepford downtown. Meander around the pseudo-historic streets and take the chance to eat some of the best overpriced food California has to offer (my favorite spot is Dametra Cafe, which is adorned in ethereal oil paintings on all surfaces available and actually has pretty decent pricing, phenomenal hummus and very liberally poured glasses of wine). Because Carmel is oh-so classy, you can finish off your meal with a cup of gelato from one of numerous spots, rather than some run-of-the-mill ice cream. 

From here you can make your way down to the beach, inarguably the best part of Carmel-by-the-Sea. At the bottom of the hill, the street spits you out at the beach, with beatific civilians and their designer dogs, panoramic views of the harbor and a free glimpse of 17-Mile-Drive (though if you haven’t been, you can splurge the $15 or so to drive the course of the scenic route on your way home and and gape at the natural wonders and gluttonously gorgeous million dollar homes alike). 

Returning to your college house, of which every surface is somehow sticky, though you’re sure you cleaned last week–or, even worse, your stale dorm bed–may actually feel like a step down from sleeping in a car or camping. I feel confident that Carmel is certainly a step up from CalPhi. 

San Luis Obispo, though, is the height of envy-driven enjoyment–a weekend away offers a great opportunity to kick back, relax and wrack your brain with horror that you didn’t attend school somewhere with as much to offer as SLO.