Point Reyes Self-Guided Driving Tour & Audio Guide

4.00

(16 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We’d barely left the Bear Valley Visitor Center when the air changed—salty, a little sweet, like grass after rain. My partner fiddled with the VoiceMap app while I tried not to get distracted by cows chewing along the fence line. The audio kicked in right as we passed a weathered barn: “That’s Bill Jensen,” it said, and suddenly we’re hearing about sheep wrangling and foot baths, which honestly, I never thought I’d care about. But there’s something about Bill’s voice—steady, local—that made me slow down just to listen.

Driving through Point Reyes Station, we rolled down the windows. You could smell coffee from somewhere (maybe that bakery everyone talks about?), and a couple of cyclists waved as they passed us. Our guide pointed out Bob Giacomini’s milking barn up ahead—high-tech but still somehow old-school—and I caught myself thinking how weird it is that all this farmland is so close to San Francisco. At Millerton Point, we pulled over for a minute; the light on Tomales Bay was silver and flat, gulls shouting overhead. It felt like time had paused.

By the time we reached Tomales, the sun was dipping low and everything looked gold. A woman at the general store nodded hello—“You folks doing the driving tour?” she asked—and laughed when we said yes, like she already knew our whole story. The tour ended there, but honestly? I kept thinking about those families who fought to keep this place wild and working. It’s not just a drive; it sticks with you.