Big Sur · Backpacking
ON A BUDGET
Ninety miles of coast with no transit worth the name, no hostel and superb cliff-edge camping.
Kirk Creek and Pfeiffer
Kirk Creek's Forest Service sites sit on an ocean bluff with a path to the beach; Pfeiffer Big Sur and Limekiln camp under redwoods. All take reservations months out.
What a day costs
About $60–110 a day: campsite $35–45, and food that must be bought in Monterey or Cambria — the two Big Sur shops charge what remoteness allows.
The car reality
A seasonal Monterey bus runs partway down the coast, mostly on summer weekends. Otherwise a car is unavoidable, and Highway 1 closes for landslides most winters.
Free by day
Garrapata State Park charges no entry and has both headland trails and a beach; the Bixby Creek Bridge pullouts and Sand Dollar Beach cost nothing.
Where travellers meet
The deck at the Big Sur River Inn, feet in the river, and the taphouse across the road — the closest thing to a village centre on the whole coast.