Redwood National Park has been high on my travel list for a while, but despite living in California for over half my life, I didn’t visit Redwood National Park until last year. We took a four-day weekend in early September to drive up from our home near San Francisco (about 7 hours each way), which meant we got two full days in the park, and it was a perfect amount of time! Although you could easily spend more time in Redwood if you wanted, we felt like we got to do everything we really wanted to do in two days, we didn’t feel rushed, and we had a great time. Here’s our itinerary for you to copy!
What to Know About Visiting Redwood National & State Parks
First, I say “Redwood National Park” in this post because it’s shorter and that’s what most people call this park. But really, it’s “Redwood National & State Parks” because it’s composed of Redwood National Park (a National Park Service site) and the California State Parks of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks. We focused most of our time in the Jedidiah Smith Redwoods and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks.
How much does it cost to visit Redwood National Park?
Most of the park is fee-free, but because it’s managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and California State Parks, you can use either your National Parks Pass or your California State Parks Pass at the paid areas, such as Fern Canyon and Gold Bluffs Beach. (Advance online reservations for these areas also required from May 15 – September 15; learn more here.)
Where should we stay when visiting Redwood National Park?
We camped inside the park at Flint Ridge Backcountry Camp. This campground is completely free – you just need a free permit! Spots are limited, so plan in advance, especially during the summer, though this park never gets as busy as some of the other California national park sites, like Yosemite or Joshua Tree. (That’s part of the reason we loved it so much!)
Flint Ridge is a great campground for both backpackers and car campers because the tent sites are only about a quarter mile from the parking lot, so it’s doable even if you have a heavy cooler or other equipment to carry in. You can explore other camping options at Redwood National Park on the NPS site, including developed campgrounds and backcountry options.
Another benefit of Flint Ridge is that it was located pretty centrally in Redwood National and State Parks; it’s less than an hour’s drive from the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center in the southern part of the park and less than an hour from Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park in the north. If you’re not a camper, there are also towns offering lodging around the park, but you’ll need to build in extra travel time to get to and from the actual park each day. Klamath, California, is probably the most centrally-located town for lodging options. (That being said, even if you stay in the park, you can drive an hour and still be in Redwood National Park, so plan for driving time no matter what!)
Where is Redwood National Park?
Redwood National Park is located in far northwestern California, only about 20 minutes from the Oregon border (at the northern edge of the park). You can stroll through redwood groves, dip your toes in the ocean and explore beautiful waterfalls all in one morning, which is exactly what we did on our first day in the park. Keep reading for our daily itinerary!
Our Two-Day Itinerary for Redwood National Park
In the itinerary below, you’ll notice that we focused on Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in the south on Day 1, and then we traveled north to Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park for Day 2. You can easily switch the two days! Keep in mind it can take an hour or more to travel between these two parks, depending on your specific destinations, so we recommend focusing on one park each day if you have a whole weekend.
Note: We did not explore Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, as much of it was closed during our visit in September 2023, and we wanted to focus more on the other two state parks.
Day 1: Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park & Redwood National Park
9 a.m. – Hike Fern Canyon: Plan to arrive at Fern Canyon by 9 a.m. or earlier, as this is one of the most popular hikes in Redwood National and State Parks. Fern Canyon requires a free reservation, and it is one of the few fee-required areas in the park. It costs $12 to park at the Fern Canyon Trailhead, or you can use your National Parks Pass or California State Parks Pass for free admission. Allow about 45 minutes for the hike, more if you want to take lots of photos. You might also get lucky and see some Roosevelt Elk on your early morning drive through the park! We saw quite a few.
Tip: Hike the trail counterclockwise to go through the canyon first, so you have less chance of encountering crowds in the canyon. That being said, we hiked Fern Canyon on a Friday morning in early September (so not quite high season, but definitely not off-season) and only saw a few other people!
10 a.m. – Dip your toes in the Pacific Ocean! From the Fern Canyon Trailhead parking lot, you can take a quick walk to the beach (located behind the trailhead bathrooms). This might also be a nice opportunity to have a post-hike snack or packed breakfast on the beach!
The drive to the next hike is about 25 minutes, so depending on how long you want to spend on the beach, adjust the rest of your day accordingly.
11 a.m. – Hike to Trillium Falls: Assuming you spent around 30 minutes at Gold Bluffs Beach, you will arrive at the Trillium Falls parking lot around 11 a.m. The full 2.6-mile loop can be completed in under an hour and a half, or you can hike in half a mile to the waterfall and come right back out if you’re short on time or energy.
12:30 p.m. – Lunch! There are not a ton of food options right near the park (and no restaurants inside the park), but there are lots of cool breweries and restaurants in nearby towns if you don’t mind driving a bit. (If you really want to maximize your time inside the park, I recommend packing food for all your meals!)
Personally, we drove out to Blue Lake, CA, to visit Mad River Brewing Company (almost an hour’s drive from Trillium Falls), and it was delicious (see photo above). We thought Mad River was extra cool because it’s woman-led and tribally owned (by the Yurok Tribe, the Indigenous people of the Klamath area including Redwood National Park). Another option is to drive south to the seaside town of Trinidad, which has multiple restaurants and is only about a 30-minute drive from Trillium Falls.
In this itinerary, we’re going to leave a long, leisurely three hours for lunch. This will help you make up time if your morning took longer than ours and will also give you plenty of time to drive outside the park for lunch. Enjoy your meal, and you’ll still have time for a few hikes in the afternoon. If you don’t need that long for lunch, feel free to jump into the afternoon itinerary early and/or add an additional activity!
3:30 p.m. – Explore Lady Bird Johnson Grove. This gentle 1.5-mile loop is great for hikers of varying abilities and ages (though unfortunately it’s not wheelchair accessible). This can be a very quick visit, or you can download a Lady Bird Johnson Grove tour from the free NPS digital app to learn more about the site. We downloaded the tour and were still done exploring Lady Bird Johnson Grove in under an hour. It’s also one of the few activities we did that was actually in Redwood National Park (as opposed to a state park within the joint venture). No RV or trailer parking available.
4:30 p.m. – Take Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway back to your campsite and/or dinner. If you’re headed north to your accommodations, this scenic byway is an easy alternative to Highway 101 and actually only adds a few minutes to your drive. (Although you might want to plan for more time to stop and take photos or visit points of interest along the way.) You could also drive this road in the morning to get to Fern Canyon if you have time to linger. Please drive carefully; many drivers on this road are enjoying the sights, and we saw elk on the road one morning!
Evening: Dinner and relax! We had dinner at our campsite after our first full day in the park. We typically go to bed early when camping, which also helps us get an early start the next morning!
Additional activity option: Hike to Tall Trees Grove. This is one of the most popular hikes in Redwood National Park (yes, this one is also part of the national park site and not a state park!), but because of its popularity it’s also limited to 50 parties per day, so it will likely offer a lot of solitude. (Which honestly, we had on all our hikes during the second weekend in September!) A free advance permit is required.
We chose to skip this because there were other hikes we wanted to do more, and the drive out to the trailhead can take an hour or more from the other parts of the park we were visiting. But if you have extra time on Day 1 (or want to skip one of our above activities), it could be a great add-on to your Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park adventures! Plan at least four hours to drive out to the trailhead, hike the 4.5-mile trail, and drive back.
Additional activity option: Scenic drive along Bald Hills Road. Again, if you have more time or just want to skip one of our recommendations above, Bald Hills Road is another scenic drive in the southern part of Redwood National and State Parks. If you visited Lady Bird Johnson Grove today, you actually drove on a few miles of this road already, but it continues on past Lady Bird and eventually takes you to Tall Trees Grove. Bald Hills Road is not recommended for RVs or vehicles pulling trailers.
Day 2: Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park
8 a.m. – Pick up coffee and breakfast in Crescent City. We left our campsite by 7 a.m. on our second morning so we could drive north to Crescent City to start our day. (Our campsite was about a 45-minute drive away.) We had a quick breakfast at Paragon Coffeehouse and ordered coffee to-go for our first hike of the day.
9 a.m. – Arrive at Howland Hill Road. The beginning of this scenic road (not recommended for trailers or RVs) starts less than 10 minutes away from downtown Crescent City. There are many trailheads along this road, and though they definitely fill up later in the mornings, we were able to find parking at every trail we wanted to do, even on a Saturday. And, all the trailheads we visited had bathrooms! We just loved this park.
9:30 a.m. – Hike to Fern Falls via the Boy Scout Tree Trail. The first hike we did in Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park was only about a 20-minute drive from Crescent City along Howland Hill Road. This 5.2-mile loop took us about three hours to complete at a leisurely pace, including time to sit at Fern Falls and enjoy the scenery and a snack.
12:30 p.m. – Head back to Crescent City for lunch. I mentioned earlier that this area of Northern California has a ton of cool breweries, and that includes SeaQuake Brewing in Crescent City (our lunch pictured above left). Another nearby option that looked good for lunch was Enoteca for drinks and fancy sandwiches. Alternatively, rather than driving back into downtown, you could continue driving down Howland Hill Road, cross the Smith River and grab a meal at the Hiouchi Cafe. After our lunch, we grabbed an ice cream treat from CC Diner (pictured above right).
3 p.m. – Hike to the Grove of Titans. After lunch in Crescent City, we were back on Howland Hill Road and parked at the Grove of Titans trailhead by 3 p.m. Although not a very challenging hike, this ended up being one of our favorite trails because it was so informative! Much of the trail is actually a boardwalk (but there are stairs, so it is not wheelchair-accessible), and there was tons of signage throughout. There was also a friendly docent at the grove itself who was happy to chat with us and answer our questions.
4:30 p.m. – Explore Stout Memorial Grove. Our last hike of the day was really just a short walk off Howland Hill Road to Stout Memorial Grove, “considered to be the heart of Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park” (according to park signage). You can also walk down to the Smith River from the trail. Fun fact: The Smith River is California’s only undammed river system. It’s a very popular spot for fishing!
5:30 p.m. – Explore the Simpson-Reed Trail. By now, you might have had enough of big trees, but if not, this is one last short walk (wheelchair accessible!) you can add to your itinerary before heading back into town for dinner and/or your accommodations. We actually did this one in the dark because we spent the late afternoon/early evening at the Smith River where Jonathan went fly fishing (pictured above) and Megan read her book, and it was pretty neat to walk Simpson-Reed in the quiet with ZERO other people! We did have to use our flashlights to read all the interpretative signage, as this trail was very educational.
Can I do Redwood National Park in one day?
Because of all the different offerings in the four parks (and the fact that it takes a while to get out here), we recommend at least two days if you can swing it. But, one day is definitely doable and better than not seeing the park at all, in my humble opinion! So if you’re stopping by Redwood National Park as part of a longer road trip or only have one day for some other reason, here’s how I would suggest you spend your time* (though of course you can mix and match from our recommended activities listed above):
Morning: Start bright and early to hike Fern Canyon (and hopefully see some elk along the way! Elk Meadow is right along the drive to Fern Canyon). Drive the Newton B. Drury Scenic Byway and stop at the Big Tree Wayside for a photo op. Continue driving up 101 to Crescent City, making sure to stop at an overlook (or two) in the Klamath area for views of the Pacific Ocean.
Afternoon: If you started your day around 8 a.m. and followed the morning itinerary above, you should be in Crescent City by noon. Pick up a quick lunch and head over to Howland Hill Road to explore the Grove of Titans and Stout Memorial Grove, neither of which take too long and offer a lot of great information about redwood trees. Check out Simpson-Reed Trail to end your day.
*This one-day itinerary is planned south to north. You can also flip it to drive north to south if you’re coming from Oregon!
Conclusion
And that’s your perfect weekend in Redwood National and State Parks! You definitely don’t have to do every single hike we mentioned above, but one of the things we loved about Redwood was that so many of these hikes were short and easily accessible from a road, so you can explore a lot of trails without feeling overwhelmed and still have plenty of time for meal breaks and driving around the scenic byways.
There are also longer hiking trails available if you’re up for a challenge or have more time. The NPS site has a great page that breaks down the hikes in Redwood National Park by length and region, to help you pick the best trails for you. For our ocean lovers, you might want to add some hikes along the Coastal Trail (which we did not do).
Questions?
I hope this guide helps you plan your next trip to Redwood National and State Parks in northern California! Any questions? Just ask!
Feature image: Jonathan hiking on the Fern Canyon Trail in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
