.Big Sur is used to landslides, but having two back to back which closed the highway for there years was new to us. It was difficult for the businesses to stay afloat at first, but they managed. Residents had to adapt as well, but Big Syrians are adept at that. Now that the highway is open for the summer, they are well on the way to making up for the lost revenue and more, way more, if the figures from January through May are any indication. Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, San Luis Obispo County Chambers, Caltrans and Governor Newsome’s office hosted an “opening” celebration at Ragged Point yesterday, 5/15/26 for the iconic highway that opened in mid January. It was an excellent photo op and free publicity for the road that needs no publicity.
Visit California, the nonprofit organization tasked with promoting California tourism, stated that northbound traffic at Ragged Point is up more than 900% since the highway was reopened, showing a “pent-up demand for travel to this iconic coastal corridor,” according to state officials, like Newsom’s Senior Advisor Dee Dee Myers.
Local businesses in Big Sur are experiencing what businesses describe as an “on switch” effect. Year-to-date guest counts at restaurants and retail locations are up approximately 40%, with peak weekends nearly doubling 2025 levels. Lodging patronage further underscores this momentum, with February and March occupancy rates reaching 80% and 96%, respectively (up from 70% and 85% last year). Forward-looking indicators are equally robust, with hotel revenue pacing 108% ahead of last year over the next 12 months and 200% above 2025 levels for the critical travel season from March through August. (Per a PR issues by Caltrans
“The robust and sustained increase in visitation is allowing our business, employees, and larger community to recover rapidly from the three-year closure,” said Kirk Gafill, owner of Nepenthe restaurant in Big Sur. “We have experienced a 45 percent increase in guest volume following the reopening of Highway 1 in January.”
With Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the summer tourist season around the corner, and due to the craziness that has become Bixby Bridge, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors is taking up the issue of parking at this InstaGram online sensation and is considering a one year moratorium on parking on or near the bridge at the May 19th Board of Supervisors meeting.. Just driving over the bridge to get to town has become a nightmare due to double parking, people stopping in the middle of the road, getting out, locking their car and walking over to get what they think is ai mandatory souvenir — a photo of a man-made artifact of the 1930’s. (Note: this exact scenario happened to this blogger a few years back and others have written saying it happened to them.)
We were pushing back at the issues of the mess at Bixby Bridge at least as far back as Memorial Day 2019.if not before See: shttps://bigsurkate.blog/2019/05/28/tourist-tuesday-bixby-bridge-memorial-day-weekend/
Taken July 4th last year…while the road was still closed further south.
While we are glad to see our visitors returning and sharing the beauty of our coast, we simply ask of our visitors:
And above all harm no one and no thing. Make sure you leave this sacred place at beautiful and natural as you found it so that future generations and feel the magic, too.
Central Coast, Stand Up! 📣 Join us at a town hall to learn what proposed…
There are some really interesting charts provided for this. If you want to check it…
From Heather Cox Richardson today: “If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet…
I find the MoCo website a nightmare to navigate or I would post links to…
Notice of Meeting County of Monterey Big Sur Multi-Agency Advisory Council IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Big…
This website uses cookies.
View Comments
Thanks for covering this. I support the idea of a moratorium.
Maybe there can be a website where people can get their photo with the bridge made by AI, so, no need to inconveniently stop in their travels at all! But someone could do it...! When I last stopped to see my grandparents' place (now beneath the bridge) I felt like a voyeur with so many tourists there. Ha! of course, I had a secret laugh that they were photographing my mother's ashes!
I do hope they put the moratorium in place. We encountered folks sauntering across the road without even looking, lots of parking up Old Coast Road despite signs and bollards, as well as the clogs and double parking, pulling out without regard to traffic, an elderly couple trying to get down a steep berm which would have slid them right in front of my husband's truck pulling a small camper - no way to stop in time. And so on, of course.
Maura
Thank you for the information. As a Long Term Volunteer at Garrapata for the State Parks it’s good to have this information.
I like what you said at the end Kate:
“And above all harm no one and no thing. Make sure you leave this sacred place as beautiful and natural as you found it so that future generations can feel the magic, too.”
That is exactly why many residents are alarmed by what is now unfolding around Bixby Bridge.
The County report for the proposed parking moratorium does not just discuss a temporary emergency closure. It also references future access planning tied to the CCC letter and “long-term alternatives.” Those discussions now include concepts involving shuttle systems, formalized parking lots, widened shoulders, overlooks, circulation systems, crossings, Old Coast Road modifications, and Brazil Ranch access planning within the critical viewshed. Things that aren't natural or beautiful.
The public is only now discovering how far these discussions have already advanced through years of DSP, visitation management, and interagency planning conversations that much of the broader community was never meaningfully involved in.
At some point we have to ask whether Big Sur is being preserved as a natural landscape that everyone comes here for or gradually transformed into a managed tourism attraction system.
The Big Sur Coast Land Use Plan was created specifically to prevent this kind of incremental infrastructure creep in response to tourism pressure.
Busy here in Cambria, too. Long lines of cars on the weekend, streaming down from Big Sur. Pain in the butt to try to turn onto Hiway 1 from out current place, just off Moonstone Beach.
Merchants are happy. Pain in the butt just to drive down Moonstone, to walk back on the boardwalk. Which can be a zoo, too....
The conflict between visitation and commercial activity, with those (like me...) seeking quiet and scenic beauty, seems to be a loser for those wanting quiet and beauty. I can understand the businesses, and those they employ, wanting to benefit from what Big Sur offers, and it is a tremendous value. I so very much enjoyed my frequent motorcycle runs up the coast in the late 1970's, early 1980's, camping and learning about the area. I was last there in 2020, in February, so before the RV parade that I assume is common in warmer months. I have no solutions to offer. I do offer the example of Moab, Utah, where the "powers that be" sought tourism dollars as opposed to forestry and extractive industries, while often pillorying agriculture along the way. Well, look at Moab now, and ponder "is it better?" The waffle sole shod crowd(and I backpacked for some 40 years...) and the mountain bikers are not always better than the ranchers and foresters. Extractive industries have greater potential impact, but often not as severe or as lasting as you might expect. Think breccia pipe mining common to the southwest versus strip mining for coal elsewhere. My fervent hope for those that live in such beauty, and work in it, can find an accommodation. Big Sur is good for the soul, and the sole....
I’m a ten year visitor to Big Sur. In those years I’ve observed the change over time and it is a little sad. The peace that is Big Sur seems to be diminished as tourism ramps up. I’m not sure the area is meant to sustain this level of tourism.