Remote Surveillance Trailer in Carmel, CA

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Ever wish you could text the most stylish people in the world for their lists of things to do in the places they know best? Here are insider travel tips for those who would never be caught dead in a tourist trap. Bon voyage!

Justin Cogley, the Michelin star-decorated executive chef of beloved Carmel-by-the-Sea restaurant Aubergine; Alissa Carnazzo, the stationery designer behind Alissa Bell Press and co-owner of Stationæry; and Susan Galvin, founder and owner of Foxy Couture, a designer resale boutique in the town’s shopping district.

“In one word: layers,” says Galvin, who explains that temperatures often swing from brisk in the morning to quite warm later in the day. Moreover, as Carnazzo points out, fog might hit at any time—even in the summer. Being prepared; it sets you apart from the tourists. “I keep what I jokingly call my ‘Carmel lady coat’ on hand at all times,” she says.

Cogley also notes that Carmel by the Sea is an outdoorsy destination best enjoyed on foot, so comfortable shoes are essential. He suggests hiking boots specifically for exploring the area’s myriad craggy trails.

Fun fact: For over a century, it’s technically been illegal to wear heels in Carmel-by-the-Sea (you can easily obtain a “permit” for them at City Hall, though). And while this law has not been enforced in decades, both Carnazzo and Galvin stand firm on the fact that stilettos and pumps are totally impractical for the town’s oft-uneven terrain. “Our cobblestone sidewalks and cottage pathways were not built with heels in mind,” says Carnazzo. “I recently rolled an ankle in my cute new Rachel Comey clogs—so even I need to be reminded!”

Also, despite Carmel-by-the-Sea’s many beaches, Cogley says you don’t necessarily need a bathing suit on hand to enjoy them. “The average ocean temperature is between 50 and 59 degrees, so most people wear wetsuits,” he explains. However, double check if your hotel or rental has a pool—you’ll definitely want swimwear for that.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a quaint and tranquil beach town, says Cogley, and not the kind of place with wild parties. “Loud music or drone use on the beach isn’t appreciated,” he says. “We are protective of the natural environment, so take trash with you, clean up after your dog, and stay off fragile dunes.”

That said, the locals have a reputation for being quite friendly and welcoming, so you can expect to strike up conversations with more than a few strangers. “People here will stop to talk; they’ll recommend a beach, insist you try a pastry, tell you about the latest gossip, or ask how long you’re staying,” says Carnazzo. “The town runs on relationships.”

Most residents, she continues, are also extraordinarily passionate about their canine companions. “Dogs are everywhere and welcomed most places,” she says. “I always joke that the order of importance in Carmel is: trees, dogs, and then people.”

“Villa Mara is where you stay when you’re visiting without kids,” says Carnazzo. She calls out the luxury property for its secluded Carmel Point location 20 minutes outside the town center, plus the airy and inviting aesthetic. Galvin agrees, and describes the spot as romantic.

If, however, you prefer a larger, more centrally located spot, Carnazzo notes you can’t go wrong with La Playa. “It’s close to town with stunning gardens, beautiful ocean views, and Bud’s bar upstairs—which has become a true local living room,” she says. In a similar vein, Cogley suggests both the five-star L’Auberge Carmel, a premium boutique hotel just steps away from Carmel Beach, and The Carmel Beach Hotel, which is also close to the water, but has a more casual and homey feel.

And if you’re seeking a small bed & breakfast? “Vagabond’s House Inn feels like staying at a friend’s Carmel cottage,” says Carnazzo. “It’s perfectly located, clean with modern updates, and charming in a way that feels right for this town.”

Stationæry, the restaurant Carnazzo runs with her husband Anthony, is loved by locals for its stellar breakfast options. “I’m biased, but breakfast is our love language,” she says, shouting out the potato pancake—the ingredients of which change each season—as a favorite menu item. “We intend for daytime dining to feel just as special as an evening meal out.”

Galvin is also a fan of the hot spot, and says it’s the best place to buy coffee in town. But she adds Mad Dogs and Englishmen is a close second choice for her caffeine fix. Located within a specialty bike shop, it has a relaxed vibe and offers fantastic people watching.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is something of a food town, so your quandary will be less about finding a good place to eat than choosing between many excellent options. For lunch, Galvin suggests European-style bistro La Bicyclette for wood-fired pizza, or the more laid-back Carmel Belle for soups, salads, and sandwiches. If you have time and the weather is nice, follow Carnazzo’s advice: “Grab some cheese from The Cheese Shop [in the shopping plaza in town] and have it on the beach with a bottle of wine.”

Come dinnertime, Cogley’s locally sourced Michelin star tasting menu at Aubergine is sure to impress. Since each meal is a multicourse experience drawn out over a few hours, save it for one special evening during your stay. As for the other nights? Carnazzo says that Akaoni boasts “the best sushi in town,” and that Casanova exudes “quintessential Carmel romance,” making it an ideal date-night spot.

If you can make the drive, Carnazzo enthusiastically suggests forging the 45-minute commute to Solstice at The Village in Big Sur. “Chef Tim and his team cook over open flame, the space is beautifully designed, and every detail gives your eye something to marvel at,” she says. “It feels like a memory the moment you sit down. Order the Koda Farms heirloom rice and egg dish!”

According to Cogley, the cozy bar at L’Auberge Carmel is one of the “best-kept secrets” in town. He also loves grabbing a drink at Chez Noir, which is also a go-to for both Carnazzo (she usually orders a sour) and Galvin. “Get a coveted seat outside on the patio for cocktails and small plates,” Galvin adds. For a more casual bar scene, Carnazzo loves Bud’s at La Playa. “Come in whatever you wore all day or dress up if you feel like it—both [ways fit the venue,]” she says. “It’s also where all the cool moms summit midweek.”

Carmel-by-the-Sea also happens to be rife with niche wine shops selling bottles produced via California grapes. Galvin says her top picks are Dawn’s Dream Winery and Caraccioli Cellars, and that Nielson Bros Market has a nice selection of different labels overall with a knowledgeable staff.

Label lovers will delight in Galvin’s pre-owned designer luxury boutique, Foxy Couture, which carries secondhand treasures from Dior, Chanel, and Celine. “We curate thoughtfully and offer a personal shopping experience,” she says, noting that there’s also an incredible men’s vintage shop—for both clothing and records—down the street called Wally’s. A few of her other favorite fashion haunts: Augustina’s (high-end womenswear), Visvim (craft-focused Japanese menswear), and Carmel Surf Shop (California-casual staples).

If you’re seeking homewares, Carnazzo recommends Lucy Michel Pottery. “She’s new-ish to town via L.A., and wildly talented, and funny,” she says. “Her ceramics make the loveliest souvenirs.”

There are also plenty of unique gifts at House of Cardoon, which carries everything from objects d’art to quirky fashion accessories. Another truly unique keepsake can be found at Pat Areias, who makes custom leather belts and jewelry. “You can pick out a sterling silver buckle and belt from a true local legend,” she says.

All our insiders agree: Carmel-by-the-Sea is best enjoyed on foot, wherever you choose to do it. For Carnazzo, that often means meandering through neighborhoods of storybook homes, all of which are bestowed with cute names, like “Hobbit House” and “The Sandbox,” instead of house numbers (mail is delivered to designated P.O. boxes in town). “I love walking or jogging the streets, picking out my favorite homes, taking note of design features, and dreaming about what I would pick if I had my choice,” she says.

If you’re looking for a proper hike, Cogley says Point Lobos has some stunning sights. “It is truly special and has a great hiking loop with unforgettable views,” he raves. It can, however, also get quite crowded—so if you’re looking for a more chill atmosphere, Carnazzo says you should pivot to Garrapata at the edge of Big Sur.

“My husband Anthony regularly hikes this [area] to watch the sunrise,” she says. She also stands by the coastline at Ribera Beach as another lovely spot for a stroll. “It’s a beautiful, flat, family-friendly trail with views that feel cinematic in any season.”

Carmel-by-the-Sea has fairly temperate weather year-round, so the best time to visit is totally up to personal preference. For Cogley, it’s January due to “less people, great breezes, nice waves, and the best sunsets of the year.” Carnazzo, however, prefers October—that is when both fog and crowds are at a minimum. “Spring is a close second,” she admits. “It’s when everything blooms and the town feels freshly washed.”

Galvin, on the other hand, notes that August is when the town comes alive for Monterey Car Week—and it marks the beginning of the area’s best forecasts, which tend to last through late November. So there’s no wrong time to plan your trip, although you might consider that coastal fog is thickest in late spring.

The beauty of this place lies in its creative spirit and small-town ethos. “The entire Monterey Peninsula down to Big Sur is stunning, but Carmel-by-the-Sea has an extra layer of magic,” says Galvin. “The unspoiled, white-sand beaches; tide pools; hidden passageways; whimsical cottages; incredible restaurants; art galleries; and luxury boutiques all create a coastal village unlike anywhere else.”

Cardazzo echoes this sentiment by underscoring the slower pace of life in the region. “You can walk everywhere, and strangers talk to you on sidewalks—everything here moves at half speed, in the best way,” she says. The town’s absence of big box stores, plus the proximity to stunning ocean views are key elements of its charm. “It’s a place you come to remember that doing less can feel really good.”

Along Carmel-by-the-Sea’s main commercial corridor of Ocean Avenue, passersby can see Swiss Alpine chalets and storybook English cottages with such whimsical monikers as “Merry Oaks,” “Bluebird Cottage” and “Oceans End.”

But with no actual addresses to plug into map apps, the roughly 3,200 residents of this scenic beach community 120 miles south of San Francisco have had to rely on often-confusing descriptors. City Council Member Jeff Baron, for example, sends guests exhaustive directions to his home that end with the following detail: “We’re the 13th house on the right.”

That’s beginning to change. For the first time in its 110-year history, Carmel is poised to assign numbers this spring to every one of its businesses, government buildings and homes. This represents a seismic shift for a tony Monterey Peninsula enclave long known for its nonconformity. When the council voted unanimously this past October to shed one of Carmel’s signature distinctions and start adopting addresses, it quashed a debate that had divided locals for decades.

“Finally,” longtime resident Karen Ferlito said, “we have some peace.”

Address advocates saw it as an important safety issue for an aging population — more than half of the town’s residents are older than 65 — that could be at risk of not receiving emergency services in a timely manner. Meanwhile, critics worried that putting numbers on houses would tip a historic haven of painters, poets and writers toward becoming Anywhere, USA.

For Baron, adopting addresses is the realization of a longtime goal: ushering Carmel into an Amazon age increasingly reliant on package deliveries. Back in summer 2021, with remote work and online shopping on the rise during the pandemic, he had urged his fellow City Council members to reconsider the address issue. With Carmel now expected to have street numbers as soon as May, Baron can only hope this is the start of something bigger.

“The unwillingness of communities to change results in communities being destroyed,” he told the Chronicle this week. “Right now, our community is being destroyed because we’re unwilling to adapt. This was one battle, but there are others that need to be dealt with.”

Perhaps the most important is the matter of second homes. According to Realtor.com, about 75% of Carmel’s houses are used as vacation properties. An influx of uber-wealthy homebuyers, many of whom only live there for a month or two a year, has spiked the town’s median home price north of $4 million — all while sapping its quirky spirit and tight-knit feel.

Baron, who has been on the council since 2018, wants to see the community market itself more to full-time residents. “If we stay on our current trajectory,” he said, “Carmel risks becoming a community of houses rather than a community of people.”

In the more immediate term, Baron and many other pro-address locals intend to bask in a hard-won victory. Few California cities are more averse to change than Carmel, where residents still have no parking meters, no streetlamps, no fast-food restaurants, no sidewalks in residential areas, no traffic lights and no mailboxes. An old law even remains on the books — albeit unenforced — requiring a permit for heels taller than 2 inches.

For a long time, the absence of street addresses wasn’t just one of Carmel’s many eccentricities — it was an essential part of its collective identity. Experts believe it’s America’s only incorporated city without house numbers.

Ferlito, one of Carmel’s most outspoken advocates for street addresses during her stint on the City Council from 2020 to 2024, said residents have argued over adding house numbers since at least 1925. By the time California proposed legislation requiring all municipalities to assign street addresses to properties in 1953, the community was so incensed that it threatened to secede from the state.

Those residents, some of whom were among the first group of artists to flock there from the Bay Area after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, had come to cherish the identifying names they’d given their homes. But as anyone who lives there these days can attest, going address-less during a digital era can complicate otherwise-routine tasks.

Residents must often spend hours on the phone explaining to customer-service representatives that they do, in fact, have a real house. When Ferlito recently ordered an Apple Watch from Xfinity, FedEx needed three different attempts to finally deliver her parcel. And, even then, she only got it after sifting through packs of returned mail at the local post office.

Such annoyances seem trivial compared to what Susan Bjerre endured four years ago. With her husband housebound after a scary bout of pneumonia, she waited by the front door for 1½ days for special equipment that would allow him to maintain a healthy oxygen level.

“It took so long for the delivery guys to find our house that my husband’s oxygen readings were starting to dip down into the danger zone,” Bjerre said. “After that, I was like, ‘Never again. We need addresses — ASAP.’”

Her husband’s situation was just one of many close calls in recent years. Carmel’s median age of 69 is almost double that of the entire state, which can heighten stakes for emergency responders.

When someone in this leafy, 1-square-mile community calls for an ambulance or fire truck, dispatchers 27 miles northeast in Salinas must ask the caller for a description of their location before pulling out a city map. Official response times, which are typically around the industry standard of four minutes, don’t factor in those critical moments.

Baron and Ferlito relayed such information at City Council meetings for years, only for a vocal contingent with a stated mission of “saving Carmel’s charm” to prevent much progress on the address issue. The breakthrough came after a new mayor and two new council members were elected in November 2024.

For six months last spring and summer, Council Member Bob Delves convened once a week with four other committee-appointed residents. They discussed address-related data they’d collected from the U.S. Postal Service, utility companies, first responders and others.

In August, Delves finally released a report with the group’s findings. Among the bigger takeaways: Long-circulated rumors that the dawn of addresses would force the closure of Carmel’s beloved post office were untrue. Weeks later, when residents had a chance to respond at a pair of town hall meetings, almost all the people who spoke during the public-comment periods were in favor of adopting street numbers.

That included former address critics like Nancy Twomey, who’d once been so opposed to street numbers that she compiled and distributed a four-page guide on how easy it is to manage without home addresses. A member of Delves’ address committee, she apparently saw enough during the group’s fact-gathering process to switch her stance.

Shortly before the Carmel City Council voted Oct. 7 on whether to implement street numbers, Twomey offered an impassioned plea for addresses that could be distilled to one sentence: “We can’t keep closing ourselves off to the world and the internet.” Council members agreed. In delivering a 5-0 decision, the council had flipped Alissandra Dramov, who’d long been one of the community’s most ardent address naysayers.

Dramov didn’t respond to an interview request for this story.

“It’s interesting because I don’t think there was anything truly new or revelatory that came from the address group’s findings,” Baron said. “I guess just having it all presented in one clear, clean package like that went a long way with people.”

Since that monumental vote, Carmel has released a draft map with proposed addresses, solicited community feedback, and even held a couple of events to walk residents through what it all means. With the city now on pace to officially assign addresses to every property within the next four months, the few remaining anti-address holdouts must face reality.

For three years, Karyl Hall helped lead the Carmel Preservation Association, which fought addresses and almost any other community initiative that defied the status quo. Frustrated and disappointed by dwindling support from city officials, she and her co-chair, Neal Kruse, recently shuttered the organization.

In a five-page letter addressed to Mayor Dale Byrne and the rest of the council, Hall and Kruse explained their reasoning for moving on. Then, toward the bottom, they wrote: “We trust that leaders will rise to continue the fight — for charm, for integrity, for the spirit of Carmel.”

“This really is such a wonderful community,” Hall told the Chronicle. “With all the part-timers in town now, I just hope it can stay that way.”