5 miles S of Monterey; 121 miles S of San Francisco; 33 miles N of Big Sur

Carmel began as a seaside artists' colony that attracted such luminaries as Robinson Jeffers, Sinclair Lewis, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ansel Adams. It was a peaceful and intellectually inspiring enclave where residents resisted assigned street numbers and lighting (they carried lanterns, which they considered more romantic). Although it's still intimate enough that there's no need for street numbers -- Carmel's inns, restaurants, boutiques, and art galleries all identify their locations only by cross streets -- the charmingly ragtag bohemian village of yesteryear is long gone. It's now a tourist hot spot where weekend traffic can be intolerable and the lodging rates grossly inflated. But, oddly enough, nobody ever seems to mind: The village's thousands of annual visitors are so enamored by the eclectic dwellings, pricey boutiques, quaint cafes, majestic cypress trees, and silky white beaches that they really don't mind a few inconveniences.