The Hearst Castle a perfect Mediterranean Villa in California

I never thought we would go back to the Hearst Castle. Especially since we had been there only seven years ago. I think I have gained some perspective over the last eight years of full-time RV travel. I didn’t like it in 2019, but now I love it.

While traveling, we have visited several palaces in Europe and some on the East Coast. My initial view was that Hearst Castle was a little disjointed and over-the-top, with decoration that pretended to be a California version of an Italian or Spanish manor house, but now my feelings have softened, and I really like the place. In my opinion, Hearst Castle is a real representation of a 16th-century villa in Italy or Spain.

Our first visit to the Hearst Castle was in 2018 during our trip southbound along the California coast in the fall. We visited while staying just outside Morro Bay on the San Luis Obispo side. This time, we are traveling northbound along the California coast in the spring. We are staying at the same place.

Slowing down on our travel routes

Instead of trying to see everything on every trip, our travel style has become more relaxed after 8 years of travel. In 2019, we visited 82 locations in 13 states, staying in most places for fewer than 5 nights. At least 2019 was a slower travel year and less hectic than in 2018. This year’s plans include 52 stops, with a stay of about 1 week at each place. In 2019, we visited 13 states; this year, we plan to stay in five states and two stops in Southern Canada. As a side note, prices have doubled over the last seven years.

This spring, we had a great time spending two weeks in Singapore and a month and a half on a cruise ship. Here is a link to our blog post about Singapore. Our crazy Singapore journey. After departing Singapore, instead of flying, we joined a world cruise for a leg from Singapore to Los Angeles. Here is a link to our story about the Queen Anne. Queen Anne, our luxury home at sea

I still haven’t included a story about where we went on the cruise ship. We started in Singapore, spent time in Asia, then Australia, stopping in Fiji on the way to Los Angeles. I have lots of great photos of faraway places, and I promise I will circle back to the cruise. For now, this is about traveling in our RV. In case you missed it, we prefer traveling in our RV over any other method.

The photos are a combination of our 2019 and 2026 visits to the Hearst Castle.

The Hearst Castle

The Hearst Castle was built by William Randolph Hearst on land inherited from his father. His father, George Hearst, was a prospector who profited greatly during the “gold rush” by discovering a large silver deposit. George Hearst struck it rich, and with William as his only heir, William was set for life. George owned major parts of the Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota and some of the richest silver mines in Nevada City.

George used his mining wealth to purchase vast tracts of Spanish Land Grants along the California coast, south of Big Sur. His son, William Randolph, loved the cattle ranch, and the family would often camp on the hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean. As an adult, William Randolph spent much of his time on the East Coast and formed a vast newspaper empire as publisher of the New York Journal and several other newspapers.

You would think that anyone who created a large newspaper empire would be wise with money, but William Randolph was a spender, as anyone can see from these pictures. His father called him Wasteful Willy.

While still running the newspaper empire, William Randolf Hearst started building what he called the ranch house when he was 50 years old. It started modest enough, but grew and grew until it could only be described as a castle. Hearst Castle is perched high on a hill with a commanding view of the Pacific Ocean.

The grand room at the Hearst Castle is indeed grand. I call it the main parlor, or perhaps the reception room. The Hearst Castle is decorated with antiques, including paintings and tapestries, purchased in Europe. Many of them are copies, but most, especially in the parlor, are original and priceless. Some tapestries now in Europe are copies of those found at the Hearst Castle. The woodwork along the lower part of some of the rooms is an antique choir bench found in many churches across Europe. They looked like the opposite of comfortable. Perhaps that was the point.

The Hearst Castle was amazing in every way. A lot of people think that it is (was) way over the top, and I have seen smaller towns (last week). So I guess it was way over the top in terms of the construction effort and expense of one person.

The main dining room

After dinner

Upstairs in the Hearst Castle

Most visitors to the Hearst Castle only see a few of the rooms. In 2019, we paid extra to go to the unseen parts of the Castle and were amazed. What I would really like is a day-long tour, or perhaps to be trusted to explore on my own. If anything, the Hearst Castle has moved away from that kind of thing, preferring a much more structured visit.

I lucked into a good decision while at the Castle in 2019. We had completed our main tour (everyone must be on a supervised tour). Anyway, a rain shower was moving through, so we decided to add an extra tour to our day. I picked a somewhat obscure tour that was longer than the others. 

As anticipated by Hearst, the Hearst Castle has been turned into a major tourist attraction operated by the State of California. Over the last few years, its status has decreased somewhat, and you can tell from the tour that it has endured some budget cuts.

Hearst, while building the castle, overspent his available funds by a large amount. More than 168,000 acres of the ranch were sold during the depression to repay his debts. Now the Hearst Castle is owned and operated by the State of California, while the ranch, which is still huge, spanning the coastline, is still owned by the Hearst family. All that being said, I appreciate that we got to see it and marvel at the details incorporated. California has done a good thing by adopting it, maintaining it, and operating it as a tourist attraction.

Our Tour Guide at the Hearst Castle

Our first visit to the Hearst Castle was in 2019 on Black Friday. It just so happened that no one that day, other than us, had signed up for an additional tour of the Hearst Castle. So it was just the two of us, with the tour guide, and the tour guide was the “tour guide instructor”. Normally, she teaches the tour guides. Since we were in such a small party, we were treated like royalty and wandered through some of the most interesting portions of the main house (and additions), commenting on items that I haven’t seen since I was in Spain.

A five-mile private driveway

The parking area is along Highway 1 south of Big Sur. To get to the castle, you take a tour bus 5 miles across the ranch. Along the south side of the road, mixed in with cattle are some zebras that escaped from Hearst’s private zoo and now still live on the ranch. Most of the other animals were donated to zoos, such as the San Diego Zoo, during the Depression. Even though operating the Hearst Castle in California is expensive (and prices are as well), the paid employees are well compensated, but 90% of the staff are volunteers.

To give you an idea of the size and scale of the place, the first thing we saw once we got on the tour bus, for a ride up to the castle, was the house that was occupied by the head-chicken-wrangler. The chicken-keepers’ abode was five times larger than any house I have ever lived in. The head chicken-wrangler had his own staff that actually did the work.  

Hearst Castle, as it was a custom of the ultra-rich at the time, was a collector of European art. I am very thankful that this became a passion for these rich folk because now the art is available for us to appreciate. Otherwise, much of it would have been lost to history, gone forever.  

Elephant Seals

First, let me start with a story about the Elephant Seals. There is a reason that Sea World and perhaps every zoo (I don’t know the answer to this one) has taken a pass on Elephant Seals. They don’t do anything. I got a picture of one lifting its head, but that was it. One head-lift out of hundreds of Elephant Seals – motivated by indigestion is my guess. This was the only activity I saw — aside from breathing.  As I understand it, if you are there on the right day in late summer, sometimes males will fight. We saw none of that, or anything else, even remotely related to that.  I find rocks more interesting.

Morro Bay

Morrow Bay, sheltered by Morro Rock, is pretty and begs to be explored. There was just too much rain for the kayaks in November and way too much wind in April. The bay is too shallow for most boats, and cold most of the year, with the exception of mid-summer. The bay has more sea otters than any place I have seen. Most of the otters were acting like a raft for baby otters in November, which all seemed too big for a ride.  All the sea otters were a little too far off for a good picture.

In November 2019, we had lots of rain before our visit. We had a huge storm; it had been raining for twenty-four hours, sometimes light and sometimes, well, you get the picture. Which brings me to the subject of pictures; our stay here has been delightful. First, between the showers of the previous two days, we were able to see three incredible sights. Above all others, the Hearst Castle is the best. The other incredible sights were well south of the Hearst Castle.

Morro Rock was more interesting than the Elephant Seals. First, it strikes an interesting dominance across the bay and stands alone against the surf, which pounds against it dramatically. It used to be bigger, but much of it was used for a rock quarry to build a massive sea wall to protect Morro Bay. It is hard to tell that anything is missing; it is still huge. The rock had a shine from the recent rains and was pretty. 

Morro Rock is the remnant of a volcanic plug. The lava cooled in the volcano’s core eons ago – so long ago that the rest of the volcano is gone, eroded by rain, wind, and waves, leaving only the plug.

Again, our stay on the California central coast has been delightful.

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