Monterey Peninsula, California

The Monterey Peninsula wears its beauty like a dare. The fog rolls in off the Pacific, the cypresses twist against the sky, and somewhere along Highway 1 the cliffs drop away so suddenly that you forget what you were thinking about.

This is a coast that has always attracted dreamers. Steinbeck immortalised its sardine canneries in a novel that opens with a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Robinson Jeffers built a stone tower by the sea to write his poems. Clint Eastwood ran for mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea and won. The Peninsula has a way of pulling people in and not quite letting go.

But it's also easy to skim the surface – to photograph the Lone Cypress and move on, or to walk Cannery Row without hearing a word of what happened there. VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours slow you down in the best way. Drive the 17-Mile, stroll Carmel's fairy-tale cottages, follow the Big Sur coast south – and let the stories find you.

Plug in your earbuds. The fog will do the rest.