A bottle of local wine, California fruits and vegetables is also a great gift option.

On the territory of the state there are numerous jewelry workshops and shops where you can buy original items made of gold, silver, precious stones. In souvenir shops you can buy interesting memorable crafts made of sea shells.

In Disneyland you can buy collectible toys depicting the most popular characters of Disney cartoons. There is also a boutique with clothes and accessories for girls of preschool and primary school age, where you can buy a child a full-fledged costume of a Disney princess: Cinderella. The Little Mermaid or Snow White.

In Hollywood, tourists usually buy posters, bags, clothes, key chains, postcards with the image of their favorite movie stars. You can buy a frame with palm prints of your favorite actor. miniature model of the golden statuette “Oscar”. These mockups can be of different sizes, from the smallest to the largest. Passionate movie lovers will certainly be pleased with this gift.

A large souvenir store is located on the territory of the San Diego Zoo. There you can buy amazingly realistic toys depicting rare birds, animals and reptiles. Also there are sold skillfully made stuffed animals of rare representatives of local fauna. Such souvenirs are sure to delight those who love wild animals. All toys are made of non-toxic materials that do not cause allergies.

Vacation in the state of California – a great way to combine the pleasant with the useful: relax and get acquainted with interesting sights. In order to make the trip a success and long remembered. It is desirable to think out your route in advance and, if possible, use the services of local guides and tour guides. Organized excursions will help to know and love better the magnificent nature of the state and will allow to understand more deeply the peculiarities of the American mentality. It is desirable to order excursions in advance, the cost of such services should be clarified with the tour operator.

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• Sequoia Park, home to relict trees;
• At least one to two of the eight national parks and preserves located in the state;
• Balboa Park in San Diego, home to rare plant species;
• Beaches and ski resorts.

For those who want to go scuba diving or skiing, it’s best to bring your usual gear. Of course, all necessary accessories for sports can be rented locally. But, firstly, renting sports equipment costs money. Secondly, the local equipment may seem a bit unfamiliar and there may be confusion with the sizes.

Yosemite National Park

Those who are partial to antiquities are recommended to visit Yosemite National Park. Here you can see nature as it was many thousands of years ago. On the territory of the park there are rushing waterfalls, crystal clear lakes, sheer cliffs and cliffs of bizarre shapes. The park is also home to the rarest trees – sequoia dendrons.

The park is surrounded on all sides by mountains, on the tops of which you can see snow all year round. Here you can also find samples of the most ancient rocks. The local flora is very diverse: there are more than one hundred and sixty species of rare wild herbs and flowers, many of which have medicinal properties.

Yosemite Park is officially a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

You can visit the park on your own, but it is better to book a tour. A competent English-speaking guide can give a general overview of the park, or organize a hike into the mountains. Before agreeing to the second option, you should soberly assess your physical capabilities, as traveling on steep mountain paths – it is not a fun walk. You should definitely take everything you need on a mountain hike.

On the territory of the park there are numerous catering facilities for every taste and purse, so no tourist will not go hungry. As a rule, after a walk along the mountains and waterfalls, the appetite becomes simply wolfish. It is best to choose cafes and bistros with national dishes.

Features of national cuisine

Having visited California, you should definitely try national dishes. On the territory of the state, in large metropolitan areas and in small settlements, work:

Elite restaurants that serve both local food and European, oriental dishes;
More democratic cafes, where you can have a hearty lunch and something to drink both indoors and outdoors;
Tents with street food. This can be both the famous hamburgers, and dishes of oriental or Mexican cuisine. However, you should not experiment with eating on the street, because such food can be very spicy;
McDonald’s fast food restaurants.

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An unusual man-made structure, but of a different kind, is the Monticello Dam. In the 50s of the XX century, there was a city in its place – it was called the same, but during the construction of the dam it was flooded – now it is located at the bottom of the artificial Lake Berryessa, the second largest in California – this lake is of great economic importance for the entire state. The dam is unusual because of the design of its spillway, which is a huge funnel – about 4300 cubic meters of water can flow through it in one second. It seems that huge masses of water are being “drawn” into the depths: some people are attracted to this spectacle, while others are almost mystified by it – in general, it is worth a look.

California is a tourist’s dream

The nature of California is beautiful and picturesque: lovers of outdoor activities and hiking can be happy here, but for those who want to relax in a “modern way”, this state has everything you need. Nightclubs, shopping centers, amusement parks, and sports and entertainment complexes are available in every city – you can find them without difficulty.

San Diego is worth mentioning: there are so many opportunities for recreation that tens of millions of tourists come there every year and leave several billion dollars in the city’s treasury. San Diego is called the city of parks – there are about 200 parks with different themes, and dozens of beautiful beaches along the coast – you can relax on them almost all year round. It is said that the weather in this city is the best in the United States, and this is not far from the truth: there is no extreme heat here – only a few days a year the temperature rises above 30°C, but for more than six months it does not fall below 22°C, and it rains from November to April.

In general, California has everything for beach lovers: in the warm season, they are attracted not only by beaches, but also by restaurants on the shore – very beautiful and varied, and the opportunity to practice any water sports. In winter, rest is no less interesting – surprisingly, there are also many modern ski resorts in this warm state – about 30, and you can ski there with any level of training.

California is called the “state of wonders” and it deserves this name: even if you consider that California is the largest Pacific state, its diversity is still impressive and fascinating. A trip there is cheaper than, for example, to New Zealand, but it is still better to choose a group tour: New Year’s Eve at a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains can be the most wonderful and unforgettable.

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The valley has the status of a widely recognized national park, standing on the common land of Nevada and California, two large states. It is very hot there, accordingly, any living creature, whether plant or animal, without the ability to get away from there or get water, is doomed to perish and slowly wither away. Hence life is practically non-existent there.

A brief historical note about Death Valley in California

In an earlier time, in the year 1850, settlers were constantly visiting Death Valley to search for gold, ore, and various metals. But after more than 130 years, in 1984, the valley was reclassified as a biosphere reserve. Well, and the national park, as it is now commonly called, it became in the mid-nineties, when the date of awarding this status coincided with the decision of the authorities to expand the entire territory.

Climate in Death Valley in California

As mentioned above, Death Valley has a hot climate. The July temperature, which is quite normal for it, reaches as high as 46 degrees, and only at night it drops a dozen degrees, stopping at 31 degrees. Death Valley can be cool, this happens in November and ends in February. It doesn’t get hotter than 20 degrees there at this time. As a rule, the cold period is always accompanied by heavy rains, which are not rare in the valley. Starting from April, the valley becomes a source, strange as it may seem, of all kinds of plants, which already in March begin to bloom.

Best time to visit Death Valley in California

As it turns out, not everyone ventures out of a cool, air-conditioned car into the hot desert sun during the summer months. That’s why the valley is empty in the summer. A large number of tourists are noticed in the cold period, for example, in December-January. At this time the valley can be admired as a source of vegetation. There are over a thousand plants.

When March ends, the period of booking hotels and inns begins, ending in April. In a radius of a hundred miles they can be almost all occupied, for every second visitor wants to admire the Castle of Scotti, which looks like the palace of a Spanish millionaire.

Interesting sights of Death Valley in California

Death Valley is one big attraction in itself. Its parched lands, cracked from a severe lack of fluids, doesn’t seem at all unrealistic, it’s real terrain. Looking at it brings to mind scenes from old movies where a traveler reaches his destination but is running low on water and moves his feet, licking his parched lips and wiping sweat from his face.

Geologically, Death Valley can be considered the end of the world, where there is no future. This is what attracts tourists to this place. They want to see it with their own eyes, to feel the atmosphere.

The entire territory of the national park is over five thousand miles, plus more northern valleys and mountains. Together with all this you get a very large space, a huge platform for anything. Here you can walk on sand dunes whose beautiful reliefs satisfy the aesthetic thirst. One immediately wonders how the sand could lie so gracefully and beautifully. One cannot ignore the canyons, created by nature out of marble, amazing blocks of stone lined up in a special order. Volcanoes whose last eruptions took place many years ago. A cluster of shaggy palm trees. And, of course, plants, unique in their kind, which grow nowhere else but in the Valley.

The valley runs north and south for a hundred and forty thousand miles. The fossils that can be found on your route through the national park are more than five hundred million years old. That means they were formed a long, long time ago. They are freely available, you can feel them with your hands, feel the texture. But in other parts of the planet, if there were such fossils, they are no longer there, the earth has gradually picked them up. Up to a certain point, the seabed was a mixture of limestone and sandstone. But then the plates moved, releasing them to the surface.

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