Sara Benson - Lonely Planet California, 5th Edition (Regional Travel Guide)

The moment you arrive in the Golden State, you may suspect youve been cast as the ingenue in a road-trip movie. Everything seems staged for a script riddled with exclamation points: no way are they going to surf those skyscraper-sized waves at Mavericks! That cant be the Terminator in the governors mansion in his second term! Brrrrrrrdont all those naked people ever get cold?!

The dialogue is all improvised, though youll note some recurring themes. Recently the hot topic has been same-sex marriage, and the proposed constitutional amendment to ban it and annul the marriages legally performed in California since June 2008. Medical marijuana is old news for Californians, who approved a state proposition allowing its use back in 1996 though the proliferation of marijuana clubs in urban areas and rumors of mafia intervention have raised even California eyebrows lately.

Even if youve seen it on TV, California still comes as a shock to the system. The Venice Beach skateboarders, San Francisco same-sex-wedding planners, Santa Cruz wild-mushroom hunters, Rodeo Drpillaging trophy wives and cheerful San Diego doomsday cult members arent on different channels. They live here.

To strike up conversation with a local, skip the weather and start in on the food. If you say, Nice weather weve been having, youll get a puzzled look: of course its nice, its California. But ask, So wheres a good place for a taco around here? and now youre talking. Mulling over menus means taking a stand on issues close to many California hearts: organics, veganism, grass-fed versus grain-fed, biodynamics, fair-trade coffee, and the importance of buying local food (the New Oxford American Dictionaryapproved term locavore, meaning people who eat food grown nearby, was invented here). Californians will listen with interest to your perspective, even if they do tend to proselytize about their own but once you try the food, youll understand the obsession.

Unless you want to stir up old NorCal/SoCal rivalries dating from the 19th century a diverting local pastime when played with good sports dont get Californians started about water. NorCal scolds SoCal for watering its lawns and filling its pools with water piped in from the Sierras, while SoCal points out that NorCal shouldnt talk with its mouth full of organic veggies grown in the Sierras-irrigated Central Valley.

You might not get a word in edgewise when it comes to technology or the environment but listen up, because those wild California ideas might become the next big thing. Californias technological innovations need no introduction: perhaps youve heard of PCs, iPods, Google and the internet?

European and Japanese visitors may find it a bit rich to hear Americans holding forth on global warming and the need for emissions reductions, since the US is a holdout on international conventions on these issues. To be fair, Californians helped start the conservation movement in the midst of the 19th-century industrial revolution, with environmental action groups, laws curbing industrial dumping, swaths of prime real estate set aside as urban green space, and pristine wilderness preserved as national and state parks. While Californias culture of conspicuous consumption ( la Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous) is exported via TV and movies, Californias environmentalists have diligently chipped away at the glossy varnish Stateside. Since the 1960s, Californians have trailblazed with sustainable foods and low-impact lifestyles, pushed for the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, preserved old-growth forests with tree-sitting activism, and established the US market for hybrid vehicles (no small thing here in the USAs quintessential car culture).

Once you get the hang of Californias improvised lifestyle, youll notice that plot devices arent necessary to get Californians to act out. On the contrary, movies cant begin to capture how Californians behave when there are no cameras on. The Sierra Nevada Gold Rush, San Franciscos Summer of Love, the LA punk scene, Silicon Valley high-tech booms: no screenwriter could make this stuff up, no matter how talented. Like any Hollywood blockbuster based on a great work of fiction, movies about California cant compare to the original. But dont just sit back and enjoy the show California is the place to take part and make a scene. Other places on the planet have their wow factor, but theres only one region that so consistently merits the delighted disbelief of a long, drawn-out Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!