The 14 Best Things to Do in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Carmel, California

As part of our week-long San Francisco Christmas getaway, we decided to take a couple days to drive up there from Orange County and stop to visit a few places on our bucket list.

I had read an article that ranked Carmel-By-The-Sea as the #3 Christmas town in the US, so we just had to stop there.

The Carmel Valley portion of the drive had lots of hills, tight turns, and narrow roads, but no one else was really out there.

Eventually we came across a small village with some wine tasting rooms, restaurants, and small resorts.

For example, some do an extra pour of another wine that’s not on the tasting menu, usually a more exclusive wine, like a reserve wine.

Others do buy one get one tastings, discounts on bottles, and really anything else you can think of.

There are too many to do in 1 day, so we just started with the first one we came across and hopped around to the next closest tasting rooms throughout the day.

We made it to a total of 3 tasting rooms, which is usually our max for one day anywhere we go wine tasting.

One thing we love to do at wine tastings is find our favorite wine and take home a bottle for later.

Every once in awhile we come across a winery where none of the wines particularly impressed us enough to take any home. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).