•• View the famous Hollywood sign in the hills above the city. Film crews can be found on location all over the region, though most of the filming happens behind the well-guarded gates of the various studios scattered across the city.

• Follow the ‘walk of fame' etched in the pavement along Hollywood Boulevard; hear a concert at the world-famous Hollywood Bowl (website: www.hollywoodbowl.com); or see how dreams are made at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum (website: www.hollywoodmuseum.com).

• Ride a cable car up and down the steep hills of San Francisco, overlooking the city's glistening bay and Golden Gate Bridge. View the actual cable-winding machinery at the San Francisco Cable Car Museum (website: www.cablecarmuseum.org).

• Visit the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, a frontier fortress full of mementoes from the Western stars' films and television shows. The Route 66 Museum (website: www.califrt66museum.org) displays a collection of artifacts and photographs related to the famous highway.

• Enjoy the San Diego Maritime Museum (website: www.sdmaritime.com) anchored along Harbour Drive, or take an excursion into Mission Bay on a yacht or excursion boat.

• View the famous 1920s sardine factory, Cannery Row (website: www.canneryrow.com) and Old Fisherman's Wharf (website: www.montereywharf.com) in historic Monterey. Sample the traditional clam chowder and sourdough bread.

• In Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (website: www.nps.gov/seki), famed for their forests of giant sequoia trees, see the 2,500-year-old General Sherman Tree Giant Forest, the largest tree in the world (by volume) with a circumference of 31m (103ft). Kings Canyon is the deepest canyon in the USA.

• Hike or camp in Yosemite National Park (website: www.yosemitepark.com), which contains the world's best-known glacier-carved valley, spectacular waterfalls, granite monoliths and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias (website: www.redwoodsinyosemite.com).

• Pan for gold at the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park (website: www.coloma.com) where California's 1848 gold rush began. Visit the museum and original and restored buildings at Sutter's Mill in Coloma.

• Try to escape from Alcatraz (website: www.alcatraz.us), once the site of the USA's toughest maximum security prison and now a national park.

• Follow the California Mission Trail from San Diego to San Francisco. Look for the famous migrating swallows of San Juan Capistrano (website: www.missionsjc.com) and enjoy the spectacular gardens of Santa Barbara.

• Hike or rock climb the eerily remote Joshua Tree National Park (website: www.joshua.tree.national-park.com). Cross the Mojave Desert to Death Valley (website: www.nps.gov/deva), the hottest and lowest place in the continental United States at 86m (282 ft) below sea level.

• Visit Hearst Castle (website: www.hearstcastle.org), built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst on an enchanted hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.