In California you can lounge on a warm sandy beach, drive up a snow-covered mountain to ski, then descend into intense desert heat; and you can almost do it all in the same day!
And it’s all down to the state’s dramatically varied geography.

The temperature is pleasant the entire year in most coastal areas. Cool breezes from the Pacific Ocean keep the winters very mild and pleasantly warm in summer. LA is typically sunny but trademark ocean fogs can sometimes drift over San Francisco and other more northern coastal locations, keeping a summer’s day cooler than you might imagine in California.

Further south, the coast has more of a hot Mediterranean climate and is hotter still inland. The desert areas are intensely hot during the summer with temperatures sometimes climbing dangerously high in places like Death Valley. They become more bearable during the winter months though, when temperatures can plummet overnight. At the higher altitudes, especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it can become very cold in winter with extensive snowfalls, in fact snow is guaranteed for up to six months of the year in Lake Tahoe and Mammoth.

But for most of California for most of the year think dry and sunny and you probably won’t be too far wrong!