Carmel, California City Guide

For over 20 years, Pamela Lanier's Carmel, California Travel Guide has been your connection to Carmel's tourism community with invaluable details on local attractions, restaurants, shopping, museums, history, outdoor recreation and more.

A Town with A Mission

Originally inhabited by the Ohlone Indians, Carmel was founded by attorney James Devendorf in the late 1800s and after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 became a mecca for famous artists and writers like Ansel Adams, Upton Sinclair and Jack London. One of the main Carmel attractions is the San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Caremelo Mission – known as simply the Carmel Mission – built in 1771 by Spanish missionaries and became the headquarters for the 21 missions built in Alta California. Considered one of the most beautiful of the Spanish colonial missions, its bell tower was featured in the climatic scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

The other impressive mission in Carmel is to preserve the simplicity and tradition of the town. Spearheaded by Mayor Eastwood, Carmel residents are determined to resist the invasion of big businesses and maintain the quaint and charming small-town atmosphere.
The Carmel Heritage Society offers walking tours through the village on the first Saturday of every month that highlight the historic legacy of the community with stories of its ancestors and places like the First Murphy House, built in 1902 by Michael Murphy one of Carmel’s first and most influential architects
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