California's Wildly Iconic Stretch Of Breathtaking Highway Is Finally Back Open After 3 Years

One of the most incredible stretches of California Highway 1 is through Big Sur. It's approximately 70 miles from Ragged Point, the southern gateway to Big Sur, up to Point Lobos, the crown jewel of the California state park system. This iconic span of highway that takes you along the Santa Lucia Mountains as they meet the ocean has been closed for through traffic since 2023, but as of January 14, 2026, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that it's back open. This is a couple of months ahead of schedule. It's been a long time coming, and it's good news for Big Sur residents, business owners, and travelers alike.

I was able to drive down into Big Sur on the day after it opened back up, and at stops along the way, like Nepenthe, a Big Sur cliffside restaurant with unmatched views, everyone seemed upbeat and excited that the road was back open. It's a big deal for the businesses in this remote area that rely on tourists, and the reopening has already had impacts on some places here. "We've seen our business levels already pick up quite significantly to really normal levels in the context to where we should expect to be with an open road," Nepenthe General Manager Kirk Gafill told KSBW.

The closure of Highway 1 through Big Sur didn't just make it so tourists couldn't easily travel the entire span of Highway 1; it also impacted residents who had to add hours of travel time to get in and around parts of Big Sur. It is something that people living here know that they may have to contend with since this section of the California coast is particularly prone to landslides, and the winter storms that come through can be pretty dramatic.

It was a number of different storms that kept Highway 1 closed for nearly three years. It started in January 2023 when a storm came through and caused Paul's Slide, which was near Lucia. It wasn't cleared until June 2024. And in February 2024, with another storm, the Regent's Slide and Dolan Slide shut down the highway about 6 miles north of Paul's Slide, and in March 2024, a section of the highway collapsed into the ocean near Rocky Creek Bridge (pictured above). Of all the road damage, it was Regent's Slide that was the last to get fixed at a cost of tens of millions.

As noted in the press release about the reopening, Newsom stated that the work there included "deploying remotely controlled heavy equipment, stabilizing slopes with thousands of steel reinforcements drilled up to 60 feet deep, and using cutting-edge monitoring systems to overcome extraordinary geological challenges while keeping workers safe."