The cut-off point for me is Pismo Beach, where the palm trees start to show up. Everything above that is Northern California, everything below is Southern California, and that, as they say, makes all the difference.

North or south, which is best? Certainly Californians have always argued about that. And for the traveler with just a couple of weeks to see it all, it's a hard choice. Will it be sandy beaches, guaranteed sunny weather and world-famous theme parks? Or, the wine country, cool, magnificent redwood forests and romantic fishermen's villages? And, how about the Sierras, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe and Palm Springs?

Overwhelming in its vastness, California is "pure potentiality," as Deepak Chopra loves to say. The third largest state in the Union stretches down the Pacific Coast for 1,264 miles and is split lengthwise by a wide central valley, warmed by intense heat of the Mohave and Sonoran deserts and bordered by fearsome frontiers of high mountain ranges--the Cascades, the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges.

Sunny South
Most visitors and residents are drawn to the ocean--80% of the population lives within thirty miles of it, clustered in Southern California around the sprawling metropolitan areas of San Diego and Los Angeles. Here near the border with Mexico, sunny days seem to melt one into another--people from stormier climes wonder why Southern Californians bother to have weather forecasters at all. Vacationers flock to Disneyland, to Hollywood to see movie stars, and to hundreds of miles of sugar-white and golden beaches.

Harbor towns are the most popular: San Diego with its SeaWorld and water sports in Mission Bay; Cape Cod-style Balboa Island in Newport Beach, the wealthy enclave of La Jolla, Spanish-style Santa Barbara; funky, retro Oceanside, and the surfing capitol, Huntington Beach. Orange County is home to the theme parks, Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, while Hollywood and Beverly Hills are movie-star central.

It's babes in bikinis down here, the spice of ethnic diversity, and the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. As Steve Sanders said in the TV show, "Beverly Hills 90210", " . . . this is California. Blondes are like the state flower or something."

"Six degrees of separation" is narrowed to one when you find yourself sitting next to Demi Moore or Steven Spielberg having potato latkes at Nate 'n Al on Beverly Boulevard (if your star-seeking fails, go to www.seeing-stars.com for inside dope on where the luminaries go to eat, drink, buy groceries and walk their dogs.)

When our friends visited from England, the first thing they wanted to do was take backstage tours at Warner Brothers, Paramount and Sony Pictures studios, NBC TV studios, and Universal Studios Hollywood. They took in a movie at the classic Mann's Chinese Theater and put their hands in the hand prints of their favorite stars on the Avenue of the Stars and the Walk of Fame, at Hollywood and Vine. They also rented a red convertible and cruised Rodeo Drive, the shopping megalith in Beverly Hills, and drove ever so slowly out Sunset Boulevard from downtown LA through Hollywood and Beverly Hills to Malibu.

On the region-wide labyrinth of busy freeways, if you live here, your car becomes part of your identity--it's a car-centered culture. And LA is a fun-centered, money-centered, entertainment-centered culture, too. Called the Dream Factory, this is the place to make it in America, or be a spectator to those who do.

Cultural attractions in Southern California are larger than life. The modernist extravaganza of the Getty Center, one of the worldÕs richest art museums, is perched on a hilltop in the Santa Monica Mountain foothills, with a vast view and a lush, tropical garden. Downtown LA is an architectural mecca, its most recent addition the exclamation point of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, a swooping arrangement of silvery steel wings that seem about to lift off. Nearby, the ultra-contemporary, new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the third largest cathedral in the world, has been compared to Notre Dame in Paris in its magnificence, complete with waterfalls and alabaster windows.

On weekends and all summer long, Angelenos, tourists, movie stars and moguls slap on sunscreen, slide into their flip-flops and turn away from the vast megalopolis of the LA Basin to bask on beaches with famous names--Santa Monica, Redondo, Malibu, Venice and Huntington. I love the rollercoaster and the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier and the grand vintage hotels along Ocean Avenue. In Streamline Moderne-style, the dazzling white Shangri-La Hotel commands a whole corner, while the Georgian shows off with a turquoise blue and gold jazz-age façade and an oceanfront verandah.

At the top of Santa Monica Bay, Malibu retains its reputation as the movie stars' retreat. Stargazers wait in vain for glimpses of their idols, who hide behind the landscaping and the high fences of their beachfront houses. Malibu Beach is, however, open to the public, as is the entire coastline of the state.

Up the Coast
As you head north from Pismo Beach, my personal mid-state marker, the beaches grow narrower, rockier and tidepoolier, and the towns are smaller, and although the climate remains mild, you can expect more fog in the wintertime (and, in San Francisco, in the summertime!). Ocean swimming in the colder northern waters is given up for beachcombing and bonfires.

The high-energy pace of the southern cities calms to a slow stroll in the top half of the state. And, although the San Francisco Bay Area and the state capitol of Sacramento are vibrant commercial hubs, the payoff for visitors, and the lifestyle for residents, is comprised of fine food and wine, bay and river cruising, winding country roads and misty forest glades--feet up in front of a fireplace, hikes and bikes and early California history.

Monterey preserves its Spanish and Mexican heritage on the "Path of History", a cache of thick-walled adobes and colonial haciendas, museums and restored buildings from the days of the conquistadors. The most visited destination here is the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where through the world's largest window, you can watch sharks, sea turtles as big as dining room tables, and one-and-a-half ton sunfish.

A little breezier, a little cooler and more laid-back is the fishing port of Half Moon Bay, where an elephant seal preserve, antiques stores and seafood cafes, and a ritzy Ritz Carlton resort, lure weekenders.

City by the Bay
San Francisco's version of the Walk of Fame is the Barbary Coast Trail, a series of brass plaques on the sidewalks tracing the rollicking history of the '49er Gold Rush. Newly refurbished in grand style, palm-tree-lined Embarcadero runs along the waterfront from the Golden Gate Bridge to the yacht harbor and the Marina Green, past Fisherman's Wharf, the shopping and restaurant hotspot, Pier 39, and the Ferry Building Marketplace, to the home of the San Francisco Giants, AT&T Park. Colorful streetcars ply the boulevard and nearly all the restaurants feature seafood and seaviews.

Within walking distance of the Embarcadero are the mysterious back alleys of Chinatown and one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, Italian North Beach. The rich smells of Graffeo coffee, meatball sandwiches, and homemade focaccia waft down Columbus Avenue from the ristorantes, pizzerias and open-air coffeehouses where patrons sip cappuccinos and waiters sing opera. Tucked away on the mezzanine of a bank, the North Beach Museum exhibits fascinating old photos documenting early days when fishermen from Genoa and Sicily lived here in "Little Italy" in the 1880s.

Surfin' Safari X Two
The two quintessential beach towns in the state are San Diego, nearly as far south as you can get, and Santa Cruz, on the curve of a warm bay an hour or so below San Francisco. The grande dame of San Diego is the Hotel Del Coronado, one of the first resorts ever built in California. Decorated with red-roofed turrets and cupolas, fancy banisters and balconies, "The Del" reigns above a seven-mile-long ribbon of sand on Coronado Island, just along Silver Strand Boulevard from opulent waterfront villas and hundreds of yachts in the marina.

Said to be the largest aquatic sports enter in the world, San Diego's playground is Mission Bay, home to more than a thousand pleasure boats, and sheltered swimming bays, a huge swimming pool--the Plunge--and places to fish, surf, picnic, water-ski and camp. Several Mission Bay vacation resorts offer free shuttles from San Diego International Airport. Once there, you can explore by bike, kayak, sailboat, baby stroller, skateboard or on foot.

A sweet old town chock-a-block with fanciful Victorian homes, Santa Cruz is ground zero for surfers and beachgoers in Northern California. Twenty miles of sandy beaches and an historic waterfront boardwalk with an 1911 carousel and the Giant Dipper rollercoaster are prime draws.

North Coast
On a ramble farther north along the coast to Redwood National Park and to fisherman's villages, definitely bring along a windbreaker, a corkscrew for the fabled local wines, and binoculars, the better to see whales hugging the shore on their migrations to and from Baja.

The largest towns on the North Coast--tiny towns, really--are Bodega Bay, Mendocino and Eureka. Whale-watching cruises and fishing party boats sail from the harbor at Bodega Bay, at the south end of a string of jewel-like coves and beaches. Seeming to float on a high bluff like a mirage in New England, the entire town of Mendocino is a California Historical Preservation District of Cape Cod-style and Victorian-era buildings. Headquarters for redwood country, Eureka looks nearly the same as it did in the mid-1800s when it was a booming logging town.

Inland Destinations
Turning east from the coast into the wine country, and toward the Sierras and the inland valleys, travelers discover more reasons to linger in California. While a couple of weeks may enough to enjoy much of the coastline, return trips are required for the Gold Country, Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, the most visited of all National Parks. Due east from the southern coastline, King's Canyon National Park, the Mammoth Lakes and Big Bear areas, and the desert resorts in the south are prime destinations.

Verdant patchworks of vineyards and agricultural lands liberally watered by rivers and lakes, the Napa and Sonoma wine regions are dotted with historic small towns where romantics hide away in quaint inns and spas.

The gateway city to the Gold Country and the foothills of the Sierras, the state capitol of Sacramento lies on the banks of the wide, slow Sacramento River. The main attractions are the circa-1870 state capitol and Old Sacramento, once a rollicking port where as many as 800 sailing vessels tied up during the California Gold Rush. "Forty-niner" days come alive in the wooden falsefront saloons and antique emporiums. You can ride a train along the riverside or take a bright yellow water taxi to a rustic waterfront restaurant for crawfish gumbo and foaming mugs of local brews.

From Sacramento, travelers head east to Lake Tahoe, a high-altitude, sapphire gem surrounded by snow-capped peaks of the Sierras. The West Shore is all about skiing in the winter and boating and swimming in the summer, while in the city of South Lake Tahoe, although year round recreation is just as popular, major casinos dominate the scene--Harrah's, Harvey's, and the swanky new Mont Bleu.

Southeast from Sacramento, along the base of the Sierras, are a necklace of quaint Gold Rush-era towns and at mid-state, Yosemite National Park, one of the natural wonders of the world. King's Canyon and Death Valley National Parks are rugged, isolated wilderness preserves.

In the wintertime, my husband and I make frequent forays to the Coachella Valley, directly east of the LA Basin, where we play golf in the desert cities of Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage. Sitting by a swimming pool in the January sunshine, we plan our next vacation. It's a hard choice--shall we go north or south? And, yet, how can we go wrong? Writing in his journal in 1871, while on a trip to California with John Muir, Ralph Waldo Emerson mused, "The attraction and superiority of California are in its days. It has better days, and more of them, than any other country."