On 1-5, 161 miles North of Sacramento. Given the appeal of the great outdoors all around it, most people use Redding solely for food and accommodation – there are scores of fast-food joints and motels. If it’s a rainy day, however, pass time at the town’s Carter House Natural Science Museum, 48 Quartz Hill Road, providing a taster for the region’s flora and fauna.

Shasta State Historical Park is six miles west of Redding on Hwy-299. It holds remains and reconstructions of Shasta, a gold-rush town which flourished into the late 1800s but faded from the map as its gold mines closed down and is now intentionally preserved in its ruined state. Something of the desperate atmosphere of the gold-rush days can be experienced inside the former County Courthouse, which now functions as a museum, and behind it, where Shasta’s ominous double gallows stand – www.parks.ca.gov.