- For a few short weeks every year,
California Central Valley erupts in pink and white blossoms
from the almond trees, and they're truly beautiful.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun,
informative, and entertaining.
And in this video, I'm gonna show you around
the best spots where you can see the almond blossoms.
If you've never seen them before,
you need to come right now and see them.
The first place that's really great to see
almond blossoms in California Central Valley is Bakersfield.
Why Bakersfield?
Well, because the blossoms bloom first here,
earliest in February, because Bakersfield is the warmest.
It's the most south.
There's about a seven mile drive here,
you start at the intersection of Coffee and Snow Road,
go north on Coffee Road, hang a left on 7th Avenue,
and six miles to the highway.
You will find orchards that look like this.
Now, if you're gonna be taking pictures,
some of the best times in the morning,
or right as the sun goes down,
about an hour before sunset, golden hour.
They will look the best at that time.
But if you are gonna be doing that,
just be mindful that these orchards are private property,
so stay on the outskirts, they appreciate it.
Enjoy the view behind you.
So the second best place to see the almond blossoms
is just actually along the Highway 99,
the highway that runs in the center of the Central Valley,
from like the Grapevine, all the way up to Sacramento
and Yolo County, you will see almond blossoms galore
on both sides of the highway.
Keep your eyes open.
If you're just driving and you're not even stopping
in the Central Valley,
you'll be able to see them just along the highway.
The best ones though, you will have to get off
and dive in a little deeper.
Number three is Visalia, and in Visalia,
they've actually put together their Visalia Blossom Map,
to help you be able to navigate all of their blossoms.
I'll put links in the description
where you can find all of the maps
that I'm gonna share with you,
from all the other municipalities,
'cause Visalia is not the only one.
But one of the great place for almond blossoms here,
on Avenue 280, that's this orchard I'm kneeling at,
because today it's a little rainy.
And actually cloudy days are actually pretty good days
to come and visit the almond blossoms.
You won't get blue skies,
but the light is good on cloudy days, kind of fills in,
so actually if you're thinking about, "It's cloudy,
should I go see them?"
If you're looking for pictures, cloudy equals good.
Number four is the town of Traver,
and this is just 10 minutes north of Visalia.
And in particular here,
from the second story of Bravo Farms,
you can see the almond blossoms over highway 99.
And what's cool about this
is that you get all of the Central Valley here in one place.
You get the almond blossoms,
you get the heart of the Central Valley, the 99,
that brings traffic up and down,
and you get all these farm animals around here
in this vintage farm.
But if you do come here, definitely once you're done
checking out the almond blossoms,
check out the seven-story tree house.
Big kids and little kids are sure like that.
And if you wanna see those almond blossoms
in Traver up close, just head over the 99 Freeway overpass
at Merritt Drive, turn left on Road 36,
and you'll be right in the thick of those blossoms.
But these are some of the best I've seen,
right now, which is February 18th.
If you come a little later,
well, there's kinda smaller almond trees.
There's bigger almond trees here.
If you're gonna take pictures in the almond trees,
you know, just be nice and kind of stay outside
the blossom field, so you're not in the middle of them.
The almond farmers appreciate that very much.
But you should definitely check these out,
if you like blossoms and flowers,
because these remind me a lot
of the cherry blossoms in Japan.
They're these beautiful little white and pink flowers.
Quite glorious.
The fifth best off viewing
the almond blossoms in California Central Valley
is in Fresno.
Fresno has put together the Fresno County Blossom Trail.
It's a route that's 62 miles,
if you were to drive the whole thing.
Take you about an hour and a half if you drive it,
not really stopping.
What are there here?
There are certainly almond blossoms,
but there's other blossoms too.
They have an orange blossom route.
If you're here when the oranges are blossoming,
(traffic roaring)
then you can see orange blossoms.
If you're here at almond blossom time,
then you'll actually see oranges on trees.
Now, if you do the orange blossom route,
the way to do that is definitely drinking some orange juice.
Our Traveling Princess was doing that,
(traffic roaring)
while we were seeing the oranges, which she enjoyed.
I'm stopping as the cars go by,
'cause it gets a little bit noisy.
We found some good almond blossoms
around Belmont and Academy Road.
That's where we're standing right now.
One of the most scenic parts of the route
is to go from Minkler out to Cove Road.
It's about six miles,
you can see the mountains in the background.
There's no almond blossoms over here,
but it's really green and pretty.
Now do print out the map, if you're doing this drive,
it'll help you navigate.
There are signs along the way, which are pretty nice,
but it also helps to have the map
to know when the sign's coming up.
Number six is Modesto, California.
Modesto really is kind of the center
of the almond industry in Central California.
There are a ton of almond fields that are here.
But if there's only one you can go to,
stop by Rodin Farms,
it's where I'm walking through right now.
This is a small, family-run almond farm.
They've got a farm stand, you can buy the nuts.
But what's really cool about this farm
is that you can actually walk around the blossoms,
and in the blossoms, and get inside of it,
'cause they encourage you to go inside the fields.
And fellow explorers, you know,
I often get a lot of questions from you
of if I offer guided tours.
And you know what?
For Modesto and the almond blossoms,
I'm doing the next best thing.
I've actually partnered with Visit Modesto,
and the Wayfarer Tour app,
to offer a guided audio tour
of the almond blossoms through Modesto,
which is what makes this one of the best place
for you to come, 'cause you can bring me along,
in the car with you, to see these,
on the longer two to three hour,
you can even make it a whole day,
it's a pretty awesome tour.
If you do wanna check that out,
and you want me to join you in your car for the drive,
you can go to almondblossomcruise.com,
and you can find all the instructions
on how to download the tour maps for Modesto,
and also how to download that app.
I hope to see you in your car in Modesto.
Or I hope to talk to you in your car in Modesto.
I don't have the spy cams in your phone just yet.
And if you're here with little kiddos,
they are sure to love the train
through Rodin Farms almond orchards.
You can see right in the yellow car,
there's the Traveling Princess right there
enjoying that train ride so much.
Rodin Farms is Traveling Princess approved.
She loved the train,
and loved running through the almond orchards here.
(Traveling Princess laughing)
And for the almond blossoms to do their thing,
they need bees.
You'll see them in these white boxes.
These are beehives, so if you don't like bees,
stay away from the bee boxes.
So the last best stop in the Central Valley
to see the almond blossoms is in Yolo County.
Yolo County's put together a whole map
that will help you navigate the blossoms.
But one of my favorite places to drive
is through the Capay Valley on Route 16.
If you set your GPS or Google Maps
to the Seka Hills Olive Mill and Tasting Room,
that's right, they also have 500 acres of almond orchards
right across the street from the Tasting Room.
It is those orchards that I'm walking through right now
that are truly spectacular.
And thinking about why you might wanna come to Yolo,
instead of Modesto or Bakersfield,
I mean they're all super great,
but these bloom later in the year, right?
They start blooming earlier in Bakersfield,
and later here in Yolo.
So if you're here later in the season,
then this is where you are gonna find them.
And right now, we're sort of in the petal dropping phase.
If you notice, there's a bunch of them
on the ground right now,
so we probably got a week left
of the almond blossoms from this trip.
By the time you see this video,
there's probably a weekend left to see them.
But the weekend that this video drops
is the weekend of Yolo County's Annual Almond Festival,
that's right, in Yolo County.
Five cities get together and celebrate
by basically all opening up their orchards.
Seka Hills does tours on hay rides, and lots of fun things.
That is always the last weekend in February.
Well, fellow explorers,
if you haven't seen the almonds blossoms yet,
- Da da da da da da da da da. - You need to check them out.
The Traveling Princess, she loved them.
Now, if you wanna see more about almonds,
I've got a video that's coming out
all about the almond foods you need to eat here.
I've got another video about just all the great foods
to eat in California Central Valley,
and all about our six-day road trip here,
where we saw farms, we ate tasty foods,
and really just a lot of serenity in the region.
You'll find links on the screen,
or in the description below,
as soon as those come, out one a week
for the next three weeks.
Well fellow explorers, as usual,
we won't say goodbye,
'cause we're gonna see you in the next video.
And I also wanna thank the super cool people
at visitcentralvalley.com,
and Visit California, for making this series possible.