For our road trip in California, Hearst Castle in San Simeon was high on my mom’s list. She’d been there several years ago and loved it. I didn’t know much about it before visiting, but it was a pleasant surprise to visit such a lovely home with the added bonus of seeing elephant seals in their natural habitat.

A Brief History of Hearst Castle

William Randolph (WR Hearst) was the son and heir of a miner, George Hearst, who became a millionaire after discovering a silver mine on his bought property. George had bought some land near the coast in San Simeon, CA and used it as a cattle ranch.

WR Hearst had limited access to the fortune and in the meantime, made himself known as a journalism mogul through “yellow journalism.” You may not have heard his name before but you may have seen the famous movie Citizen Kane, which is based on Hearst. He also bought many well-known magazines today such as Cosmopolitan, Harper’s BAZAAR and Good Housekeeping. Today his legacy lives in the Hearst Corporation, which is one of the world’s biggest media companies today.

The money and San Simeon property was George’s until his death 1891, and then passed to his wife, Phoebe, who died in 1919. Very shortly after Phoebe’s death, WR decided to build an estate on the ranch he loved. He went to Julia Morgan, one of the world’s first prolific female architects, and she designed the estate to accommodate Hearst’s large art collection from his travels. It also became the home of his mistress, famous movie star Marion Davies. It was constantly edited over 28 years, in 1947, when Hearst moved because of declining health. He died in 1951.

Visiting Hearst Castle Today

Today, Hearst Castle is the main attraction of San Simeon and honestly one of the most extravagant places I’ve visited in the country, if not the world. It’s so big that there’s not just one tour; there are several tours to take, and I hope this blog post will shed some light on them as I took 2 instead of 1. I went on the Grand Rooms and the Upstairs Suites tours, which you can read more about below.

Make sure to visit their website for a list of tours. I thought there would be at least a list if not a pamphlet of different tours in the visitor’s center so I could discuss it with my family, but as the staff rudely told us, THE WEBSITE IS THE PAMPHLET!! (We did not have a great experience with the staff that day.) So check their website before going.

When you arrive, you will go to the visitor’s center, which is the center of operations. When you book your tour, you get a time slot. That’s the time your bus departs. It’s about a 10 minute ride up and down the hill from the visitor’s center to the castle and each tour is about an hour long, but they allow 2 hours for the whole thing. On the bus ride, you’ll hear Alex Trebek talking about the history of the castle and the land it’s on.

So when we visited, we got on our bus at 11:50. We had our first tour, and then got back to the visitor’s center at 1:30 and had a quick bite to eat before heading back to the castle at 1:50. The visitor’s center has a selection of food and drink.

They also have a 45 minute film about WR Hearst, his life, and the castle. It’s included in all tours but we didn’t see it because by the time we finished our second tour, we’d spent over 4 hours there.

Hearst Castle is also known for its zebras, a remnant from when a zoo was on the grounds. We looked and looked but unfortunately didn’t see any zebras. Apparently they’re less commonly spotted during the summer season.

Hearst Castle Grand Rooms Tour

Even though the staff in the visitor’s center was rude, our tour guides were great!

The most popular, or base tour, of Hearst Castle is the “Grand Rooms Tour.” This tour can be quite large, with our group having over 50 people. This tour takes you to the two pools and the five main rooms where guests would visit if they came over for a party: Assembly Room (drawing room), Refectory (dining room), Morning Room (smoking room), Billiard Room and Theater. It also includes a short silent film of clips of guests from the 1920s.

This tour will give you an overview of the George Hearst fortune and how WR Hearst grew up to love art and entertaining. If you’ve seen Citizen Kane, you’ll know that WR Hearst was not the most popular person and there were several controversies surrounding him. The tour doesn’t go in with a perspective either way; it doesn’t glorify WR, and it doesn’t list off all his wrongdoings. It’s very factual about how he got is money, how he interacted with his home in San Simeon and its guests.

They’ll also tell you about Julia Morgan’s career, making a name for herself as one of the country’s best architects despite a strong lack of women in the field at the time. She is also revered for using steel-enforced concrete, an essential for California where earthquakes are common.

Of course the pools are a huge draw of the castle and we got to see both of them on both tours. The first one, the outdoor one, was my favorite. It is presided by a 17th century statue of Poseidon that was – to everyone’s horror – cut so it would fit on the pediment. The second one is an indoor pool that is made from millions of little tiles, many of which are real gold. They’re both beautiful in different ways.

In this tour, you’ll learn what it was like to be a guest at Hearst Castle. WR was frequently entertaining when he was in San Simeon and you’ll see the five rooms that his guests would always see, learning particularly about the entertainment aspect of Hearst’s life. Some things you’ll get to see include an ancient Roman floor mosaic; medieval tapestries; a gorgeous and huge medieval fireplace; a medieval painted wood ceiling; and more. He had great taste.

Many of the architectural elements you see in Hearst Castle are historic originals from different periods in European and sometimes Asian history, ranging from the ancient Roman mosaics to the medieval fireplaces and ceilings. Expert artists were hired to incorporate the art into the home. You’ll see examples of where ceiling coffers mixed original medieval work with recreations, painted medieval beams were extended and then the painting was replicated to cover the extension, etc.

I also really liked the film because it added such a personal touch. I like seeing glimpses of how people actually lived in the past, and home videos are such a perfect way to see that.

The tour takes about an hour and ours was a bit rushed because the group behind us seemed to move quickly so we had to keep up the pace. I have to say that compared to the Upstairs Suites tour, this tour seemed a lot shorter and the five rooms didn’t feel like much. When we left to go outside, my mom and I both looked at each other and said, “oh – that’s it?”

The rooms were all beautiful and very much worth seeing though. Plus we got to have a look at the castle’s facade, which was not included in the Upstairs Suites tour.

Hearst Castle Upstairs Suites Tour

The second tour was much less crowded with about only 10 people, and the guide said there was a cap at 14 or 16. So this one is much more intimate. The tour guide focuses more on Hearst’s art collection and his life when he lived in the castle, including the numerous changes he had done over the 28 years he worked on it, rather than the events leading up to the castle’s creation.

On the Upstairs Suites tour, you get to tour many of the bedrooms. Of course Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies, had their bedrooms, but there were several guest suites that you get to visit. I forget just how many rooms we saw but it was a lot more than five. One of the bedrooms is up in a tower, called the “celestial suites.” The tour also includes a visit to the main library and the Gothic suite.

The Gothic suite was personally my favorite room in the house. I’m a sucker for libraries either way, and this gorgeous space had lovely gothic ceilings that were also painted the windows provide a perfect amount of light. I was totally fooled though – after seeing so many original medieval ceilings from Europe installed in the house, I thought we were looking at yet another example. The ceiling actually dates to the 20th century though it’s done in the medieval style. It’s very well done and a testament to the architectural and artistic genius that went into Hearst Castle.

In many castles and estates, the wealth is focused for the main rooms that most of the guests see, and a lot of times the upstairs (or private) rooms can be more reserved. This is not the case at Hearst Castle. The bedrooms were designed to dazzle and offer a luxury experience to overnight guests, and are a continuance of Hearst’s extensive art collection. There are so many beautiful ceilings and pieces of decor in the upstairs rooms to see. It’s no less grand than the Grand Rooms tour, for sure. And as I mentioned, the Grand Rooms tour felt quite short in comparison.

It was very much worth going on the Upstairs Suites tour. I wasn’t sure if it would be a money grab but it’s very evident the separate tour exists just because there is so much to see in the house. If you’re going to Hearst Castle to check off a bucket list item then maybe sticking to the Grand Rooms tour makes the most sense. But if you really do like art history and the photos you see then it’s very much worth going on the extra tour.

If I go back, I’d like to go on the Cottages & Kitchen Tour to see the “small” cottages. But we had already spent quite a bit of money and time at the castle, so it would’ve been a bit much for one day.

Spotting Elephant Seals in San Simeon

San Simeon is also known for its marine life! Of the coast is the Piedras Blancas State Marine Conservation Area, so the animals and environment at San Simeon Cove are protected. Heading north from Hearst Castle on Route 1, you will come across several parking lots that say something like “vista point.” It’s here you can go on a boardwalk to observe any elephant seals, or other marine life, in the water or on the beach.

We got to see a herd of elephant seals sleeping on the beach and it was great! Even though they were asleep, they would wake up and start making the weird noises elephant seals make. Or start bumping each other with their heads. Or reposition themselves over other seals. It was so nice to watch them at peace in their natural habitat. We also got to see a few sea otters swimming (circled in red), the only time we saw them during our trip.

After spending a whole lot of money at Hearst Castle, seeing the elephant seals was a free thing to do – and honestly, I couldn’t tell you which activity I liked more.

I really enjoyed our time in San Simeon. Between seeing Hearst Castle, which truly is magnificent, to spending time with the elephant seals, it was a real highlight of our California trip. Scrunched between the sea and the mountains, San Simeon’s a bit out of the way but if you’re taking a road trip, it’s definitely worth putting on your list of places to see.

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