Visiting Bolinas is like entering a timewarp. Jethro Tull's 'Living in the Past' was even on the radio

The tiny hamlet of Bolinas, California, is the Howard Hughes of seaside towns: its reclusiveness is matched by its reputation for not encouraging visitors. Its inhabitants were arrested so often for taking down the signs that indicated the way that the town finally decided to have no signs at all.

The only one remaining is an arrow pointing to tourist information - and it leads straight out of town. Further inquiry about this elicited disbelief that we even saw it: "That must be a joke. We don't have a tourist information office."

Yet Bolinas is less than an hour's drive north of San Francisco, along the winding and spectacularly beautiful coastal Highway One. With two restaurants, a bar, a tiny art gallery, a few little shops and one or two B&Bs, it has just enough services to be hospitable without being spoilt. During the week, it is possible to have the tiny sandy beach almost entirely to yourself - the only sounds those of waves breaking on the shore and the distant screams of gulls. There are no radios, no Frisbee players, no people frolicking in the (notoriously) cold water.

Bolinas is the perfect hiding place. It is rumoured that Tom Waits has a house here, but you will not hear that from anyone in Bolinas. ("I don't know" was the shifty response of everyone I asked.)

Even the geography of the area conspires to keep Bolinas out of sight - at least in the summer, when the peninsula on which it sits is often obscured by a dense cloud of fog which rolls off the ocean like dry ice.

All the beautiful people who came to live here in the mid-Seventies, when other hippies cut off their hair, appear to have stayed. Visiting Bolinas is like entering a time warp. Jethro Tull's "Living in the Past" even came on to the radio when we drove in. From the raised sunny deck of the Bolinas Bay Bakery & Cafe (where the home-made cheesecake is out of this world) we watched the now aged New Agers come and go in the tiny courtyard that serves as a town square. Those few who were wearing sandals were also sporting tie-dyed socks.

The little harbour was full of real fishing boats and there was a sleeping dog at the end of nearly every driveway. We headed for Smiley's for a Sierra Nevada, one of California's excellent micro-brewery beers, where the bar was noisy and busy - rather like Smiley himself. Then we headed back to San Francisco, stopping off at the Pelican Inn, a perfect replica of an old-fashioned Devon pub. It was the ideal antidote to our New Age day. We drove on through eucalyptus trees, under an impossibly starry sky, thrilled with our discoveries - not least of which was actually finding Bolinas.

How to get there

The closest airport is San Francisco International, 30 miles southeast. In July, a return flight from Gatwick on Continental via Newark costs pounds 460 through Flightbookers (0171-757 2000); Major Travel (0171-485 7017) has pounds 480 for non-stop flights on BA from Heathrow. From San Francisco, Golden Gate Transit buses run north to Bolinas.