Big Little Lies: Monterey and Big Sur Filming Locations

In season 1 the five women keep coming back to the same waterfront cafe. The cafe is a fiction: the scenes were shot on a soundstage with the wharf background digitally dropped in. It is based on a real family-run Italian restaurant, Paluca Trattoria, at the end of the historic wharf in downtown Monterey. The series follows five women in Monterey, California, who become embroiled in a homicide investigation.

Location precision: The cafe exists only in the show; the pin marks Old Fisherman's Wharf, which inspired it.

Visitor guidance: The restaurant that inspired the cafe sits at the end of the wharf in downtown Monterey.

Jogging along the sand is a running image of the series, and Del Monte Beach near downtown Monterey was the backdrop for many of those scenes. The cast is frequently seen jogging here in both seasons.

Location precision: The guide names the beach as a filming backdrop, not an exact spot; the pin marks Del Monte Beach.

Visitor guidance: Public beach near downtown Monterey; good for a walk or run.

In season 2, Jane, played by Shailene Woodley, works at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it had already made a cameo in the first season. It is one of the most visited places in Monterey. One highlight is the 28-foot Kelp Forest, among the tallest aquarium exhibits in the world.

Visitor guidance: Check opening hours and tickets before you go.

Season 2 gives the women a new coffee spot, an outdoor cafe at Lovers Point Park in Pacific Grove. The fictional Blissful Drip Cafe was built on location specifically for the show, so you will not find it on a map. The setting is real, though: the park is available to the public year-round, and Pacific Grove is a small town between Monterey and Carmel.

Location precision: The cafe was a set built for filming; the pin marks Lovers Point Park, where it stood.

Visitor guidance: Open to the public year-round.

The windswept scenes of crashing waves and steep cliffs were mostly filmed off Highway 1 at Garrapata State Park, just before the Bixby Creek Bridge. To make filming easier, the production designers installed a staircase from the cliffs to the beach. The park has 2 miles of beachfront and no main entrance.

Location precision: The guide places the cliff scenes along this stretch of Highway 1, not at one marked spot; the pin marks the state park.

Visitor guidance: The park has no main entrance; access is from the coast road.

Bixby Bridge appears in Big Little Lies, and the women are constantly seen driving across it into and out of Big Sur. It stands on State Route 1, 13 miles south of Carmel, and is often called the unofficial entrance to the Big Sur area.

Visitor guidance: The bridge is about 13 miles south of Carmel on State Route 1.