www.montereycountynow.com OCTOBER 29-NOVEMBER 4, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 At the same time, a mix of helicopters, water tankers, and other aircraft were flying overhead in increasing numbers as the sky became tinged with a muted, burnt orange haze. The sounds of soft jazz on the lawn soon became intertwined with sounds of a CH-47 Chinook, a helicopter that weighs as much as nearly eight Southern elephant seals, or 14 Honda CR-Vs, with the ability to carry up to 3,000 gallons of water or fire retardant. “This place seems like it’s got the best of all worlds,” says Alex Hernandez, visiting from Las Vegas with his family for the first time. “One thing that caught my attention was the bridge. All it takes is literally one click of something and then it becomes part of your algorithm on social media, and then you get flooded with ideas like this.” What he and many other travelers didn’t know was that traffic at Bixby Bridge had sparked so much community uproar that a parking moratorium was approved in May by the County Board of Supervisors. As a result, no-parking signs were installed on Aug. 5, four days prior. Nor could travelers have predicted that Sunday would mark the beginning of the Timber Fire, which would threaten nearby homes and landmarks like the Henry Miller Library before burning more than 500 acres within Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, home to the region’s most popular campground. The Timber Fire would become the fourth-largest fire this year in California, behind the Plaskett Fire, which would begin just three weeks later. “[My cabin] was the second closest structure to the Timber Fire when it started,” says Mike Freed, owner of Post Ranch Inn. “It’s a miracle that it was saved, but it’s because I had friends who were up there who saved it.” What is normal in Big Sur is changing—growing tourism is colliding with the economic and housing pressures felt along much of the California coastline, all of which is amplified by an uniquely rugged environment increasingly in the crosshairs of a changing climate. How to respond to these competing pressures is an urgent question for the future of Big Sur and its people. “Tourism needs to be managed, otherwise you’re destroying a community and you’re destroying the environment,” says Rob O’Keefe, CEO of the regional visitors bureau See Monterey. “How do you navigate that in a way that’s responsible to the very nature that people want, and to the residents who live within?” The rise of social media is what many locals point to as the main driver of the surge of visitors, becoming the impetus for the pit-stops at the bridge and backlog at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. The ability to geotag locations posed incipient trouble for Big Sur as traffic chokepoints worsened, sometimes leading to hourslong delays and complicating emergency response efforts in the area. According to a report by Pew Research Center, social media use by U.S. adults went from just 26 percent in 2008 to 72 percent in 2021. In recent years, that percentage has grown but split depending on age and platform. For example, another Pew report found that 80 percent of U.S. adults ages 18-29 used Instagram in 2025, compared with 62 percent of adults ages 30-49, 40 percent of those ages 50-64, and 19 percent of those 65 and older. (YouTube maintains the highest usage rates across all age groups, while Instagram trails Facebook slightly in overall usage.) Though difficult to capture the actual volume of people that descend on Big Sur, there are proxies. On Instagram, 1.9 million posts have the #bigsur attached, and it has appeared frequently among the top 20 most Instagrammed places in the U.S and among the top 10 in California. The Community Association of Big Sur installed a traffic counter along Highway 1 near Malpaso Creek just south of Carmel Highlands and, in 2025, began publishing data monthly. Between February and July of this year, traffic in the area (and following the reopening of the highway) nearly doubled from 131,655 vehicles to 245,760 vehicles. Many locals say social media not only puts places on the map that visitors might not otherwise find, but it also shapes how people travel. “People go traveling for a different purpose,” says Dana Carnazzo, who is on the board of the Henry Miller Library and has lived near Bixby Bridge a majority of her life. “Before, people wandered down the coast and puttered around; there was no one to give them information about what was where. Once everything was on Instagram, it became more like a theme park.” Tourism in Big Sur is an economic lifeline just as much as it is a danger to the community. Monterey County collects a 10.5-percent transient occupancy tax on lodging in unincorporated areas, including Big Sur. (If approved by votes on Nov. 3, Measure E would increase this rate to 12.5 percent.) Visitors generate more than $3 billion annually for the county, according to a 2025 study by See Monterey, supporting 27,596 jobs in hospitality, with accommodations spending surpassing $1 billion for the first time. In terms of tax revenue, $199 million was collected for local Tourists sunbathe in the Big Sur river, behind the Big Sur River Inn, a popular destination for visitors to listen to music, get lunch, and stay for the night at the lodge. Marcus Foster, founder of the nonprofit Keep Big Sur Wild, holds a copy of the Big Sur Land Use Plan at a public field trip in August to Garrapata State Park to discuss a potential bathroom project. Foster advocates for the plan and protection of the natural landscape. DANIEL DREIFUSS DANIEL DREIFUSS
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==