San Luis Obispo

San Luis Obispo is one of California’s oldest communities. The city, locally referred to as San Luis, SLO, or SLO Town (as its county is also referred to as SLO) is the county seat of San Luis Obispo County and is adjacent to California Polytechnic State University. The Pacific Ocean is only about 11 miles (18 km) west of San Luis Obispo with the The Santa Lucia Mountains to the east. These mountains are the headwaters for San Luis Obispo Creek, whose watershed encompasses 84 square miles (220 km2) surrounding the city and flows to the Pacific Ocean at Avila Beach.

San Luis Obispo experiences a cool Mediterranean climate. On average it has 50 days with measurable rain per year – mostly during winter months. Summers are generally warm and sunny, often with morning fog from the Pacific coast. Winters are generally mild, though below freezing lows may be expected 4 nights per year.

Downtown San Luis Obispo is centered around the carefully restored Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. The downtown area also has many eclectic shops and boutiques. New downtown shopping centers have been added in recent years. The Court Street Center and Downtown Center house stores that belong to nationwide chains. One of the primary draws of this area for students, visitors, and residents alike is the plethora of outdoor sports such as hiking, kayaking, surfing, windsurfing, skimboarding, diving, sailing, and kite boarding.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “San Luis Obispo, California”,
which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.