Big Sur is a genuinely remote stretch of California coastline, and getting to and from the marathon takes more planning than a typical destination race. Between the distance from the nearest airports, the start line's isolation, and a mandatory road closure on race morning, this guide covers the logistics worth sorting out well before you arrive.
Getting to the area
The marathon is headquartered on the Monterey Peninsula, roughly two hours south of the San Francisco Bay Area and considerably farther from Southern California by road. The most convenient option is flying into the small regional airport in Monterey itself; runners coming from farther afield more commonly fly into San Jose or one of the San Francisco Bay Area airports and drive down, which adds a couple of hours but usually widens flight options and lowers fares. However you arrive, plan on needing a car, or a well-timed ride, to get around the peninsula in the days before the race, since the towns involved are spread out along the coast rather than clustered around one walkable center.
Highway 1 closes on race morning
The single most important travel detail for this race is that Highway 1 closes to private vehicles for the duration of the marathon, and there's no parking or runner drop-off anywhere near the start. Every marathon entrant, regardless of entry category, is required to take the race's own transportation to the start line, boarding from designated pickup points around Monterey and Carmel in the very early hours of race morning. There is no way around this: driving yourself, or having someone drop you off, simply isn't an option at this race, which makes your assigned or chosen bus pickup point one of the most important logistical decisions of the weekend.
Getting back after the finish
Return transportation works the same way in reverse — shuttle buses run from the finish area back to runners' original morning pickup points, not to individual hotels, for several hours after the race. If you're arranging for friends or family to meet you, plan on the finish area itself rather than trying to coordinate a pickup elsewhere on the closed highway, since spectator access to the course is limited to a small number of points given how much of the route runs on a single closed road with no parallel route around it.
The road itself is part of the story
Highway 1 through this stretch of coast is a narrow, winding, occasionally unstable road, prone to landslides during wet winters, and the marathon's course has been altered in past years when storm damage closed sections of it. It's rare, but it's a real possibility worth being aware of if you're traveling from a distance for this specific race — check official race communications in the weeks before you travel, particularly after a wet winter, rather than assuming the traditional point-to-point route is guaranteed to run exactly as advertised.
Driving Highway 1 vs. Highway 101
If you're driving down from the Bay Area or up from farther south rather than flying, note that Highway 1 itself is the scenic, slower route through this stretch of coast — beautiful, but not a road to rush on, with plenty of blind curves and, occasionally, active repair work from past storm damage. Highway 101, running further inland, is the faster option if you're simply trying to reach Monterey and don't need the coastal drive itself; many visitors do the inland route to arrive and save the Highway 1 scenery for a separate, unhurried day trip before or after the race, when there's no need to be anywhere on a schedule.
Planning around a remote weekend
Because the area is small and the race draws a national and international field to a limited number of towns, book flights and hotels well ahead of race weekend rather than waiting until entries are confirmed — availability tightens noticeably as the date approaches. If you're building a broader trip around the race, the surrounding Central Coast has plenty to fill a few extra days; RaceRove's California race listings are a good place to see what else is nearby on the calendar.