From San Francisco or Portland, US Highway 101 makes a scenic but sometimes slow drive along the coast to Crescent City. Between San Francisco and Crescent City, there are no good connector roads from the east, so if you want to take 101, you need to start from the San Francisco Bay Area far to the south.
From Grants Pass in Oregon, you can take US Highway 199 southwest to reach Crescent City. Grants Pass is also a stop along Interstate 5, which is ''the'' major north-south highway on the west coast. Interstate 5 is known as fast and easy to drive and has good connections to further east, but it's often a boring road.
Crescent City is sometimes remembered as the only place in the 48 contiguous American states to have suffered loss of life from a tsunami in recorded history. Its location is particularly vulnerable to such waves. An extensive warning system has been installed to ensure the safety of residents and visitors alike and it works well. When an offshore quake in 2005 triggered the tsunami alert system as a precaution, the city was evacuated in 20 minutes. Even in Crescent City, more people die in auto accidents than by tsunamis each century.