Travel essentials for a California summer

Home is where my family is, which is central and northern California – big surf, big mountains, vineyards and hiking trails, and real Mexican (and Cuban, and Vietnamese, and Punjabi, and Japanese, and and and) food. Wildly vacillating temperatures, sun and fog in more or less equal measure (even in August). Zero formality, zero frills. A few layers, sunscreen and good hiking shoes, and I’m good to go.

Asics Gel-Sonoma 7 GTX trainers 

I’ve been an Asics woman since back in my running era (which more or less ended a couple of years ago, thanks to a pair of bum knees). The abundance of great hiking trails across Marin and Monterey counties, where my family are, mean that walking is how I burn the kcals and commune with nature these days. I’ve also switched allegiances from the Gel-Kayano to the Gel-Sonoma; they’re the perfect crossover trail shoe, as good on rocks and slippery inclines as they are on flat dirt or asphalt roads (for the occasional brief jog, as and when the spirit – and the Nurofen – manifest). I aim for the least glaring neon colour combinations in any given season; something that definitely gets harder every year. £105, asics.com

Métier Marrakech-suede Market Small bag

The London-based American accessories designer Melissa Morris – not actually from California, but so upbeat and effervescent and fabulous she may as well be – makes great-looking basic weekend bags and holdalls under her brand, Métier. The Market is capacious, slouchy, seamed in elegant places, and actually easy to open/close/generally use the way it’s meant to be. This summer, Morris has brought it out in a plush, soft suede in this totally perfect, flanks-of-a-buckskin-horse colour. I can sling this over my shoulder, slip on my Issimo Scholl’s, and channel a 2023 version of my mother in Beverly Glen Canyon, circa 1974. £1,450, metier.com

Joseph round-neck Cashair jumper

They’re whisper thin and deliciously soft, the sleeves a bit overlong (great for pulling down over one’s hands), the torso generous (great for the long-waisted), and the neckline high and neat. I’ve currently got three navy ones going, in various stages of loved; once they’re a bit too worn and pilled to pass muster with black leather trousers on Mount Street, they’re ready for Stinson Beach and my oldest, most faded Mother button-flys – a perfect layering solve, in a part of the world where “summer” can see temperatures drop into the mid-teens. £285, joseph-fashion.com 

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Stegner is considered a novelist of the west, but this is more of an eastern story, set as it mostly is in Vermont, where I went to university, and Wisconsin (with Tuscany, and Piero’s masterpieces at Sansepolcro, making a picturesque cameo at one point). It’s about love and marriage, friendship and ageing, life plans and how they do, and don’t, work out. A gorgeous piece of modern American literature, and one of six or seven books I’d happily reread every couple of years for the rest of my life. £9.99, waterstones.com

Scholl’s x Issimo linen Pescura heels

Dr Scholl’s – like Birkenstocks – were an anti-fashion staple of my early childhood in LA. Good for your feet, really quite bad for your style cred. How things have changed – thanks, in part, to tastemakers like Italian hotelier Marie-Louise Sciò, whose clever Issimo lifestyle-retail platform showcases collaborations that put a modern burnish on old-school brands (see her 2019 one with, fittingly, Birkenstock). I love the leather piping around the beige linen on these; I love the dark-wood last; I love the rubber-grip sole (which means I can actually walk a mile in them), and the slide-on, slide-off style hit they give. €290, issimoissimo.com

Connolly army-green summer bucket hat

I was unconvinced a bucket hat was something I could carry off (riffing on my ’70s-cool mom is one thing, on Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack quite another). Trust Connolly’s Isabel Ettedgui to create a platonic-ideal iteration of the model. The not-too-broad rim casts enough of a protective shadow over the eyes and face, it’s breathable (lined in a pretty blue-and-white graphic-printed cotton), and looks good on both the sand and the summit, in a colour that goes with everything, including my eyes. €95, connollyengland.com

LGR Simba sunglasses

Because I love the deeply romantic, family-oriented story of how Luca Gnecchi Ruscone – the brother of one of my dearest friends in Italy – decided to start producing his line of sunglasses. Because I love the fact that he only uses mineral glass, never plastic, for the lenses, which offer 100 per cent UV protection, but are not so dark as to de-feminise the overall effect. And because the champagne shade plays nicely with late-summer blonde hair (and with the army-green bucket hat). €370, lgrworld.com