When Off the Beaten Track debuted in early 2021, the Capital Region was tenuously crawling back from the worst pandemic in more than a hundred years. As we poked our heads outside, we wondered which businesses made it out OK, and how did they do it? Their compelling tales were the overriding storylines of those early post-pandemic days, while impacts from COVID-19 stretched throughout OTBT’s run.

Not quite two years old, the Amador line of Rail Explorers in Ione is a unique, self-motorized way to experience the countryside of Amador County’s historic Mother Lode region.

Teneral Cellars winery in Plymouth is an award-winning, women-owned and self-proclaimed disrupter in the industry. It’s also an oasis in the Shenandoah Valley that’s less than an hour’s drive from Sacramento, though reminiscent of a picturesque wine region in Italy.

The Solano County city of fewer than 30,000 residents is also an easy day trip for visitors from Sacramento and the Bay Area, with a 10-block stroll along Benicia’s First Street providing a unique opportunity to visit 300 eclectic businesses amidst 19th-century Victorian buildings — all while basking in bay views a couple of blocks away.

The hotel’s popular downstairs bar and restaurant remained mostly closed for the past three years, but after major updates, including those to many of the hotel’s distinctive Victorian-style rooms, they will open again in the new year.

It’s a bucket-list destination for Gold Rush-era history buffs — a park in Grass Valley where visitors can get a first-hand, interactive look at one of the largest and oldest mining operations that defined California’s 19th-century obsession with gold.

Truckee’s Bar of America sports a name that sounds like it would be shared with establishments across the country. Not so. Situated in a brick building that dates back to the late 1800s, the former Bank of America location is a one and only, with a name that was trademarked shortly after new ownership took over in 2012, according to principal owner Tom Turner.

Tractor heaven is in Woodland. Those who enter the Heidrick family’s California Agriculture Museum are greeted by aisles lined with rare antique trucks and tractors of all colors, shapes and eras, along with other artifacts depicting the country’s rich agricultural machinery history.

The 10-acre Placer County business off Horseshoe Bar and Auburn-Folsom Road in Loomis may officially be called The Flower Farm, but it’s much more than that — historic inn, gourmet cafe, wine tasting room, gift shop, wedding and events center, nursery and citrus orchard.