Many streets throughout California today bear the name of this famous road, often with little factual relation to the original. Those that do follow portions of the path of the original highway are often marked with distinctive bells as a historical marker. However, in many cases, bells that were once placed have disappeared because of vandalism or theft. The original highway runs from Sonoma to what is now Presidio Park in San Diego.
Navigation on the San Francisco Peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it is not really north-south in many places. Visitors to the area are often confounded by the street numbers on El Camino Real, which reset (often to 100) when each new city is entered (roughly every two or three miles). El Camino Real runs past Santa Clara University and Stanford University.