where to start in Point Reyes

Vanderloo, your first starting point will be the Visitor's Center in Bear Valley (by Olema), as you have to get a permit for the backcountry camps. I'm assuming you are talking about 2-3 days backpacking; there is no front-country camping at Pt. Reyes, though there is at Samuel P. Taylor St. Park just up Sir Francis Drake Blvd from the park.

Off the top of my head, I would think about doing a loop, leaving from the Visitor's Center. I'm not sure it matter which direction, but you could spend a night at Coast Camp, and a second at Wildcat camp. From the latter you can do a dayhike (about 2 miles each way) to Alamere Falls, a nifty waterfall that tumbles off the bluffs right onto the beach.

Get the Tom Harrison map of Pt. Reyes; it has the camps and mileages on it.

If you are dayhiking, then I recommend Alamere Falls from the Palomarin trailhead in the far SW part of the park (7 miles RT), and Sculptured beach from the Limantour trailhead. The trail along Drakes Estero is pretty, too. Whatever else you do, be sure to visit the lighthouse (okay, I admit I've never actually toured the lighthouse--I've only biked to the end of the road and looked at it, and that's pretty spectacular).

My husband has run the trail to the far north end, but I haven't, so can't comment on that, except that it's one of the areas where the tule elk hang out.

Hope that offers some help. Feel free to PM me if you want more info. There's a lot of the park I've not explored. I used to run the trails, which had its limitations, and more recently have been biking (road bike), which has even more limitations.

If you want to use the backcountry sites, I recommend reserving in advance, though depending on time of year and week you may have no trouble getting a walk-up permit. I think the last time we camped at Coast camp, we called and reserved a site on the same day, and had little company out there, but it was a rainy weekend in February