Explore Santa Cruz Like a Local – Outdoors
I am really excited to make this blog post, since this is basically my second home. So many of the people I love live in and around Santa Cruz, California. It’s my husbands home so all of his amazing family lives there. Besides that I got lucky to meet a lot of people at the local church. Santa Cruz is on the west coast of the Untied States, about 1 hour south of San Francisco. Here I want to share some exiting places to go to, if you’re travelling in this area. I will start out with beautiful places to see in nature in part 1 and then also mention other fun spots to go to.
We love Santa Cruz for several reasons. First of all, it’s right at the ocean, so you can do a lot of amazing activities there! It is famous for it’s surfing. The light house on the picture actually has a little surfing museum in it. Then you can enjoy amazing sunsets. If you’re there in winter you can even see it set in the water.
In general the west side has some very nice spots along the ocean. Besides the nice views you can see the tide pools by Natural bridges. There are anemones, star fish, crabs and mussels in the tide pools. If you want to see more of the local wild life you can go to the Long Marine Lab and experience all the ocean life of the area.
Natural Bridges is not only the place to see animals, there are also natural bridges there (what a surprise). An awesome place for great pictures.
Sunsets
Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz Wharf is a long pier with lots of shops and restaurants. The pier is a long wooden structure and because there are a lot of wooden boards close to the water it is a very attractive place to be for sea lions. You can find them at the very end of the pier, but don’t worry you will hear them as you get closer! They are one of my favorite things to watch. We like to just stand there and be entertained by them for quite a while.
Natural Bridges
Tide pools
Tide Pools
Next to Santa Cruz is Capitola and Aptos. Both are small towns with a couple little, but exciting things to see:
Capitola: Capitola village is a cute part of the town right next to the beach. There are a couple little stores and a few colorful houses, that make a great contrast to the blue of the ocean.
Aptos: In Apots you can find a ship wreck from World War I. Over the last 4 years it slowly broke more and more apart. The wreck draws a lot of animals near, like sea gulls, dolphins, seals, sea otters and event the occasional shark. (2025 update: The wreck broke into 3 parts and they removed the pier)
Aptos ship wreck (Update 2025: The wreck broke into more parts and they removed the pier)
Another famous thing for the area are the redwood trees. They only grow along the coast of California and Oregon. Henry Cowell State Park is a park with lots and lots of these trees very close to Santa Cruz. There you will get to see those amazing trees that can be more than 2000 years old.
If you are planning on going a little further south, you would probably enjoy Big Sur. It is an area along the coast with the most stunning views. The car drive is just amazing. And if you time it right, you might get there just in time for sunset!
Big Sur