Places to Explore In The Monterey Bay Area

Aptos

Backed by a redwood forest and facing the sea, downtown Aptos—known as Aptos Village—is a place of wooden walkways and false-fronted shops. Antiques dealers cluster...

• 2 Restaurants
• 2 Hotels
• 1 Things To Do

Capitola and Soquel

On the National Register of Historic places as California’s first seaside resort town, the village of Capitola has been in a holiday mood since the...

• 3 Restaurants
• 1 Hotels
• 1 Things To Do

Carmel-by-the-Sea

Even when its population quadruples with tourists on weekends and in summer, Carmel-by-the-Sea, commonly referred to as Carmel, retains its identity as a quaint village...

• 9 Restaurants
• 9 Hotels
• 19 Things To Do

Carmel Valley

Carmel Valley Road, which heads inland from Highway 1 south of Carmel, is the main thoroughfare through this valley, a secluded enclave of horse ranchers...

• 3 Restaurants
• 4 Hotels
• 5 Things To Do

Monterey

Monterey is a scenic city filled with early California history: adobe buildings from the 1700s, Colton Hall, where California’s first constitution was drafted in 1849...

• 5 Restaurants
• 8 Hotels
• 19 Things To Do

Moss Landing

Moss Landing is not much more than a couple of blocks of cafés and restaurants, art galleries, and studios, plus a busy fishing port, but...

• 1 Restaurants
• 1 Hotels
• 1 Things To Do

Pacific Grove

This picturesque town, which began as a summer retreat for church groups more than a century ago, recalls its prim and proper Victorian heritage in...

• 7 Restaurants
• 4 Hotels
• 5 Things To Do

Pebble Beach

In 1919 the Pacific Improvement Company acquired 18,000 acres of prime land on the Monterey Peninsula, including the entire Pebble Beach coastal region and much...

• 0 Restaurants
• 3 Hotels
• 2 Things To Do

Salinas Valley

Salinas, a hardworking city surrounded by vineyards and fruit and vegetable fields, honors the memory and literary legacy of John Steinbeck, its most famous native...

• 0 Restaurants
• 0 Hotels
• 3 Things To Do

San Juan Bautista

Much of the small town that grew up around Mission San Juan Bautista, still a working church, has been protected from development since 1933, when...

• 0 Restaurants
• 0 Hotels
• 0 Things To Do

Santa Cruz

The big city on this stretch of the California coast, Santa Cruz (pop. 63,364) is less manicured than Carmel or Monterey. Long known for its...

• 6 Restaurants
• 8 Hotels
• 25 Things To Do

Watsonville

• 0 Restaurants
• 0 Hotels
• 0 Things To Do