#santa-cruz

#santa-cruz

Driving the Avenue of the Giants is a unique and beautiful experience. As it winds through Humboldt-Redwoods State Park, you will encounter many spectacular groves of redwoods and hiking trail options.

The ferry goes from the Balboa Peninsula, home to the Balboa Fun Zone and the Newport Beach Balboa Pier, to the south side of Balboa Island, the idyllic coastal community filled with beach cottages and shops that sell saltwater taffy, watercolors of seascapes and the frozen bananas made famous by 'Arrested Development.'

Kirkwood has had a pretty solid past few days, seeing 42 inches of snow through the past 7 days, 31 of which fell in the past 48 hours. As of April 13th, Kirkwood has 5 lifts spinning with 45 of 84 trails open to skiers and snowboarders.

Laguna Beach takes its history and cultural heritage seriously—from the earliest Western settlers who set up artist studios, to our Indigenous peoples who made this special place home thousands of years ago.

Erik rides more than you. He has been pedaling the country and living off of his bike for the last three years, learning to take life as it comes.

"San Jose was an agricultural wonderland. They called it the Valley of Heart's Delight, and most of it has been paved over and turned into high tech now. But this is a connection to our past."

The Milestone Mo-Tel, an elegant, whitewashed structure modeled on an old Spanish mission, marked the beginning of a new form of accommodation and an entire travel movement.

With more than eight miles of coastline and consistently strong breaks, it's long been a magnet for surfers from around the world. However, the city's appeal goes beyond the water-it also has a walkable downtown, a charming namesake pier, and plentiful waterfront bars and restaurants.

For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.

According to multiple media reports, 66-year-old Kurt Van Dyke died last Saturday in Cahuita, a town near the country's coastline along the Caribbean Sea. The Tico Times, an English language Costa Rican newspaper, reported that Costa Rica's Judicial Investigation Agency received a report about the incident at 10:50 a.m. Van Dyke's body was discovered with signs of asphyxiation and multiple stab wounds, according to a preliminary examination by the investigative agency.

The decision to suspend a search weighs heavily on all crews involved, said Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Michael Zapawa, search and rescue mission coordinator at Coast Guard Sector San Francisco. That decision is based on careful evaluation of all available information, including extensive search efforts, environmental conditions, and survivability assessments.

For travelers looking to get to know the many-varied charms of the Golden State, discovering it through the best beaches in California is never a bad idea. The state's coastline spans a vast 3,427 miles after all. Among its 420 public beautiful beaches are plentiful opportunities to swim, lay out, look at tide pools, surf to your heart's content, or watch the sunset.

"Crazy situation yesterday," Virostko wrote on Instagram. "I saw the boat coming as I was outside dodging a big middle peak set. He zoomed by me and I saw he had his family on the boat. As I watched him drive straight into a big white wash I knew they went down and it was time to paddle in as quickly as possible to help save the family."

Situated on the southern border of Orange County and easily accessible to travelers by Amtrak train or car, San Clemente has all the charm of a close-knit community and all the liveliness of a surfer's paradise. Plus, it's one of the most beautiful towns in the area, with the rolling San Joaquin Hills on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

Global travel booking website Skyscanner has named its top five destinations for solo travel this winter, and a Northern California favorite the Sonoma Coast made the list. The Sonoma Coast invites a different kind of stillness, the guide notes, praising the rugged shoreline as an antidote to crowded itineraries and overplanned escapes. The roundup also includes Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, Tangier Island in Virginia, Olympic National Park in Washington and Red River Gorge in Kentucky.

For decades, whale watching has been a seasonal ritual along the Sonoma Coast, drawing locals to wind-swept bluffs, binoculars in hand. Now the pastime has earned national notice: Travel + Leisure has declared Sonoma County the best place in the country to see whales. In a story published Feb. 3, the magazine said there is no better place in the United States for whale watching than the stretch of coastline from Bodega Bay to Gualala and no better time than now.