Start from 48 curated places around Santa Cruz, CA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Hook & Line
Chef Santos Majano's downtown seafood room in the old Soif space — sustainable local fish, a raw bar, lemongrass mussels, squid fried rice, and a wine program with proper natural-wine depth. The most ambitious dinner in town and the reservation the locals are jockeying for.
Oswald Restaurant
Damani Thomas's intimate twenty-eight-seat downtown bistro — California-French cooking, an open kitchen you can watch from the bar, and a cocktail program that's been running tight since 1995. The grown-up dinner in town; book a stool at the bar if the dining room is gone.
Trails & outdoors
Wilder Ranch State Park - Old Cove Landing Trail
A 2.5-mile flat coastal-bluff loop just north of Santa Cruz — sea-stack views, harbor seals on a hidden cove, wildflower meadows in spring. The most accessible coastal hike in the area and the one to do if you only have one trail in you.
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park
The closest accessible old-growth coastal redwood grove to Santa Cruz — a flat 0.8-mile Redwood Grove Loop walks past trees 1,500 years old and 277 feet tall, and the trails beyond climb out for ridge views over the San Lorenzo Valley. Twenty minutes from town.
Things to do
Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History
The downtown MAH, a four-story regional museum with rotating contemporary art exhibits, a permanent local-history collection, and the kind of evening event programming (First Friday gallery walks, Third Friday live music) that makes it the locals' actual community center. Half-day visit; pleasant for kids and grown-ups in equal measure.
Seymour Marine Discovery Center
The public-facing wing of UCSC's Long Marine Lab — touch tanks with sea stars and bat rays, an 87-foot blue whale skeleton (the largest displayed on the West Coast), and the back deck has telescopes pointed at the Pacific where you can spot whales offshore in season. Best two hours in town for kids under twelve.
Landmarks & sights
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
The last seaside amusement park on the West Coast — 1907 carousel, 1924 wooden Giant Dipper coaster, the smell of fresh kettle corn and saltwater taffy, and free general admission. Take the rides à la carte rather than the all-day band; eight rides done well beats thirty at half speed.
Santa Cruz Wharf
The longest wooden pier in the country at 2,745 feet — drive your car onto the planks, park along the deck, and look down at sea lions hauled out on the trusses. The pier is fully operational with a new sea-lion viewing window at the end section. Restaurant row is fine but not the point; the wharf itself is the experience.