The iconic Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is a long-standing fixture in California. It's one of the many awesome boardwalks found within the Golden State and is steeped in history from it's era-spanning run as a premiere tourist attraction within Santa Cruz.

This park and beach is an excellent vantage point for viewing shore birds, migrating whales, as well as seals and otters playing offshore. Further along the beach, public access tidepools offer a glimpse of life beneath the sea in this Marine Protected Area. Low tides reveal sea stars, shore crabs, sea anemones, and other colorful ocean life. The park also includes a large area of coastal scrub and grasslands, with bright native wildflowers in the spring. Moore Creek flows through the park, forming freshwater wetlands and a salt marsh before it reaches the sea.

Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains and is most famous for the 40-acre grove of towering old-growth redwood trees. Visitors can enjoy hiking, horseback riding, picnicking, swimming, and camping on more than 4,650 acres of forested and open land. These skyscraping redwoods were admired by explorer John C. Frémont, President Theodore Roosevelt, and inspired some of California’s earliest redwood preservation efforts. Take a walk beyond the redwood grove and you’ll find four diverse habitats that this park preserves: grasslands, river/riparian, sandhills, and redwoods. The tallest tree in the park is approximately 277 feet tall, about 16 feet wide, and around 1,500 years old. Keen-eyed visitors may spot banana slugs, black-tailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, or steelhead trout.

Classic diner fare meets Vietnamese comfort food at this homey California spot. The family-friendly diner serves everything from eggs Benedict to spicy Thai coconut soup. We recommend the Pho.

If you have time to kill or are roadtripping up the coast to our wedding, we highly recommend the Monterey Bay Aquarium. From sea otters to seaweeds, their unique oceanfront location and timeless galleries bring the wonders of the ocean to life for visitors.