Hotel Paradox, Autograph Collection

The Santa Cruz Wharf offers the best in seaside shopping, dining and recreation. You'll find everything from handmade arts & crafts to beach apparel, outdoor fresh fish markets to fine dining, whale watching, fishing trips and kayaking.

This beach, with its famous natural bridge, is an excellent vantage point for viewing shore birds, migrating whales, and seals and otters playing offshore. Further along the beach, tidepools offer a glimpse of life beneath the sea. Low tides reveal sea stars, crabs, sea anemones, and other colorful ocean life. The park also includes a large area of coastal scrub meadows, with bright native wildflowers in the spring. Moore Creek flows down to the ocean through these meadows, forming a wetlands in the sand. The park's Monarch Grove provides a temporary home for up to 100,000 Monarchs each winter. From roughly mid-October through mid-February, the Monarchs form a "city in the trees." The area's mild ocean air and eucalyptus grove provide a safe roost until spring. In the spring and summer, the butterflies live in the valley regions west of the Rocky Mountains where milkweed, the only plant a Monarch caterpillar eats, is plentiful. Monarch migration is variable, and numbers vary each year. Before you visit, you may want to call the park for current information on the population.

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is an oceanfront amusement park in Santa Cruz, California. Founded in 1907, it is California's oldest surviving amusement park and one of the few seaside parks on the West Coast of the United States.

Travel over trestles, through towering redwood groves and up a winding narrow-gauge grade to the summit of Bear Mountain as conductors narrate the history of Roaring Camp, the railroad and the forest. Departing from the Santa Cruz mountains, travel through Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, down the scenic San Lorenzo River Gorge, across a 1909 steel truss bridge and through an 1875 tunnel before arriving at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Reverse roundtrips departing from the beach in Santa Cruz to Roaring Camp and back may be purchased from the conductor on the train departing from Santa Cruz.

IT’S NOT A WELL-KEPT SECRET At least not among Santa Cruz locals. Welcome to DeLaveaga – perched just above town in the idyllic foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. With ocean views and a top-ranked golf course, along with an award-winning restaurant and two bars, all nestled in the center of miles of striking natural beauty. Make a tee time, or just plan some leisure time, to appreciate DeLaveaga.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of California, located in Santa Cruz County about 36 km (19 miles) northwest of Santa Cruz. The park contains almost all of the Waddell Creek watershed, which was formed by the seismic uplift of its rim and the erosion of its center by the many streams in its bowl-like depression. Big Basin is California's first State Park, established in 1902.

SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS Zip Line & Aerial Adventures Here at Mount Hermon Adventures, we get you in touch with your adventurous side. We’re a different kind of adventure company, providing REAL experiences that fill the soul.