In the Santa Cruz, Monterey area : Henry Cowell Redwood Park is great, hiking, paved path and a railroad with a train you can take through the redwoods. On the other side of 17 is Mt Hermon which has a really good ropes and zip line course so you are in the canopy of the redwoods. Mystery Spot is actually cool and campy. You can google it. I haven’t been to Big Basin since the fires but it’s open now as another option.

You can find Airbnb or bed and breakfast all around Santa Cruz and Capitola. If you want a hotel, Dream Inn in Santa Cruz is comfortable and right on the beach.

For ocean and beach stuff, highly recommend Natural Bridges and the tide pools, the beach area over by Aptos with the sunken ship. We take our dogs there all the time but I can’t remember the name of the ship, it’s just off shore and now it’s a great white shark nursery. The Monterey Aquarium is incredible and the walkway along the shore is beautiful. The pier area is campy and touristy but teens would like it.

Food wise, brunch is a huge thing in California and it’s really quite good. Use Yelp and go by the ratings.

Anonymous wrote:What?! I would not stay in San Jose over San Francisco. That's ridiculous. Its a suburb wirh an eigth of the amount of things to do in San Jose vs SF. Plus there's muir woods in sf which are beautiful redwoods. Monterrey is nice, but a sea side town NOT a large city. It depends on what you looking for.

Muir Woods is not in SF. It’s an hour’s trip north through Marin. You seem confused.

Anonymous wrote:We have family in Monterey and always fly through SFO due to the many non-stop options. I didn’t know non-stops existed in and out of San Jose. San Jose is much closer than SFO. Monterey also has an airport, which requires a connection if coming from the East. It’s a nice little airport, but very expensive.

It's a new flight by Southwest, doesn't start until early June. It's because of Southwest adding red eye flights to their schedule. The return to BWI from SJC is a red eye.

https://bwiairport.com/flying-with-us/about-bwi/press-media/october-30-2024-bwi-thurgood-marshall-airport-welcomes-added-transcontinental-service-from-southwest-airlines/

We have family in Monterey and always fly through SFO due to the many non-stop options. I didn’t know non-stops existed in and out of San Jose. San Jose is much closer than SFO. Monterey also has an airport, which requires a connection if coming from the East. It’s a nice little airport, but very expensive.

Anonymous wrote:Henry Coe State Park is nice, has a coastal redwood forest, and is not far from San Jose, CA. One could visit that, then Santa Cruz, then Monterey.

An option is to fly in and out of San Jose (SJC) and skip SFO entirely. SJC has good airline service due to being in Silicon Valley.

Not really to DC. There is one nonstop between BWI and SJC, and the one back from SJC is a red eye. Versus 16 a day nonstops between SFO and the 3 DC area airports. We had a close family member in San Jose for a long time and always flew to SFO because it wasn't worth adding a stop to go to SJC

The western side of San Francisco is beautiful and a world removed from Fox News dystopia. Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, Lands End/Sutro Baths, Ocean Beach, all worth while. And the Richmond and Sunset have the best Asian food in the city.

Henry Coe State Park is nice, has a coastal redwood forest, and is not far from San Jose, CA. One could visit that, then Santa Cruz, then Monterey.

An option is to fly in and out of San Jose (SJC) and skip SFO entirely. SJC has good airline service due to being in Silicon Valley.

What?! I would not stay in San Jose over San Francisco. That's ridiculous. Its a suburb wirh an eigth of the amount of things to do in San Jose vs SF. Plus there's muir woods in sf which are beautiful redwoods. Monterrey is nice, but a sea side town NOT a large city. It depends on what you looking for.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The aquarium in Monterey is amazing, but very crowded and pretty expensive. I think it was almost $250 for our family of four. Not an obscene amount, but coupled with the crowds, made it not a great experience. There are Whale watching trips out of Monterey, which are fun. Big Sur is amazing too. You can see a lot from your car, but I recommend doing some short hikes. Inland from Monterey is Pinnacles NP, which is supposed to be great. We haven’t been yet, but it’s on our list. We have family in Monterey and go out there often.

It sounds like you have no interest in SF, but if you kids haven’t been, you have to at least check out Golden Gate Bridge. There are multiple parks on both sides of the bridge. Our favorite is on the NW side of the bridge from the Battery, which has great bridge and city views. Also, we love SF. It’s a fantastic city, whose demise has been extremely exaggerated by the media. It’s a big city, so you do have to play it smart, but it’s not the wasteland that’s often reported.

We did Pinnacles last summer and it's really amazing! We saw 8 condors flying around. I was hoping to see one, but to see that many was just incredible. Absolutely made the trip worth it. There's nothing fancy about Pinnacles and there's not much to do besides hike. The Talus caves were amazingly cool to hike through, especially since we were there when it was pushing 100! We had to stay at a motel in King City (but CalFire was staying there, too; they were all so sweet with my son and let him check out some of the equipment and gave him a bunch of CalFire stickers) which was anything but the luxury experience. but, CalFire and a pool, so we made do.

Our trip was SF-Pinnacles-Monterey-SF. We stopped at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park just outside of Santa Cruz on the drive back from Monterey. Worked well with our schedule and scratched the "I need to see redwoods" itch.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but does anyone know what age would be good for Pinnacles? I’m the pp who lives on the peninsula but I’m not sure my 8 year old would be up for the hiking. We’ve done the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo and she did okay, but doesn’t love hiking. Henry Cowell Redwoods state park is a good rec - we camped there last year with a school group. Woodside California also has a bunch of trails / redwoods near by and also is a kind of fun “old west” looking town.

DS was 7 last summer when we did Pinnacles. Because of the extreme heat, we only did short hikes. We've been hiking with the kid since he was young, so he's much more amendable to hiking than my neighbor's kids, from what I understand. Here are the hikes we did:

High Peaks Trail-Rim Trail-Moses Spring Trail loop. This is accessible from the Bear Gulch area, eastern Park entrance. About 2 miles, 300 foot elevation gain. The Bear Gulch Cave is parallel to the Moses Spring Trail, but was closed because of bat pup season when we were there. However, we did get to sit in the entrance to the cave to get some much-needed shade and cool down at the halfway point. You're only on High Peaks trail for a short bit, then you turn onto the Rim Trail--which has no shade. Moses Spring Trail is mostly shaded. Whatever you do, DO NOT PUT YOUR FEET IN BEAR GULCH RESERVOIR! Toe biting beetles are called that for a reason.

Balconies Cliff Trail-Balconies Cave Trail loop. This is accessible from the Chaparral area, western park entrance. About 2.5 miles, 200 feet elevation gain. This loop goes through Balconies cave, there's no alternative, so make sure everyone has a headlamp; the cave is pitch black. I highly recommend doing the cliff first, then the cave. The cliff trail is where we saw condors. The cave entrance is a little past the halfway point, a good spot to cool down. There are great views of the High Peaks along this loop.

We would have loved to do longer hikes, but it was just so relentlessly HOT. And Pinnacles is lacking in both shade (except the caves and Moses Spring Trail) and flat ground, so there's no leisurely strolls.

There two visitor centers are small but the staff very friendly. My son was very excited to hold a huge condor feather (must have been close to 3 feet long) at one center. The campground on the East side has a camp store and we stopped for popsicles after our rim-moses spring hike. Creature comforts are few and far between in Pinnacles, but it also feels so much less touristy than the big parks as a result.

We were really glad we opted to do Pinnacles and Monterrey instead of going to Yosemite or another one of the larger, well-known parks. I have no doubt Yosemite is stunning, but braving peak tourist season is not my idea of a good time. Seeing wild condors was just so incredible, and the cave hike was really cool. Paired with then going to Garrapata State Park and Point Lobos State Nature Reserve a couple days later gave us quite the appreciation for how varied California is!

Armstrong Redwoods is phenomenal. No need to drive all the way to Redwoods NP. Humboldt Redwoods State Park is also gorgeous but much further from the Bay Area

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The aquarium in Monterey is amazing, but very crowded and pretty expensive. I think it was almost $250 for our family of four. Not an obscene amount, but coupled with the crowds, made it not a great experience. There are Whale watching trips out of Monterey, which are fun. Big Sur is amazing too. You can see a lot from your car, but I recommend doing some short hikes. Inland from Monterey is Pinnacles NP, which is supposed to be great. We haven’t been yet, but it’s on our list. We have family in Monterey and go out there often.

It sounds like you have no interest in SF, but if you kids haven’t been, you have to at least check out Golden Gate Bridge. There are multiple parks on both sides of the bridge. Our favorite is on the NW side of the bridge from the Battery, which has great bridge and city views. Also, we love SF. It’s a fantastic city, whose demise has been extremely exaggerated by the media. It’s a big city, so you do have to play it smart, but it’s not the wasteland that’s often reported.

We did Pinnacles last summer and it's really amazing! We saw 8 condors flying around. I was hoping to see one, but to see that many was just incredible. Absolutely made the trip worth it. There's nothing fancy about Pinnacles and there's not much to do besides hike. The Talus caves were amazingly cool to hike through, especially since we were there when it was pushing 100! We had to stay at a motel in King City (but CalFire was staying there, too; they were all so sweet with my son and let him check out some of the equipment and gave him a bunch of CalFire stickers) which was anything but the luxury experience. but, CalFire and a pool, so we made do.

Our trip was SF-Pinnacles-Monterey-SF. We stopped at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park just outside of Santa Cruz on the drive back from Monterey. Worked well with our schedule and scratched the "I need to see redwoods" itch.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but does anyone know what age would be good for Pinnacles? I’m the pp who lives on the peninsula but I’m not sure my 8 year old would be up for the hiking. We’ve done the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo and she did okay, but doesn’t love hiking. Henry Cowell Redwoods state park is a good rec - we camped there last year with a school group. Woodside California also has a bunch of trails / redwoods near by and also is a kind of fun “old west” looking town.

I live on the peninsula. I did Muir Woods for the first time last spring and far preferred some of the other redwood options - such as Purisima near Half Moon Bay. My nature-loving girls are 8 and 12. South of the peninsula we like Monterey and the sea lions in Santa Cruz, but Monterey aquarium is often really busy and can be overwhelming. Closer to us, Moss landing has kayak whale watch tours and a great ecotour. Going north of the city, Point Reyes (we stay in Inverness) is the family happy spot. Hiking at Pierce Point to see elk and other nature and swimming at Heart’s Desire beach (on an inlet, so warmer / safer) are favorite things to do there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for all the replies. The main reason for no interest in SF is not media-related; we just went to one of my favorite cities for 4 days and the kids were not huge fans of city touring. I’ve been to SF before and really liked it but I love just about any city. We think the kids want more of a big awe nature/windswept coastline kind of week. The idea of flying into Eugene isn’t something I had considered. Maybe we go in one city and out of SF/SJ.

Thank you all!

OK, now I'm curious what city this was you went to. If you are this close to SF, you should at least spend a day or two in the city if they've never been. Despite what you hear, San Francisco is still one of the great American cities.

Yes, and there are fantastic indoor and outdoor places to go throughout the city. Very easy to avoid the 15-20 blocks that are actual true problem areas.