There was a message about the sand dollars found on a beach just south of the Cliff House in San Francisco, but it wasn't specified what the beach is called. Does anybody know where this is and how to get there? Is the Cliff House a restaurant? My boys love to gather sea shells. Any other beaches between San Francisco and Monterey have lots of shells?

I believe the beach that was referred to was Ocean Beach. I don't particularly like that beach myself, it is windy and has a lot of trash on the beach. I've never seen shells there, but the previous poster said there were - I'm not that experienced with Ocean Beach, having been only a few times. The Cliff House is a restaurant just up a little hill from the Beach. Between SF and Monterey there are many better beaches, especially around the Santa Cruz area. We like Manressa Beach just south of Santa Cruz, also Seacliff Beach, New Brighton, and Sunset Beach, all just south of Santa Cruz are nice for families. I've found seashells, but usually early AM. Good luck and have a great time.

I used to live in Monterey, and in all my walks along Asilomar, carmel, Point Lobos, etc., I can't recall finding any good shells. Was I not looking?? Does the surf just pound everything into sand? Not sure, but I certainly wouldn't call any of the beaches in that area good for shells.
And a word of warning: don't take anything out of a tidepool, as it very likely contains a living creature. If you don't care about killing a crustacean, consider that it will begin to smell eventually.
Happy Trails!

Had a friend find a beautiful conch shell near my house. She picked it up to take it home.

Put it in her car and forgot all about her beautiful conch shell.

Turns out the conch was alive and well living inside the shell.

Summer heat in her car is what? 140 to 150 degrees?

Conch slithered out of the shell and died in her car.

Fairly new car that had to scrapped. Could not get the dead fish smell out of the car.

I know that you are asking about a beach south of SF...but we recently returned from a Ca. trip and found many sand dollars at a beach north of SF. It was called Stinson beach. It is located about 3 miles past the GG Bridge exiting at Highway 1. From there it is the most beautiful ride along the coast to the beach. We always collected sand dollars at Cape Cod when our kids were little. My daughter visited this beach last year and insisted we visit..just to see the sand dollars. It may be out of your way, but is a beautiful drive and also not far from Muir Woods..something else your children might enjoy.

Oh, yuck!! And that poor conch! One kind of obvious thing to watch out for is an unusually heavy shell...

You really have to be careful picking up shells. A lot of shells at the beaches edge or in low water are alive. Don't take them out of their environment no matter how tempting it may be. It's not fair to what ever is living in that shell and you will surely regret it. At Stinson beach, many of the sand dollars are living. It's not hard to tell the difference!!
Yuck is right!!!

Many of the beaches in Santa Cruz have shells but the best time to get them is after a big winter storm. There is a beach in Davenport just north of Santa Cruz that has beautiful beach glass. There used to be a glass factory in the hills that tossed glass into the creek. All the glass was washed out sea and now it comes back as beach glass.