Jeannie

I just got a wonderful invitation to join several other family members visiting another family member temporarily living in Santa Cruz. My brother is arranging the trip, so the date (late July) is not flexible. We fly in/out of San Jose. Can you recommend whether we would be better off staying in the Santa Cruz, San Jose, SF or other areas? Should we choose one location for a base and make day trips? Some in our family, ages 18 to 79, have been to this area before, others have not. We hope to find something for under $150.00 per night, clean and safe. Is this unrealistic? We will be in the area from a Wednesday to a Saturday. With eight family members, we cannot afford luxury, romantic or trendy accomodations. Thanks for your suggestions.

janis

There are many, many places in Santa Cruz for $150 or less double. Your problem will be to find one with enough rooms available in July. I would pick up the AAA Northern California tour book - it has probably 100 or more listed. Also look in Aptos, Rio Del Mar and Capitola. These are all on the Santa Cruz end of Monterey Bay.

Based in any of these places you can do day trips throughout the Santa Cruz/Monterey area. I would recommend you rent a beach house - but in July they require a full weeks booking.

Don't stay in San Jose - not much to see or do (SJ residents may take offense - but there really isn't much for vacationeers there except the Winchester Mystery House and the Great America amusement park)

And accomodations in San Francisco will be a lot more expensive than Santa Cruz.

kam

Janis has given you good advice. You'll be in Surf City, USA! I would only add Capitola to the list of towns near Santa Cruz. You can visit Monterey, Carmel and Pacific Grove easily from Sta. Cruz. You can also go discount shopping in Gilroy or even get up to SF (about 2 hours) for the day. There's a beautiful state park, Big Basin, at the top of the Sta. Cruz Mtns. off hwy 17 at the summit. If you've never seen the beautiful redwoods drive or take the little tourist train up there to see them. There are also wineries in the area---Bonny Doon and Ridge being the most notable. Some of the younger members of your family might enjoy going over to San Jose to see the Tech Museum and the modern art museum or there are the lovely Hakone gardens in Saratoga. In Santa Cruz is the boardwalk with its old, old wooden roller coaster and there is also the surfer museum. You might even want to arrange to take a surfing lesson while there. Just go to the school to the right of the fishing pier.They'll supply wet suits and boards. San Juan Bautista is a lovely mission not too far away and good for a combination with discount shopping in Gilroy. Oh.....the Gilroy Garlic Festival is usually the last weekend of July. Don't miss that if you're there at that time. It's very hot usually but great fun for all ages. Down in Monterey you can rent kayaks to go out with the sea otters in Monterey Bay. You'll have a lot of fun in this area. It's often overshadowed by SF and Central Coast, but is great fun and worth a trip on its own.Late July is an ideal time to visit.

Jeannie

To Janis and Kam -- thank you for your advice. You gave me some great ideas. We talked our brother into extending the trip by one day.
Will it be hot all over the area, or just at the Garlic Festival? I don't mean to sound dumb, but I recall from previous trips, in late June, that it was pleasant around Carmel and SF. But, when we drove from Carmel to San Luis Obispo(sp?), the temperature rose about 20 degrees. Since our group is from Florida and Alabama, we are used to hot, humid summers.

janis

While you can't be sure about weather -- generally it will be coolish in Santa Cruz and along Nonterey Bay and possibly really hot (but not humid) in Gilroy and other inland places. There can always be unseasonal weather, but the coast often gets cooler as the temps inland go up (I won't go into too long an explanation - but an inversion can make it 20 or 30 degrees cooler on the coast than sixty miles inland)

You can count on it being dry - not likely to have any rain. And usually the humidity goes down as the heat goes up. If you do hit a rare heat wave on the coast, 85F will feel like 105F inland.

kam

We are having a really hot summer this year (or is it because of the power shortages that it seems that way?) At any rate, Gilroy is usually very, very hot for the garlic festival, but well worth going. Yes, if you are from the East, it's a dry heat and you'll not feel as hot as you would at home. You'll still need to bring hats to shelter you from the sun. The closer you get to the ocean, ie., Monterey or Sta. Cruz, the cooler it will be. In Sta. Cruz, I would imagine you would still need wet suits to surf comfortably at any time during the year. The wonderful thing about this part of the world is that as soon as the sun goes down, the cool weather comes in and it's very pleasant sitting on the deck and then sleeping with the windows open. Much different from the Midwest where the humidity makes life difficult.

seamus

From where I'm sitting, you all from Florida and Alabama will think our California coast very cool in July.Come on down!

Jeannie

Thank you for all your advice. We had a great trip. Some highlights in no particular order:
Gilroy -- we were there a day before the Garlic Festival, but could smell the delicious aroma while we hit the outlets. Very good selection of stores. The temperature in Gilroy was fine --warm and sunny but low humidity. It was refreshing compared to home (northwest Florida.)
Muir Woods -- last visit to there and SF was in June 1993. Boy, was it less crowded then! Of course, we picked a Saturday morning to visit this time. My brother also visited the Redwoods near Santa Cruz, off Hwy 17. I believe one of you recommended that. He told me that it was just as beautiful and much less crowded than Muir Woods. My nearly 80 year old father enjoyed Muir Woods again. He has owned timberland most of his adult life, and he is a big advocate for forest conservation, so he appreciated the forests. Weather at Muir Woods was overcast and cool.
Half Moon Bay -- spent a lazy Friday afternoon in the area. Now know what you guys mean when you talk about the traffic on the 101 and the 280. Luckily, we missed most of the congestion that day. Half Moon Bay was cool and overcast, but again no complaints after our hot weather in Florida.
Monterey, 17 Mile Drive,Carmel -- The 17 mile drive was worth the $8.00 fee. My big brother especially enjoyed seeing the deer grazing along the golf course. We loved Carmel and the quaint shops.
San Jose -- loved the Winchester Mystery House.
San Francisco -- we had a beautiful, sunny and breezy day, perfect for the cruise around the Bay. As we cruised under the Golden Gate Bridge, the weather changed. As we returned to the wharf, the sunny skies returned. We paid $19.25 to park for two hours near Fisherman's Wharf. It was terribly crowded along the sidewalks. When I was last there in 1993, I was scared by the guy dressed as a bush. Someone still jumping out at unsupsecting tourists. We had a good lunch at Louis B's or something like that, live music. Waited in line for more than 30 minutes to drive down the crooked part of Lombard Street. Then, it took about 45 minutes to get from there out of town going south. That was the only time we really got into bad traffic.
Santa Cruz -- the only part that we saw was around the Boardwalk. It really looked seedy in that area. My mother cried after visiting my nephew at his motel, the Peter Pan. Nephew is 20 and having a blast this summer, so he doesn't mind the less than ideal digs. Our motel was only marginally better. It was hard to adjust to sleeping with your windows open, no A/C.
Nephew works at at fast food place in the Arcade at the Boardwalk. That area reminded me of summer vacations at the old "Hang Out" 30 years ago in Panama City Beach, FL. Some of the motels in Santa Cruz looked like the seedy parts of Panama City Beach today.
Yosemite -- brother had a great time, said it was very hot. Walking along a trail, he came across a bobcat -- our high school mascot! He watched the helicopters fight a fire.
We had a great trip, and the locals as well as tourists were very polite and helpful. I wish we had more time, but we did a lot in the 4.5 days we visited.

Caitlin

Jeanne, I'm glad you had such a nice time. Yoo bad, though, that you missed the nice parts of SC. I lived there for six years (and was back in June), so you can believe me when I say most of the town is totally unlike the seedy boardwalk/"Surf City" section--areas where locals really never go unless they work there. But your nephew's having a great time, which is what counts.

Jeannie

Caitlin -- I imagined there were some lovely areas of Santa Cruz, but we just didn't have time to see them. Living near a beach town myself, I know that there are good/bad areas, just like in most resort areas. We told Mother that nephew's living quarters were no worse than what her own sons lived in in college, but she doesn't remember it that way. You probably know how grandmothers can be about their gandsons!

kam

Jeannie, sounds like you had a great trip and found something for everyone! I'm sure your nephew will long remember his summer in Santa Cruz and the Peter Pan motel! That's the sort of thing one tells grandchildren about!