Page 20 - 2018 Travel Guide to California

CITIES
TEMECULA CITY HALL FOUNTAIN, right;
the Cal Poly campus and San Luis Obispo
from above, bottom; West Hollywood at
night, opposite.
shore of magnificent Monterey Bay. A city
of 65,000, it boasts alternative lifestyles
and innovative education at the University
of California Santa Cruz along with the
proudly retro 1907 Santa Cruz Boardwalk
and the Santa Cruz Pier. The boardwalk,
flanking mile-long Santa Cruz Beach, show-
cases the charming 1911 Loolf Carousel and
adrenaline joys of the Big Dipper, a 1924
wooden roller coaster. The boardwalk is a
prime place to score corn dogs (“made from
a secret family recipe’’), chocolate-covered
bacon, deep-fried Twinkies and other belly-
busters while you watch surfers shoot the
curl. The world’s first Surfing Museum is
right nearby. Inland, the shops of Pacific
Avenue offer plenty of retail therapy and
health-minded markets and eateries. North
of town via Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz
Mountains is Henry Cowell State Park, with
its old-growth forest of California’s soaring
signature trees: redwoods.
18 2018 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A
SAN LUIS OBISPO:
Culture, Wine, & the Outdoors
Nestled between the Pacific Ocean 11 miles
to the west and the Santa Lucia Mountains
just to the east, this central coast city of
45,000 is located midway between San
Francisco and Los Angeles. Easily accessible
by train on Amtrak or via U.S. Highway 101
and famously scenic California Route 1, the
historic core of the city clusters around the
1759 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.
This is the place to find restaurants, cafés
and shops. Music and theater productions
are mounted on the campus of California
Polytechnic Institute (“Cal Poly’’). Out-
doorsy visitors and locals alike hike and
bike the Nine Sisters hills. The marine-
minded head to the sometimes-chilly,
foggy coast with their wetsuits for surfing,
kayaking and windsurfing. South of the city
is prime territory for winery touring and
tasting: the expansive Edna Valley wine-
producing region.
LONG BEACH:
Arts, Aquatics & the Queen Mary
A frequent stand-in for national and global
locations in television, video and film
shoots, Long Beach is very much itself.
Boasting 5.5 miles of sandy beaches, the city
of 470,000 some 20 miles southwest of
downtown Los Angeles is home to a major
ocean cargo port and an outpost of aircraft
manufacturer Boeing. Since 1967, the 1930s
Art Deco ocean liner Queen Mary has been
permanently anchored there. Now a hotel
VISIT TEMECULA VALLEY; LARRY HABEGGER. OPPOSITE: VISIT WEST HOLLIWOOD