#avila-beach

#avila-beach

When you walk in, you're going to smell the wood burning fireplace. You're going to see all of the antique furniture. Our goal is to have people who come to Pelican Inn feel like they stepped into 16th century England.

With more than eight miles of coastline and consistently strong breaks, it's long been a magnet for surfers from around the world. However, the city's appeal goes beyond the water-it also has a walkable downtown, a charming namesake pier, and plentiful waterfront bars and restaurants.

For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.

Charlize Theron, who stars as a Florida serial killer in the upcoming independent film 'Monster' and then will star opposite Geoffrey Rush in an HBO Films project about the late actor Peter Sellers, has purchased a beachfront Malibu home. The actress paid close to $3.4 million, according to a real estate mailer and area residents.

These oysters once existed in the millions here but were decimated by dredging, pollution and shoreline hardening. Now they're on the upswing, thanks to organizations like the Wild Oyster Project, which is working to build a "swimmable, edible Bay using the power of oysters."

For decades, whale watching has been a seasonal ritual along the Sonoma Coast, drawing locals to wind-swept bluffs, binoculars in hand. Now the pastime has earned national notice: Travel + Leisure has declared Sonoma County the best place in the country to see whales. In a story published Feb. 3, the magazine said there is no better place in the United States for whale watching than the stretch of coastline from Bodega Bay to Gualala and no better time than now.

In a widely cited (and likely apocryphal) exchange the bewildered conductor cried, 'But there's nothing here!' Alighting the stopped train, one of the Standard Oil men is said to have replied: 'No, but there will be.' Nothing is precisely what they were looking for. They needed a blank space along the coast on which to build a refinery to complement the company's existing facility nearly 400 miles to the north in Richmond.

Ross partnered with architect and designer Suchi Reddy to reimagine the interiors, continuing a creative dialogue that has unfolded over more than a decade. Their shared interest lies in neuroaesthetics - the study of how environments affect emotional and physical well-being - and Standing Wave becomes a built expression of that. Rather than adding architectural flourish, the transformation focused inward: the existing floors and ceilings were preserved while walls were repositioned, rooms resized, and sightlines recalibrated to boost views of the ocean, rocks, and sky.

It looked like the silvery blade of a knife. Peering through his goggles, diver Ted Judah had laid eyes on a deep-sea creature rarely encountered by humans. He and wife Linda were diving off McAbee Beach in Monterey County in late December when, near the surface, he spotted the undulating thing. It was some kind of ribbon fish, he wrote in a post on the Facebook group Monterey County Dive Reports. Kevin Lewand solved the mystery.

Global travel booking website Skyscanner has named its top five destinations for solo travel this winter, and a Northern California favorite the Sonoma Coast made the list. The Sonoma Coast invites a different kind of stillness, the guide notes, praising the rugged shoreline as an antidote to crowded itineraries and overplanned escapes. The roundup also includes Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, Tangier Island in Virginia, Olympic National Park in Washington and Red River Gorge in Kentucky.

For travelers looking to get to know the many-varied charms of the Golden State, discovering it through the best beaches in California is never a bad idea. The state's coastline spans a vast 3,427 miles after all. Among its 420 public beautiful beaches are plentiful opportunities to swim, lay out, look at tide pools, surf to your heart's content, or watch the sunset.

Situated on the southern border of Orange County and easily accessible to travelers by Amtrak train or car, San Clemente has all the charm of a close-knit community and all the liveliness of a surfer's paradise. Plus, it's one of the most beautiful towns in the area, with the rolling San Joaquin Hills on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

I may be a bit biased, but I consider the California coastline to be the most scenic and diverse route in the U.S. As a native to the state, I've taken more than 20 road trips over the years, traversing desert terrain, budding vineyards, and cliff-hugging highways that tower above the Pacific Ocean. And though I love the colossal redwood forests in northern California and the gleaming coastline that cradles the state's southern end, there's one road trip I always return to for its access to some of the state's best wineries, restaurants, and charismatic hotels.

The address issue has long been contentious in artsy Carmel-by-the-Sea, where residents once threatened to secede from California if they were forced to number their homes. They argued that the lack of addresses - along with other quirks, such as having no streetlights or sidewalks in residential areas, leading many to walk at night with flashlights - added to the vaunted "village character."