Santa Cruz, CA Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

After the overcharged tourism of Monterey, the unassuming community of SANTA CRUZ , 75 miles south of San Francisco, comes as a surprise. Although in many ways the quintessential Californian coastal town, spread at the foot of thickly wooded mountains beside a clean sandy beach, it has grown considerably in the last few years, having recovered from the destruction wrought by the 1989 earthquake. In the Sixties, the Merry Pranksters turned the local youth on to LSD long before it defined a generation in San Francisco's Summer of Love, and the area is still among the most politically and socially progressive in … more »