Monterey, California, the oldest city in California, was founded in 1770. It has approximetly 30,000 residents, an average high temperature 0f 65.3 degrees, an average low temperature of 47.8 degrees, receives rain an average of 67 days a year and is on the Monterey Peninsula which has over 98 miles of coastline.
The beautiful city of Monterey is approximetly 115 miles south of San Francisco and 350 miles north of Los Angeles. It can be reached by air, car, train, boat and bus. Just getting to Monterey is an experience in itself. For most of your trip you will have California’s gorgeous coastline on one side and beautiful forests and mountains on the other. In my opinion, the best way to visit Monterey is by car. Just driving through the Monterey Peninsula, with all of it’s beautiful scenery and old Spanish architecture, can be an experience of a lifetime.
Whether you enjoy, lying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, surfing, sport or surf fishing, golfing, shopping, visiting art galleries, antiquing, dining, sightseeing, whale watching, taking romantic walks along the beach or just relaxing in a luxury hotel, you can do it in Monterey and you can do it without fighting heavy traffic, without being crowded and without breaking the bank.
Discover Old Fisherman’s Wharf with it’s great restaurants, seafood, unique shops, whale watching, fishing, and bay cruises, theatre, and the sights and sounds of Monterey’s past. Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium with it’s over 200 award-winning galleries and exhibits and it’s approximately 550 different species of marine life. Play golf at Pebble Beach Golf Links which was ranked the No. 1 Public Course in America by Golf Digest in 2005. Take one of the numerous whale watching boat cruises and watch Grey and Killer whales, dolohins, turtles, porpoises, sea lions and more. Go sport fishing for Albacore, Cod, Flounder, Halibut, Salmon, Sea Bass, and Sole. Visit one of the hundreds of art galleries on the Peninsula. Stay at hotels like the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel with it’s onsite 18-hole Del Monte Golf Course and it’s heated outdoor swimming pools or the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa which combines elegant European architecture, wide-sweeping coastal views and sophisticated style to create the perfect vantage point by which to enjoy the gentle sounds of surf, the fresh scent of sea air and the sight of sea otters at play. If all that is not enough for you, take a drive up the coast and in less than two enjoyable hours you can be in San Francisco, eating in Chinatown or enjoying the nightlife.