
If you’re not a fan of crowds, another good beach to visit is New Brighton State Beach.Īlthough New Brighton State Beach isn’t located in the Village, it’s just a short drive away and offers a less touristy feel than Capitola City Beach. Hint: If you can’t find parking in the Village, you can park on the hill along Cliff Drive and walk down. Really, the only downsides to Capitola Beach are how crowded it gets in the summer and how hard it can be to find parking.
#Shadowbrook santa cruz movie
There’s also a good surf spot just beyond the east end of the beach.Īnd during the summer, Capitola Beach has a free evening movie and concert series for a magical night full of entertainment under the stars. The Soquel Creek cuts through the beach for kids to play in if they want a calmer place than the ocean. There’s a beautiful view of Monterey Bay, the Capitola Wharf, and the colorful Capitola Venetian Hotel nearby that makes you feel like you might be in Italy. There’s plenty of space for families, friends, or solo beachgoers to lay out on blankets. It’s conveniently located next to all of the shops and restaurants. You can’t go to a beach town and not enjoy the beach!Ĭapitola Beach is right next to the Esplanade in the village and is one of the most popular beaches to visit in Santa Cruz during the summer.Īnd it’s not hard to see why – it has everything you could possibly need in a beach. Note: this post contains affiliate links, which help run this site at no extra cost to you so I can keep providing free travel advice and tips. These are my picks for the best things to do in Capitola, California – from the beach to the restaurants, and all of the unique local hideaways in between. I’ve done just about everything there is to do in Capitola throughout my years of living in the area.Īnd because of that, I wanted to condense this post down into my top recommendations so you can get the most out of visiting one of my favorite areas in Santa Cruz. Its natural beauty and quieter feel compared to the mania of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk area and the busyness of downtown is hard to beat. Maybe it’s because of how much time I’ve spent there over the years, but the east side of Santa Cruz County is one of my favorite spots in town. I lived just up the hill from the Village during a good chunk of my adolescence and then in different spots around the greater Capitola area like Live Oak and Pleasure Point. I spent a lot of time in Capitola when I was growing up. When I think of summer in Santa Cruz, Capitola is one of the first places I think of because, even in the winter, it oozes that feeling of laid-back summer days near the ocean. This is especially the case for Capitola Village, which is a picturesque seaside community with plenty of shopping, restaurants, and seasonal events that locals and tourists enjoy alike. If you think the city of Santa Cruz is a cute beach town, Capitola is a condensed version of that on steroids.

Only about 70 miles south of San Francisco, Capitola is a tucked-away seaside gem in Santa Cruz County.


From someone who grew up next to its colorful and sandy shores, these are the best things to do in Capitola, California.
