"Santa Cruz"
If you are thinking of visiting California, Los Angeles and San Francisco are very good places to visit. But if you would like to go off the beaten track, you might want to visit Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz, California may not be a well known tourist spot among Japanese people, but it is a good place to visit for someone who would like to have a relaxing day. It is about a two hour drive south from San Francisco. It is a midsize beach town with a population of approximately 55,000(fifty-five thousand.) The summer temperatures are very mild in the mid 70s (about 24 degrees Celsius) and winter temperatures are in the mid 50s (about 13 degrees Celsius.)
There are many places to visit in Santa Cruz. You could go shopping in downtown Santa Cruz, visit UCSC (University of California, Santa Cruz), have fun at the beachside amusement park, have fresh seafood at the wharf, or just take a stroll on one of many beaches in Santa Cruz. My favorite beach is a beach fifteen minutes from downtown Santa Cruz along Highway 1. Other beaches in Santa Cruz are much larger and provide facilities such as bonfire pits and volleyball courts, but this one is my favorite because it is quiet and deserted. However, the only drawback to visiting this beach is that sometimes there are people walking around in the nude. There was one occasion when five naked men in their mid 40s were playing Frisbee.
If you ever have a chance to visit Northern California, I would highly recommend you to visit Santa Cruz.