Visit Santa Cruz County (VSCC) announces the launch of a new website design, incorporating enhanced functionality and leveraging four portions of the site that garner the most traffic overall on the homepage.  

With the VSCC blog content generating approximately 50 percent of the traffic to the site, three blog stories are featured on a seasonal basis on the homepage. A scrollable photo-centric carousel featuring upcoming events highlights one of the more popular portions of the website. To provide orientation, a redesigned countywide map with featured destinations within Santa Cruz County clicks through to designated landing pages devoted to Scotts Valley, Davenport, Capitola, Santa Cruz, Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley, Soquel, Pleasure Point, Corralitos, Aptos and the mountain towns of Boulder Creek, Felton, Brookdale, Bonny Doon and Ben Lomond. Finally, elevating the visibility of VSCC’s Instagram platform, two dozen of the latest posts showcase the beauty of the county through bite-sized, aspirational photos and videos.     

Santacruz.org continues to enable visitors to book a hotel stay online, search for activities and events, and find places to eat, enjoy coffee and sweets, and sample local beer and wine. Blog stories illustrate each themed landing page, linking the visitor to more detailed information about restaurants, activities, and more – as well as the ability to search for events or attractions by date, type, or region.    

The navigation has been divided into two categories for both consumers and businesses with refined and created new layouts for the Spotlight Featured Business program and free online listings for local businesses.  

To maximize its presence on the internet, VSCC optimized the website for better search engine optimization (SEO), improving the ranking of the site in search engine results. VSCC is extending its adventure-seeking Find Your Awe™ brand as it employs a less literal creative suite of images and video, embracing a more emotive esthetic. These cost-effective methods allow VSCC to reach repeat as well as new visitors to Santa Cruz County in an informal and savvy way, on trend with other DMOs.    

According to a recent survey, nearly 8 in 10 (78%) Americans always or frequently research and book at least some portion of their trips online.    

A new staging area at Año Nuevo State Park will welcome visitors in time for seasonal guided elephant seal tours during the winter breeding season. This new interpretive staging area is the gateway to the Natural Preserve, providing guests with interactive opportunities to explore the park’s natural and cultural wonders.

The former staging area was demolished, and construction of the new staging area  began in July 2024. This renovated space features improved interpretative structure, a new restroom, two new benches, and other infrastructure updates. The upgrades will offer a better year-round experience for park visitors, effectively establishing an identifiable entrance to the natural preserve and a facility for volunteers and staff to facilitate interpretation. 

Ano Nuevo is one of the largest breeding grounds in the world for northern elephant seals, which come ashore to give birth and mate from early December through March. Pregnant females come ashore to pup from late December to early February, and mothers nurse their pups for about a month before mating and returning to the sea. Pups remain behind through March, basking in the sun and learning to swim in the intertidal zones.  

Año Nuevo State Park offers docent-guided walks between December 15 and March 31, which feature elephant seals in their natural habitat. To view the elephant seals during this season, visitors must be on a guided walk, which requires a four mile moderate hike over varied terrain, including sand dunes. The walks last about two and a half hours.  

The new staging area was made possible through a collaboration with California State Parks, Coastside State Parks Association, and Friends of California State Parks.

There are approximately 400 migratory and permanent bird species found throughout Santa Cruz County, and thousands of monarch butterflies, whales, and elephant seals which call the area home on a seasonal basis.  Avid wildlife viewers now have an updated resource, thanks to Visit Santa Cruz County’s Wildlife Watching Guide. 

Now in its seventh printing, the free 56-page guide is designed to help navigate the various communities adjacent to premiere birding destinations throughout the county.  The guide includes information on a variety of habitats, from sandy beaches to lagoons, wetlands and river mouths, as well as descriptions and fresh photography of the some of the area’s most commonly seen birds, wildlife and the best times of the year to view them.  The San Vicente Redwoods is a recent addition to the guide. 

Information on where and how to view wintering monarch butterflies, migrating whales and elephant seals is also featured.  The guide provides maps of birding and wildlife hotspots, points of interest and itineraries. 

The printed guide can be mailed within the U.S. through an online request form and is also available to download.  

Alongside nearly a dozen new Downtown Santa Cruz restaurants featuring carefully curated farm-to-table menu items, a unique new spot dedicated to soothing one’s sweet tooth has opened its doors.  This locally-owned shop features a singular specialty product, crafted with care – bringing the total number of sugar-forward businesses in Downtown Santa Cruz to a half-dozen.  Now, frozen dessert lovers can rejoice, with the opening of Nico’s Real Fruit Ice Cream. 

Portland-based Nico’s chose Santa Cruz as its second location on the Central Coast, following its first shop on Cannery Row in Monterey.  This New Zealand-style ice cream begins with a vanilla ice cream base blended with frozen fruit into a smooth soft serve. Choices of fruit include strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and marionberries, which can be topped with spicy tajín, sour chamoy, graham cracker dust, coconut flakes or rainbow sprinkles.  

This downtown shop joins five others which exclusively feature ice cream, cookies, and candy: The Penny Ice Creamery, Mission Creamery, Ashby Confections, Pacific Cookie Company and It’s Sugar. 

One of Santa Cruz’s historic beachfront properties has added a year-around enhanced experience for corporate and leisure groups seeking an intimate atmosphere for connection and conversation. The Dream Inn Santa Cruz’s Bonfire Party Package on Cowell Beach provides a perfect setting for watching the sunset and enjoying beachside treats under the stars.  

Bonfire experiences include exclusive beach space for up to 60 guests and three firepits, classic beach chairs, chopped firewood, serving tables, music, blankets, premium ingredients for s’mores, and a range of choices for hot drinks including locally roasted coffee and hot chocolate complete with liqueurs. Setup and breakdown service is included, so guests can cozy up to a beach fire and at the end of the evening, Dream Inn staff will clean up and extinguish the fire, ensuring their commitment to coastal stewardship. 

The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), is debuting Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures in Santa Cruz, an exhibition taking place through May 18, 2025 in collaboration with the online phenomenon and community of the same name (AWA). The exhibition takes guests on a worldwide visual journey to the most beautiful, idiosyncratic locations — including Santa Cruz County — with each photo tinged with the unmistakable esthetic of filmmaker Wes Anderson. 

The MAH exhibition, includes a selection of community-sourced images of quirky places and locales from California’s Central Coast. Some images pay homage to the 2024 centennial celebration of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s Giant Dipper roller coaster, the oldest coaster in California that opened in 1924. 

The exhibition highlights Santa Cruz’s history and architecture alongside similarly-inspired images from around the globe. Through collaboration with UC Santa Cruz and resident artists in the county, the photos provide a glimpse into the ubiquitous Anderson-esque aspects of the city.  

The MAH is open Thursday through Sunday from Noon to 6:00 p.m.