Santa Cruz County
From redwood-shrouded Boulder Creek to the agricultural fields of Watsonville, Santa Cruz County is as diverse a destination for DogTrekkers as it is diverse in economy and geography.
Dog-friendly lodging abounds, and it’s not hard to find a restaurant with seasonal outdoor seating where you can enjoy a good meal with Fido by your side (Aldo’s in Santa Cruz is perhaps the best known). If wine-tasting is your pleasure, vintners of the Santa Cruz Mountains stand ready to welcome you and your four-legged friend. You can even bring your pet along on a water taxi ride or a scenic steam-train excursions operated by the historic Roaring Camp & Big Trees Railroad.
When it comes to beaches, keep a leash at the ready. Half a dozen strands permit dog walking, but only one, Mitchell’s Cove Beach, allows legal off-leash play, and only at certain hours. The county’s numerous state parks are similarly restrictive, confining visitors with dogs to campgrounds and paved roads.
The City of Santa Cruz, a college town renowned for its liberal politics and tolerant outlook on just about everything, is slowly coming to terms with contemporary attitudes towards canines. Last year, at the urging of merchants, residents and baffled visitors, city officials lifted a decades-long ban on dogs downtown. DogTrekkers need stray a only few blocks from busy Pacific Avenue to explore the pet-friendly harbor or join the stream of locals parading with their pets along scenic West Cliff Drive.
This broad, sandy beach at the base of a bluff south of Santa Cruz stretches for about a mile and features wide-open views, picnic areas, campground, interpretive center, fishing pier and, curiously, the hull of a concrete freighter. more »
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It's hard to beat a day in the redwoods, especially if the day includes a ride on a narrow-gauge railroad once used to haul redwood logs out of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Roaring Camp Railroad's vintage steam engines date to the 1890s, but today they haul people—and dogs, if leashed and well behaved—on a scenic route through towering redwood groves and up a winding grade to the summit of Bear Mountain. more »