Monterey

Life in still delightfully rough-around-the-edges Monterey revolves around the sea. The city's biggest draw is a world-class aquarium overlooking Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which protects dense kelp forests and a sublime variety of marine life, including seals and sea lions, dolphins and whales. The aquarium sits on the edge of Cannery Row, which made Monterey the sardine capital of the world in the 1930s. Today it's an unabashedly touristic strip lined with souvenir shops and standard eateries in faux retro buildings. For more authenticity, take a stroll past downtown's cluster of restored buildings from the Spanish and Mexican periods.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey
Monterey is practically synonymous with its world-class aquarium overlooking Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which protects dense kelp forests and…
Pacific House
Monterey
Find out what's currently open at Monterey State Historic Park, grab a free map and buy tickets for guided walking tours inside this 1847 adobe building,…
Monterey State Historic Park
Monterey
Old Monterey is home to an extraordinary assemblage of 19th-century brick and adobe buildings administered as a state park and linked by a 2-mile self…
Monterey Museum of Art
Monterey
Downtown, MMA Pacific Street is particularly strong in California contemporary art and modern landscape painters and photographers, including Ansel Adams…
Royal Presidio Chapel & Heritage Center Museum
Monterey
Built of sandstone in 1794, this graceful chapel is California’s oldest continuously functioning parish and first stone building. The original 1770…
Dali17
Monterey
Escaping WWII in Europe, Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí lived and worked in the Monterey and Carmel area in the 1940s. Comprising over 300 Dalí…
Stevenson House
Monterey
Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson came to Monterey in 1879 to court his wife-to-be, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. This building, then the French Hotel…
Cannery Row
Monterey
John Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row immortalized the sardine-canning business that was Monterey’s lifeblood for the first half of the 20th century. A…