Must-see attractions in Monterey

  • Top Choice
    Monterey Bay Aquarium

    Monterey is practically synonymous with its world-class aquarium overlooking Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which protects dense kelp forests and…

  • Pacific House

    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

    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…

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    Monterey Museum of Art

    Downtown, MMA Pacific Street is particularly strong in California contemporary art and modern landscape painters and photographers, including Ansel Adams…

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    Dali17

    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…

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    Stevenson House

    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

    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…

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    Custom House

    In 1822, a newly independent Mexico ended the Spanish trade monopoly and stipulated that any traders bringing goods to Alta (Upper) California must first…

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    Cooper-Molera Adobe

    This stately early-19th-century adobe home was built by John Rogers Cooper, a New England sea captain, and three generations of his family resided here…

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    Monterey Museum of Art – La Mirada

    Southeast of downtown Monterey, MMA La Mirada is a silent-film star’s villa, a building whose humble adobe origins are exquisitely concealed. It is now…

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    Cannery Workers Shacks

    The trio of tiny original one-room cabins where cannery workers shacked up provides a sobering reminder of the hard lives led by Filipino, Japanese,…

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    Colton Hall

    Peek inside brick Colton Hall, where California’s first constitutional convention took place in 1849. Once the capitol of Alta (Upper) California, today…

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    Presidio of Monterey Museum

    On the grounds of the original Spanish fort, this specialized museum (of interest only to history buffs) looks at Monterey’s history from a military…

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    Old Monterey Jail

    Featured in John Steinbeck’s novel Tortilla Flat, this small granite prison was built in 1856. Over a century of use, not one prisoner ever escaped.

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    California's First Theater

    Originally built as a lodging house and tavern in 1847, and used as a theater from 1850, this building is currently closed for renovation.

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    Steinbeck Plaza

    Along Cannery Row, stop at Steinbeck Plaza to soak up bay views and snap a photo of yourself with a bronze bust of the famous writer.

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    Old Whaling Station

    Open to the public, this fine adobe structure was originally built in 1847 by Scottish settler, David Wight.