California Travel Guide

California's coastline runs from the Channel Islands' kelp forests to Big Sur's cliffs and Monterey Bay's marine sanctuary — one of the most biodiverse temperate coastlines on Earth, and the birthplace of a lot of the ocean-conservation movement that shapes how the state treats its waters today.

LAX and SFO are the two main international gateways, bookending the coast; Monterey and the Channel Islands are a manageable drive from either.

Diving happens year-round, but visibility is generally clearest in fall (September–November) once summer plankton blooms settle. Great white shark season around the Channel Islands and the Farallones runs roughly August–October; gray whales migrate past the coast December–April.

Fall gives the clearest water of the year for kelp forest diving, right as the shark season and the start of the gray whale migration overlap.

Baja-influenced fish tacos run the length of the Southern California coast, San Francisco claims sourdough and Dungeness crab as its own, and the Central Coast's farm-to-table produce and wine country round out a genuinely serious food state.

California sea lions are a constant presence along the coast, giant kelp forests support an entire ecosystem in their own right, gray whales migrate past twice a year, great white sharks patrol the Channel Islands and Farallones, and elephant seals haul out en masse at Año Nuevo.

Giant kelp forest diving is the state's signature — towering underwater forests off Catalina Island and Monterey that feel like nothing else in the world. It's cold-water, drysuit diving territory, with garibaldi (the state marine fish) as the reliable orange flash between the kelp fronds.