Where to Stay in Santa Monica, California

What is Santa Monica known for?

Santa Monica is known for its pier and its wide Pacific beach. The Santa Monica Pier reaches out over the water with Pacific Park and the Pacific Wheel turning above the deck, and Muscle Beach draws crowds to the sand at its foot. Along the shore, the Heal the Bay Aquarium sits under the pier, and the California Heritage Museum keeps the town's story in an old house nearby.

St. Monica Catholic Church rises among the streets back from the water. The beach defines the place.

What are the main landmarks in Santa Monica?

Santa Monica gathers its landmarks on the pier and along the shore. The Santa Monica Pier carries Pacific Park and the Pacific Wheel out over the water, and the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome shelters the old carousel on the deck. The Heal the Bay Aquarium sits beneath the pier, while Muscle Beach draws its crowds to the sand at the shore's edge.

Heritage stands inland too. The California Heritage Museum keeps the town's story in an old house, St. Monica Catholic Church rises among the streets, and the Museum of Flying holds the aviation heritage out by the old airfield.

What is the history of Santa Monica?

Santa Monica traces its roots to 1769, when a Spanish expedition crossed the coastal plain of California and left the saint's name on the land above the Pacific shore. For decades it stayed ranch country on the bluffs over the water, cattle grazing the plain where the town would rise. The sea drew the settlement out.

A resort grew along the beach as the railway reached the coast, and a pleasure pier was built out over the surf, its old carousel still turning inside the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome on the deck. The amusement park followed on the pier, the rides that became Pacific Park spinning above the water where the Pacific Wheel now turns. Aviation shaped the inland flats in the following century, and a great aircraft works rose by the airfield whose story the Museum of Flying keeps out on the plain.

The California Heritage Museum holds the town's older houses in the streets back from the shore, and St. Monica Catholic Church stands from the growing city among them. The bluffs held the beach town above the sea. Its name endured.

The pier still reaches out over the water.

Where is Santa Monica?

Santa Monica sits on the Pacific shore in California, on a coastal plain that ends at a line of low bluffs above the beach. The city spreads across the level ground back from the sand, its grid running inland from the water until the plain rises toward the surrounding hills. Its wide beach runs along a broad bay.

The bluffs edge the sea. Boats and swimmers work the water off the Santa Monica Pier, and downtown holds the old centre near the California Heritage Museum, back from the shore.

What is the climate of Santa Monica?

Santa Monica has a mild Mediterranean climate, tempered by the Pacific along its shore in California. Summers are warm and dry, the sun holding steady over the beach for months while a sea breeze cools the shore through the afternoons and morning fog often greys the coast. Winters stay cool.

The wet season brings the year's rain in from the ocean before the long dry stretch returns, and the water keeps the air even along the bluffs. Hard frost is rare on the coastal plain.

How do you get to Santa Monica?

Santa Monica is well linked across California. A major international airport lies just south along the coast, handling West Coast and long-haul flights within easy reach of the shore. A light-rail line runs east from the beach toward the wider metropolitan grid, ending near the downtown streets and the pier.

Freeways cross behind the city. They feed traffic to the shore from every direction across the coastal plain, while buses reach the beachfront, the promenade, and the airfield district by the Museum of Flying.