Carlsbad California Vacation Tips

Known as The Village by the Sea, Carlsbad has beautiful sandy beaches, three unique lagoons, two luxurious resorts, outstanding shopping and world class sporting events. Carlsbad, California, is located in North County San Diego.

The North County beach communities include Solana Beach, Encinitas, Cardiff By The Sea and Carlsbad. Each community is offers magnificent ocean views and cooling sea breezes.

Batiquitos Lagoon is a coastal wetland north of San Diego between the cities of Carlsbad and Encinitas. It is one of the few remaining tidal wetlands on the southern California coast of the United States. The area is run by the California Department of Fish and Game as a nature reserve.

The Carlsbad coast runs six miles and is home to two popular beaches: Carlsbad State Beach and South Ponto Beach. The beaches are wide and sandy in many places. The shoreline is interrupted only by a few water inlets. Carlsbad beaches are mostly hidden below ocean bluffs, away from busy Highway 101 and Carlsbad residential areas, offering a peaceful atmosphere.

A popular attraction is the Flower Fields. On an incredibly beautiful site overlooking the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of thousands of brilliant colored blossoms adorn the hillsides from March through May every year. The sight is so absolutely mesmerizing that tens of thousands of flower lovers tour the fields each spring to walk among the flowers.

There are dozens of lodging choices in Carlsbad. You can find Carlsbad Inn, Carlsbad Marriott, Carlsbad Hyatt and the Tamarack Beach Hotel, plus some funky Carlsbad Bed and Breakfasts.

Carlsbad has its share of upscale resorts as well. These resorts are wonderful, albeit expensive. Vacation condos available for weekly vacation rentals also have a resort flavor. A very prestigious and well-known upscale resort is La Costa Resort and Spa. The ambiance of this resort surrounds you from the moment you enter the gates. The grounds and facility are lovely and picturesque, the beauty and leisurely charm of Southern California enveloping you. Regarded as one of the finest resorts in the world, La Costa guests enjoy a dazzling spa, a world-class golf course, informal sophistication and extraordinary service.

Of all the Carlsbad Hotels the only one that is (1) cute, (2) romantic with (3) views of the ocean for (4) under $170 a night is the Inn at Moonlight Beach.

Author Hunefeld retired as a corporate president in several years ago to sail the ocean observing seabirds and marine mammals. He and his wife Ann own the lovely Inn at Moonlight Beach on the in Encinitas California. If you are looking for Encinitas hotels or Solana Beach hotels be sure to check out the Inn at Moonlight Beach.

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The Surfing Community of Encinitas

Encinitas California is blessed with 6 miles of gorgeous beaches, eleven of them! Whether its surfing, swimming, scuba diving, boogie-boarding, sunning, reading a book, jogging, volley-balling or just basking in the serenity of a secluded beach, Encinitas is a great place to be 12 months a year.

If you like to work out, you’ll find what you’re looking for at Stone Steps Beach. You can run these stairs 5 times every morning and be in the best shape of your life. These steep stairs lead down from the top bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and offer fantastic views to enjoy while you work out. At high tide the ocean comes right up to the bottom of the stairs. At low tides, the beach is wide and sandy.

Swami’s Surf Beach, forever immortalized in the Beach Boys Surfin USA, is just five blocks south of Moonlight Beach on historic Highway 101 and still draws the finest surfers in the world on a daily basis. Great scuba diving is just offshore from Swamis at the Encinitas Marine Life Refuge, North San Diego’s underwater park.

Moonlight Beach is a only a four minute walk from a wonderful little Bed and Breakfast Inn called the Inn at Moonlight Beach. Stone Steps Beach, Beacon’s and Grandview surfing and bathing beaches are north of Moonlight Beach, all within walking distance or a brief drive up Neptune Avenue.

You can learn to surf by taking a class at Beacons Beach from Kahuna Bob, a well-known icon in Encinitas. Bob’s classes are fun and you really do learn to surf.

Moonlight Beach is often called the beach with everything because it has lifeguard towers, a children’s playground, big parking lots, play areas, fire-rings, showers, restrooms, beach rentals, a great little snack bar and a beautiful wide sandy beach with lots of volleyball courts.

Following are three websites with helpful hotel and B&B information when you visit San Diego, Encinitas or other surrounding communities: Carlsbad Bed and Breakfasts and Del Mar California Hotels.

Terry Hunefeld retired as CEO of a San Diego training corporation to follow his love of exploring the ocean to study seabirds and marine animals. Terry and Ann Dunham own and operate the Inn At Moonlight Beach in Encinitas near Solana Beach and San Diego. For more information visit: Del Mar Beach Hotels or Carlsbad B&B.

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Del Mar California Is The Place For Fantastic Sunsets

Can you imagine a sun-filled vacation getaway to a quiet, scenic town on the endless Pacific Ocean? This paradise has charming hotels and inns, unbelievable restaurants and absolutely gorgeous beaches. If this sounds good to you, know that those elements are all available in the lovely town of Del Mar, California.

Del Mar is Spanish for “of the sea” because it is located right on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. It’s lauded by travel critics as one of the most beautiful and delicious resort beach towns in the world. Here you will find delightful lagoons, five-star restaurants, romantic bed and breakfast inns, scenic jogging trails, myriad vacation options, sandy beaches and a one-of-a-kind horse racing track

Del Mar has been home to Hollywood celebrities starting in the 1940’s. Bing Crosby and Jimmy Durante made the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club become one of the most famous and prestigious horse racing organizations in the entire world. Angie Dickenson and Burt Bacharach purchased residences in Del Mar. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez were regulars at the track and at Del Mar’s restaurants. Brad Pitt recently purchased a home here in Del Mar – an $18 million dollar beachfront home – so now Brad sightings are the new talk of the town.

Del Mar is a tiny community consisting of only two square miles along the Pacific Ocean in Northern San Diego County. Solana Beach is it’s neighbor on the north, while Torrey Pines State Reserve and La Jolla border on the south. The population of Del Mar is somewhere between 4000 and 5000 residents (depending on who does the counting). “Del-Marians” live among beautiful sandstone canyons or on bluff tops overlooking the ocean – and they all enjoy gorgeous sunsets.

Del Mar is home to the endangered Torrey Pine, the rarest species of pine tree in the United States. Only two populations of this endangered species exist – one in Torrey Pines State Reserve the other in Del Mar proper.

Each summer Del Mar plays host to the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The fair originally opened in 1936, the site selected because it was the perfect spot just off the main highways – while still being near the ocean’s cooling breezes on hot summer days. Selection of a fair queen – Fairest of the Fair – is still a fail highlight each summer.

Bing Crosby took a leading role in helping make the now-world-famous Del Mar Race Track a reality. On July 3, 1937, the Del Mar Race Track opened. Newspapers called the track “Bing’s Baby”. In 1938 Bing recorded a song that would open and close every day of racing since those early days – Where The Turf Meets the Surf.

Terry Hunefeld retired as a corporate CEO in 2007 to spend more time at sea. He now serves on the board of directors of a local Audubon Society and leads charter voyages to sea to observe and census seabirds and marine mammals. For more info, click Bed and Breakfasts in San Diego or Beach Hotels in Encinitas.

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Fun Outdoor Activities Not To Miss While Visiting La Jolla

San Diego is often called America’s finest city – and La Jolla is the gem of San Diego – a beautiful community situated along San Diego’s Pacific Coast. People flock to La Jolla, captivated by its trendy boutique-lined streets gemmed with art, clothing, jewelry, gifts and other shopping destinations. Indulgent soft sand beaches, amazing weather, laid back people and an abundance of activities make La Jolla a visitor’s paradise. Here are five activities that should not be missed.

Children’s Pool (850 Coast Boulevard) was originally designed as a safe place for children to wade into the ocean; it’s now home to dozens of wild Harbor Seals and their pups. Many consider the seals to be one of the most fun sights in La Jolla because the seals are so up-close and persona.. A cement walkway allows visitors to walk out over the ocean while waves and surf crash around them. The walkway provides a wonderful vantage from which to enjoy the antics of the Harbor Seals basking and playing just a few feet away.

La Jolla Cove is situated along a bay sheltered from the ocean’s surge. Its soft sandy beach offers great sun bathing, swimming and surfing; the clear waters along the offshore reefs provide excellent snorkeling and scuba diving opportunities. In the summer and autumn months the surf is gentle, the water warms into the 70s, and the beaches are busy with swimmers, scuba divers and surfers making it a great place for participating or just people watching.

Visit The Cave Store. What would you expect to find in a “cave store” – maybe some fossils or seashells? There’s more. Here you will find a hole in the floor of the store leading to a 100 year old hand-dug tunnel that descends down to the only sea cave in California that you can enter by land – the wonderful and spooky Sunny Jim Cave. The smells, the sounds, the feel! You can hear water trickling down the walls of the tunnel as you go down… down… down 143 steps, until you walk out onto a small wooden dock into the cave, the ocean crashing on rocks around you, gulls nesting in tucked-away places above.

Mount Soledad has the best drive-up views of San Diego. Take Nautilus Street up to the park at the top where you are met with incredible views. On a clear day you can look north along the coast into Orange County or south into Mexico. The park is home to an enormous cross that looks majestically down from the mountain, visible from more than 10 miles away. Interestingly, Mount Soledad holds the last home lived in by Dr. Seuss. His widow, Audrey Geisel still lives on Mt. Soledad in an abandoned observation tower that is referred to as “the Seuss House” by local residents.

Situated over the ocean on sandstone bluffs north of La Jolla, between Torrey Pines Park and La Jolla Farms, The Torrey Pines Gliderport is designated specifically for today’s gliders. On days when the winds are just right, gliders line the cliffs, waiting for the perfect gust to carry them into the sky. The graceful navigators riding the sea breezes in their brightly colored gliders attract admiring spectators up and down the Torrey Pines shoreline year-round. You can fly like a bird by going tandem with an instructor after a 30-minute ground school, then up and away off the edge of a 300 foot cliff out over the ocean, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Following are two websites with helpful lodging information about La Jolla and nearby beach towns and surfing communities: Bed and Breakfasts in Carlsbad and Del Mar Hotels.

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