Rio del Mar, CA

Rio del Mar is a coastal village in southern Santa Cruz County, part of the Aptos area on Monterey Bay between Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Highway 1 runs just inland, and the village sits between the beach and the redwood hills behind it. The city divides into two neighborhoods with different characters. Rio del Mar itself is the older beach village, a grid of cottages and houses near the Esplanade, with a small commercial strip and a state beach at the end of the main street. Seascape is the planned bluff-top community to the southeast, built around a golf club and a beach resort. Homes across the city range from older beach cottages near the sand to single-family houses along fairways and condo and townhome groups near the resort. Most blocks are residential and quiet. For outdoors, the coast does most of the work. Seacliff State Beach and Manresa State Beach are both a short drive away, and the Forest of Nisene Marks, a state park with miles of trails through second-growth redwoods, is just inland. Aptos Village County Park sits in the village center. Eating and drinking is split between the beach and the village. Cat & Cloud Coffee has a shop in Aptos Village for the morning roast, Venus Spirits runs a beachside bar and kitchen, and Bittersweet Bistro serves dinner with Mediterranean touches. The Aptos History Museum fills in the local story for anyone curious about how the coast developed. Daily life runs on Highway 1. The boulevard connects the beach to the highway, and Aptos Village has the nearest cluster of shops and services beyond the beach strip. Santa Cruz is a drive north and Watsonville a drive south, with La Selva Beach just beyond Seascape. Nearly everything requires a car. The village is walkable, but the beach, the woods and the stores all spread out along the coast, and beach days put heavy traffic on a few roads. The reward is a stretch of coast where the ocean, a redwood canyon and a quiet street are all within a short drive.