Lovers Point and Pacific Grove, Just Past Cannery Row
1.5 Miles | 5 Minutes Drive
Keep walking west past the end of Cannery Row and you are in Pacific Grove, a quiet Victorian seaside town that many visitors never quite reach. From Cannery Row Inn it is about five minutes by car, or a flat, easy walk of roughly half an hour on the Monterey Bay Coastal Recreation Trail.
Lovers Point Park is the town's front yard: a small sheltered beach, lawns for a picnic, and rocks where you can watch the surf and the seabirds. From here the shoreline path follows Ocean View Boulevard toward Point Pinos, with tide pools, harbor seals, and sea otters in the kelp along the way. In late fall and winter, the Monarch Grove Sanctuary a few blocks inland is one of the places monarch butterflies gather for the season.
Tips
- Walk there on the Coastal Recreation Trail and leave the car behind. The route passes the Monterey Bay Aquarium on the way.
- Bring a light jacket. The point catches the wind off the bay even on sunny days.
- Check the city site for the monarch season and docent hours before you go.
Photo: Lovers Point Park - Pacific Grove, CA - DSC06531 by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC0. Resized; website renditions may be cropped and converted to WebP for display. This license applies only to the photograph.
