San Mateo County Coast
The San Mateo County Coastside - a wonderful place to live, a wonderful place to visit. The forty miles of shoreline invite fishing, surfing, picnicking, or absolute lethargy. The weather is always a respite from whatever is going on in the rest of California. It's cool in summer when inland valleys are sweltering; winter varies between exhilarating storms and warm sunny days for whale watching. If there's fog over the hills, it's sunny on the coast and vice versa.

During prohibition, this shoreline was the smuggling base for local Italian and Portuguese fishermen who quenched San Francisco's thirst. Speakeasies, bordellos, and "clubs" have now grown respectable as restaurants and B&Bs.

Pigeon Point
Pigeon Point is named after the US Clipper ship Carrier Pigeon which foundered on the rocks off this point in 1853. The 115-ft high lighthouse was built to guide ships bound for San Francisco from the south. Its five-wick lard oil lamp and first-order Fresnel lens, comprised of 1,008 prisms, was first lit at sunset, November 15, 1872.  The lens is still in place, but is only lit on special occasions. Although the original lens is no longer in use, the lighthouse is still an active U.S. Coast Guard aid to navigation using a 24 inch Aero Beacon.  The tower is one of the two tallest lighthouses on the West Coast.

Franklin Point
Franklin Point is located in the Año Nuevo State Reserve, San Mateo County, California. It is named after the clipper ship the Sir John Franklin.

Año Nuevo Point
On this “Point of the New Year” from December to March, access is permitted only on regularly scheduled guided walks. During these months the female Elephant seals give birth to their pups and the giant bull seals fight for dominance and the privilege of mating with the females.

Davenport
Off the coast of Davenport is an area where, out of all the Pacific Coast, whales pass closest to land on their North-South migrations. The restaurants and shops on the highway are a popular stopping place for visitors driving between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.

Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is a center of the organic agriculture movement, and many specialty products. Tourist attractions include the classic Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on the beach, the redwood forests, and Monterey Bay, which is protected as a marine sanctuary.

Pescadero
A short 10-minute drive from the house brings you to this wonderful little town. It is a mixture of farm workers, artists and old family land owners. A combination of locals and tourists fills Duarte’s Tavern, which is the de facto social center of the town. The restaurant is considered a local landmark and has been awarded the American Classic title by the James Beard Foundation. The Tacqueria des Amigos in the gas station across the street has been hailed by the New York Times as making the best tacos on the California coast. Up the street, Harley Farms makes world-renowned goat cheeses. In the surrounding area, many ranches and homes are owned by celebrities in the entertainment and technology industries. Every year in August the town hosts the Pescadero Art and Fun Festival, with an art exhibit and sale featuring works by local artists. Proceeds from the art sale are donated to provide art education for the Pescadero/La Honda unified school district.

San Gregorio
This town of about 150 people lies approximately a mile inland from the coast and the popular State Beach of the same name. The General Store is the center of social activities and attracts many visitors in the summer. Live music is featured on the weekends and each year the store hosts the Coast Environment Protection Benefit concert featuring some of the Bay Areas finest local musicians raising money for environmental defense efforts.

La Honda
Back in the redwoods, located halfway between the bucolic coastal communities and the bustling cities of the San Francisco peninsula and Silicon Valley lies the small town of La Honda. In the earlier days the La Honda Store was a center for the logging industry and the many mills which cut redwood timber from the surrounding mountains. Today, La Honda is well known as one of the birthplaces of the Psychedelic era. Ken Kesey the author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and other books, owned a home in La Honda, which served as the base of operations for The Merry Pranksters. Residents of the town today are a mixture of coastside workers and “over the hill” executives and engineers.

Half Moon Bay and North
Half Moon Bay has enough historic sites, imaginative food, art galleries, bookstores, and coffee and gift shops to fill several days. There's also horseback riding on the beach and two world-class golf courses. The Ritz Carlton hotel sits on a bluff overlooking the ocean and caters to visitors from all over the world. The annual Pumpkin Festival is host to 200,000 visitors every September.

California's second largest fishing fleet weighs anchor at Pillar Point, where sports fishermen can surf cast or join other boat trips. Walking trails begin here and continue through Half Moon Bay. Bring binoculars for sighting ducks, shorebirds, seals, and the occasional sea otter.

The village of Princeton, located at Pillar Point Harbor, is a destination for boats and aircraft and offers restaurants, quaint shops, and live music, all within walking distance of harbor and airport. Hiking along the bluffs will allow views of Maverick's, a surfing spot renowned for its 100-ft waves, danger, and great difficulty. Every year, world-class surfers converge here for a contest on the huge waves formed by the unusual ocean floor.

Just north in Moss Beach, the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve has ranger-led tours of the finest tide pools south of Mendocino. The Half Moon Bay Airport, located here, has a well-maintained 5,000-foot runway that attracts private pilots from all over the area. The airport is only 28 miles from Pigeon Point.

Tiny Montara, which had its beginnings as an art colony, boasts a wide clean beach, a Victorian lighthouse and a significant population of "lone eagles."

A spectacular drive over Devil’s Slide provides views of the coast and, on a clear day, one can see all the way to Monterey in the south. The road then brings you to Pacifica, a bedroom community and the last of the coastside towns before the hustle and bustle of civilization in San Francisco and the surrounding peninsula towns.

San Francisco
Generally accepted as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, San Francisco is about an hour’s drive from Pigeon Point. Millions of lines of prose, poetry and song have been penned about this unique town, but one must still go there to experience what makes it so special. Other cities in the region may be bigger, warmer, safer, cleaner, more intellectual or more artistic, but none has the combination of things that defines “The City”.

The Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, Alcatraz, Coit Tower, the Presidio, Union Square, the Financial District, Chinatown, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, the Tenderloin, the Castro – these are all features that are part of the heart of San Francisco. There is a pantheon of parks, museums and galleries, and of course there is the opera, the symphony and the theater district. For the sports enthusiast, San Francisco has one of the best of the breed of new baseball parks, situated on the edge of the bay, with spectacular views of Oakland and Berkeley and the East Bay hills.

With some of the best restaurants in the country, a visitor can find food to fit any taste and any budget. Ethnic dishes from all over the world are available throughout the city. The restaurants of chef Gary Danko and chef Michael Mina are at the level of the best in New York or Paris. The North Beach area has every kind of Italian food you can imagine, and most of it great. Chinatown has – what else, some of the best Chinese restaurants in the country, and lots of interesting food items as well. And if you really insist on tourist food, there’s always Fisherman’s Wharf.

State and County Parks
In addition to the beach parks, there are many state and county parks perfect for hiking, biking or camping. In San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties they include Big Basin, Pescadero, Portola, Butano, Memorial and Sam McDonald Parks. Some are quite large and in Big Basin, for example, one can hike from Skyline all the way to the ocean.

Peninsula and Silicon Valley
San Mateo County encompasses most of the area on the peninsula, including 35 cities and towns as well as extensive open space and parkland. Geographically and culturally diverse, it lies between the counties of San Francisco on the north and Santa Clara and Santa Cruz on the south. World renowned Stanford University developed a process that encouraged students to stay in the area and gave them access to venture capital. Hewlett and Packard were early beneficiaries of this program. Over the years, the process was improved and eventually resulted in a growing infrastructure that allowed the development of the silicon chip industry. This was the primary manufacturing business that grew and expanded to become what today is known as Silicon Valley. Today, the area is headquarters to thousands of high technology companies whose product lines reach far beyond the early chip industry.

Transportation
The area is served by three major airports and three private airports:

• San Francisco International (SFO) – located in Burlingame, is 40 miles from Pigeon Point
• Oakland International (OAK) – located in Oakland, is 57 miles from Pigeon Point
• San Jose International (SJC) – located in San Jose, is 60 miles from Pigeon Point
• Half Moon Bay (HAF) – located in Half Moon Bay, is 28 miles from Pigeon Point
• San Carlos Airport (SQL) – located in San Carlos, is 38 miles from Pigeon Point
• Palo Alto Airport (PAO) – located in Palo Alto, is 47 miles from Pigeon Point