The other day, I made a trip to the beach with a friend of mine. I had heard a lot of good things about Panther Beach, specifically how nice and empty it was, so I suggested we go give it a try. I think I now know why it’s so empty though.
As I drove along Highway 1, trying to find Panther Beach, I ended up passing it because I didn’t see a single place to park. Turns out, you need to park right off the road to be able to get to it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that, so I kept driving and parked about a mile past it, in a very small parking strip along the highway. We started walking towards Panther Beach (Google Maps was courteous enough to tell me which direction we needed to go in), and entered the first beach area we saw.
As I drove along Highway 1, trying to find Panther Beach, I ended up passing it because I didn’t see a single place to park. Turns out, you need to park right off the road to be able to get to it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that, so I kept driving and parked about a mile past it, in a very small parking strip along the highway. We started walking towards Panther Beach (Google Maps was courteous enough to tell me which direction we needed to go in), and entered the first beach area we saw.
We didn’t quite make it to Panther Beach yet, though. However, what we did find was a cliff with a very nice view.
As we headed back, we saw a sign saying that the cliff wasn’t stable and that we should stay away from it. Oops.
We carried on with our mission to find the elusive Panther Beach, this time along the railroad track as to avoid all the cars passing by (NOTE: We weren’t actually on the tracks, just off to the side). After a short hike, we finally made it!
Ah, the beach was so serene. It was so relaxing. Unfortunately, there was a lot of trash between the beach and the trek down from the railroad tracks. It’s a shame, really.
We decided to leave the beach and head to downtown Santa Cruz though because food. I didn’t take a lot of pictures there, unfortunately, since we got kind of lost oops.