Monterey voted happiest seaside town in California
The City of Montereyis rated the happiest seaside town in California byCoastal Livingmagazine and #7 on its 2015 list of “happiest seaside towns in America.”
Every year,Coastal Livingsearches for the best coastal places to call home — for a weekend or a lifetime. Here’s what the online listing says about Monterey:
“Thriving with riches when San Francisco was still just a gritty gold miner’s outpost, Monterey was California’s pre-statehood first capital in 1777 and has retained an allure and personality suffused with arts, culture, history, and myriad natural gifts.
It begins with Monterey Bay, home to abundant marine life, including sea lions, harbor seals, pelicans, dolphins, and sea otters that bob and float near shore. Those marine riches inspired one of the city’s legacies—fishing—which still carries on from the end of Fisherman’s Wharf near the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium,with its 35,000 critters and plants. And it’s also reflected in Cannery Row, both immortalized by local author John Steinbeck and kept alive by restored packing and canning buildings now filled with lively shops and restaurants, which line the waterfront.
And while Monterey has long attracted writers and artists to live and work here,it also draws thousands of visitors to its many annual festivals, most famously the Monterey Jazz Festival. Beachcombers consider Monterey’s beaches a paradise for finding rare sea glass and a wealth of seashells; locals love Del Monte Beach, the insider’s spot for finds. Finally, Monterey County is the site of one of America’s greatest golf courses, Pebble Beach, where the greens never cease to stun with their sheer drama, spread out on cliffs above the pounding Pacific surf.”
Theeditors ofCoastal Livingcompiled the list by reviewing all of the destinations that have been Coastal Living Dream Towns, along with towns that were nominated by readers via social media.
Among the parameters involved in narrowing down the list were each town’s rank on the Gallup Well-Being Index, the year-round percentage of clear and sunny days, overall beach health and standard of living.
The Happiest Seaside Towns in America will be featured in the July/August issue ofCoastal Livingavailable on newsstands June 19 th .
