Santa Cruz highlight
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
California's oldest surviving amusement park, founded in 1907 and still operating year-round along Monterey Bay.
The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk opened its gates in 1907 on a 24-acre site along the coast of Monterey Bay. The Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which still operates the park today, has maintained it as a public seaside destination for over 115 years. The boardwalk earned its place in California history as the state's oldest surviving amusement park, and it continues to draw families, tourists, and local residents year-round.
The park is anchored by two structures now designated as National Historic Landmarks: the Looff Carousel, hand-carved and installed in 1911, and the Giant Dipper roller coaster, built in 1924. Beyond these historic rides, the boardwalk offers over thirty attractions ranging from vintage games and arcade experiences to modern thrill rides, as well as food vendors and outdoor gathering spaces. The mixture of heritage and contemporary entertainment has made it one of the most visited amusement parks in California.
For Santa Cruz families, the boardwalk is the kind of place that marks summers and traditions—a school outing, a first roller coaster, a Friday evening walk. Those are the seasons when a family is actively building, growing, and making long-term plans. A term life policy sized to cover the years when someone would be hurt most by the loss of an income—school tuition, a mortgage, childcare—is how those plans are protected.