Half-Moon Bay is one of the best kept secrets on the Pacific Coast, a one-half-hour drive south of San Francisco.Half-Moon Bay is one of the best kept secrets on the Pacific Coast, a one-half-hour drive south of San Francisco.
Half-Moon Bay is one of the best kept secrets on the Pacific Coast, a one-half-hour drive south of San Francisco. This six-mile-square ocean village, once known as Spanishtown, is the oldest settlement in San Mateo County. The sleepy little town played a prominent role in the growth of the Ocean Shore Railroad at the turn of the 20th century and was a popular resort and haven for notorious rumrunners in the 1930s.
Half-Moon Bay offers a quaint ocean community for lodging, with more than a dozen bed-&-breakfasts, quality motels, and restaurants that cater to every budget. The renowned Ritz-Carlton, Half-Moon Bay, sits on a bluff overlooking the ocean and provides the perfect luxury escape. With breath-taking ocean views, elegant designer furnishings, rooms with fire-pits on the terrace and coed Roman mineral baths in the spa, this a perfect ocean paradise. Add a conservatory lounge and bar, gourmet dining in public or private rooms, a wine room with five thousand bottles from sommelier-selected vintages, and thirty-six links of golf -- well, it doesn't get much finer than this.
The Miramar Beach Restaurant & Bar, originally a Prohibition Era speakeasy, was renovated to provide ocean views from every seat in an elegant island bar surrounded by ocean on four sides. The Miramar is open day for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch, as well as weddings and private parties.
Historic main street has dozens of unique shops featuring apparel, arts, crafts and antiques. Local activities include surfing, yachting, sport fishing for tuna and salmon, and horseback riding along the bluffs and shores of Sunset Beach. For nature lovers there's whale watching, birding, hiking in the redwoods and mountains, and berry picking on local farms. For getting away from it all in luxury or simplicity, Half-Moon Bay has much to offer both travelers and Bay Area residents.
