This year we decided to spend our family vacation in the quaint town of Aptos, California. Aptos is located in Santa Cruz County and is amongst other smaller towns along the coast.

One of those towns being Capitola. With less than 10,000 residents the vibrant colored homes, pier, and local shops make for a wonderful place to spend a few hours at.

Our main goal, as it is every year, is to spend time with one another. A bit of sight seeing, a lot of food intake, family games, and laughs, we try to schedule four days every year during the summer specifically for this.

We arrived in Aptos on Thursday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon.

Our Airbnb was located in a quiet residential neighborhood, five minutes away from the beach.

We planned it out so that our first two days would be relaxing. This was also our opportunity to rest, not work or study for a few days.

Our third day was going to be spent at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, so we wanted to preserve our energy for that whole day.

Capitola was a 10 minute drive from our stay, and Santa Cruz 15 minutes. Our central location made it easy to drive to the nearby towns.

On Friday evening we were looking forward to having a bonfire. With only three pits to choose from, we had to wait it out a bit. After an hour of hanging out on the beach, we saw a young group of teens leave the closest pit and my brother sprinted to it.

As the sun set, we made s’mores, listened to oldies, and danced. Simple but one of the memorable moments of our trip.

The following day we left for Santa Cruz at 10 am. Parking was surprisingly relatively easy to find.

We plopped on the beach for an hour with our umbrellas and snacks before heading to the boardwalk.

I haven’t been to Santa Cruz with my family since I was a child. We made a day of it, riding some of the rides, hanging out on the beach, eating the overpriced greasy food. It was all worth it.

This is where I’ll end my story telling. I’m a bit tired, but feel free to check out the rest of the photos. The boardwalk is extremely family friendly no matter the age. Our inner child came out and it was a classic Californian summer day.

You can bring your lunch, picnic on the benches, spend most of your time on the beach, spend a whole day on the boardwalk, whatever. You can’t go wrong.