How to get places: Overview

Each of the menu buttons in the “how to get places” tab leads to a page containing a description of how to get from Santa Cruz to the place shown, using various public transportation modes (usually bus and/or rail), thus avoiding the need for a private automobile.

Of course traveling by auto has its advantages: You can travel whenever you wish, and it may be the quickest and most convenient method to get from where you are to where you want to go. You can alter your plans—you are not bound by any schedule.

However, public transportation modes have several advantages:

• You don't have to worry about where you are going to park your car. Parking facilities may be scarce and expensive.
• You can leave the driving to someone else, and avoid the stress of driving in traffic.
• Public transportation modes are statistically safer than driving.
• You can catch up on your reading, or use a lap-top for any purpose, or sleep, or simply enjoy the scenery.
• You can use your bicycle to extend your range.
• You'll reduce your carbon footprint. (See this link.)

We welcome any comments on our descriptions, or any additions to our list of places—just write to us here. If you followed any of our guidelines and something did not work for you, let us know. Also, if you have good knowledge about how to get somewhere, let us know that too.

Recently added are pages on how to get to San Francisco and San Francisco Airport, along with a detailed schedule showing both the Highway 17 Express and Caltrain and how they connect at the Diridon Station in San Jose. There is also a pdf version of this schedule here.

There are other guides for using public transportation modes to get places from Santa Cruz. One is a website called “iridethebus”, maintained by local bus advocate Paul Marcelin-Sampson, and may be found here. The other is a pdf document available from UC Santa Cruz entitled Airport Connections—How to get to UC Santa Cruz from Bay Area Airports. It is mainly for the benefit of UCSC students. It may be downloaded here .

Useful Links

For up-to-date schedules and related information, some useful links are listed below. Relevant links to specific web pages are also provided on each of the menu buttons in this tree.

• Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (our bus system): Schedules for all routes are here. The fare for local buses (within Santa Cruz County) is $1.50 ($0.75 for seniors/disabled—62 or over); the fare for the 17x (to San Jose) is $4.00 ($2.00 for seniors/disabled). The complete fare information (for short folks the fare is $0.00) is here.
• Caltrain (trains from Gilroy and San Jose to San Francisco): The complete Caltrain timetable is here, and the fares are listed here. If you're a bicyclist, check out this link. The Caltrain home page is here.
• Amtrak California (trains linking San Jose to Oakland and Sacramento in particular): The current “Capital Corridor” train schedule, as well as a route map (both in pdf format), may be obtained by clicking on links at this site. For information about Capitol Corridor fares, click here. The nation-wide Amtrak home page is here, in case you want to travel outside California.
• Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA): The schedules and fares for buses and light rail in Santa Clara County may be found by clicking on this link.
• San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans): Route schedules and maps may be found here, and fares are listed here.
• Monterey Salinas Transit (MST): A route map may be found here, and schedules for their routes may be found here. Unfortunately, it's not easy to get from Santa Cruz to Monterey via public transit, but it's possible. For example, on weekdays you can leave Santa Cruz on the #91 at 7:30 am, arriving in Watsonville at 8:07 am, then taking the MST's #27 at 8:10 am, arriving in Marina at 9:05 am to transfer to MST's#20 at 9:06 am, which finally arrives in Monterey at 9:38 am. That's a trip of over two hours, involving two transfers. It's also possible on weekends, but you have to go through Salinas. However if you want to go only to Moss Landing (to watch birds, say), it's more reasonable; MST's # 28 will get you there, taking a little less than two hours from Santa Cruz, maybe half an hour less if you make a close connection in Watsonville. You can even get all the way to Nepenthe in Big Sur, but you have to leave Santa Cruz at 7:15 am. It takes three transfers, and you'll get to Nepenthe at 11:55 am, a trip that takes 4 hours and 40 minutes. You'll be tired when you arrive. Maybe someday there will be train service to Monterey.

How to get places

For details on how to get to particular locations, just move your mouse over the “how to get places” button at the left and click the appropriate button.