Arts Communities

For decades, artists and galleries have created their own pocket communities throughout California, famously in Carmel, Mendocino, and Laguna Beach. The state boasts many more arts enclaves, equally rich in creativity (and shopping opportunities).

     • Painters attracted to desert beauty have been drawn to Palm Springs since the late 1800s. Wander the Backstreet Art District, anchored by Dezart One Gallery. The gallery hosts everything from play and poetry readings to film screenings to exhibitions of contemporary painting.
    • Sacramento’s reputation as an arts community is growing. Dozens of well-established midtown galleries span media from tribal jewelry to bronze sculpture.
    • In Chico, watch Richard Satava working in his public open studio, Satava Art Glass. His trademark ethereal glass jellyfish sculptures are shipped all over the world.

Thanks to Hollywood, we all hold an image of the classic California beach: sparkling white sand, bright sun, gently breaking surf, shapely lifeguards and buff surfers. Come and get it!

     • At the top of your list should be Malibu, home to 27 miles of picture-perfect Pacific coastline (and picture-perfect movie stars). Families with young beachcombers particularly appreciate the relatively calm waters of Malibu’s little-known Paradise Cove.
    • You can’t beat people watching in Orange County’s palm-fringed beach paradise, Laguna Beach, where crowds of well-oiled and well-toned figures stroll along 7 miles of sandy coastline.
    • If you are looking for the classic southern California beach town while in Northern California, check out Marin County’s Stinson Beach with its powdery sand, soaring cliff views, and bracingly cool but swimmable surf.

• For millennia before the first European explorers arrived, California was home to more than 300,000 Native Californians.

Ever since the Gold Rush of 1849, California has enjoyed a reputation as a land of opportunity. Today, the faces of its citizens reflect virtually every area of the globe, and new arrivals continue to stake claims in the California dream.