This weekend my baby sister turned 23, and what better way to celebrate than going back to her college town. We had her show us all her favorite spots in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz is a 45-minute drive from our place. To get there we took highway 17, lots of turns but an amazing scenery.  To me, Santa Cruz is not just the boardwalk, the mystery spot, or the ocean it has so much more to offer like great food, COFFEE, pastry shops, and redwoods.

After the drive through the 17( I feel like you enjoy it when you are not driving) , we went straight to the Seabreeze Cafe. The wait was 45 minutes long  so we decided to wait it out and head for some coffee for me. The restaurant does offer free coffee as you wait but I decided to walk over to my favorite coffee place which is just around the corner. Sea breeze Cafe is a couple of blocks away  from Verve Coffee. What I love about Verve is how friendly and helpful their staff are on top of that the location and vibe is just fantastic. If your an Instagram person like me the set up is a dream.

After Verve we went back to the restaurant and as we got there our table was ready. The food was good, I got a scramble which was very cheese and lots of veggies. Mostly all the breakfast options do offer the choice of toast, muffin, or cinnamon bun. Get the cinnamon bun it  is totally worth it, I thought the food was good  but honestly it was nothing amazing. We felt it was just your average breakfast place aside from the cinnamon buns. We did not think the food was worth that long of a wait but that was just our opinion.  If your not a breakfast person you might just want to skip. They also only take cash no cards; they do have an ATM if needed but there is a small fee for using it. 

After breakfast, we headed over to Capitola that's like 15 minutes away and enjoy the day exploring and just spending time on the beach. After that, we hit up  Gayle’s Bakery the line was too long. Plus  we were truly  craving ice cream, so we headed back to downtown Santa Cruz and went to the Penny Ice creamery. They make all the ice cream at their location and use organic and locally sourced products. It’s amazing and their home made ice cream cones are just as good as their ice cream. Overall, it was a great girl day trip to celebrate my sister birthday and just get out an explore Santa Cruz.