Long walks on the beach shouldn’t just be the punchline to dating jokes.
From as young as I can remember, wandering my tiny feet across the shores of Santa Cruz, to just last week, when I hoofed it for more than an hour along the Ellwood Coast, I’ve used them for exercise, for exploration, for clearing my head, and for connecting with nature in its most subtle and violent manifestations. Seaside strolls are also an easy way to get away from crowds — even on the busiest of beach days, walking in one direction long enough opens up untouched coves, calmness amid holiday weekend chaos, and sandscapes whose contours remain free from others’ footprints.
My baptism in the practice came in Capitola, where my parents bought a tiny studio right across the street from the beach back in 1980, before Silicon Valley exploded that real estate market. The village was already home to a crowded beach, but if you went past the jetties and walked below the cliffs toward New Brighton, there wasn’t a soul around. I vividly recall my dad and me on one such walk, poking our toes at what looked like an orange brick only to have it recoil in spongy slime, my first visceral lesson that all may not be what it seems.