Come and experience California’s year-round whale fest.
California is one of the few places where you can see whales year-round. From San Francisco in the north to San Diego in the south, these giants of the deep migrate up and down the coast, providing humans with one of the greatest shows on Earth.
It’s easy to spot passing whales with the naked eye from California’s many points which jut out into the Pacific Ocean, however, nothing comes close to the thrill of seeing these majestic beasts up close out on the water. The most common species in Californian waters are gray whales, which make an astonishing 10,000-mile (16,090-kilometer) round trip each year between their feeding grounds in the Arctic and the warmer breeding and calving lagoons of Mexico.
Off San Francisco and Monterey Bay, humpback and blue whales appear year-round, while blue, sperm, beaked, minke whales and orcas appear seasonally. Whale-watching cruises in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas focus on the gray whales in winter and the mighty blue whales in summer.