Cannery Row's New Attractions and Longtime Gems Draw Monterey Mavens

HISTORY BY THE WAVES: Author John Steinbeck's birthday is always a major happening around Salinas, which is home to the National Steinbeck Center. It's a place that can be visited throughout the year, and draw devoted fans, it certainly does, especially those readers who've been besotted by works like the charming "Travels With Charley" and entranced by masterpieces like "The Grapes of Wrath." The author's birthday was marked with cocktails at the center of Feb. 25, 2023, a tribute that reminds us that there are still Steinbeckian sights to see in the area and beyond. Most famously, perhaps, is Cannery Row in Monterey, and while the area has been through more than a few transformations since Mr. Steinbeck's novel debuted nearly 80 years ago, it remains a destination that draws people, visitors who want to know more about Cannery Row's history, the Chinese families that settled along the coast in the 19th century and created a robust fishing industry, and the large-scale canneries that soon followed.

OCEAN VIEW AVENUE... was renamed Cannery Row in 1958, a literary moniker that came from the author's 1945 novel. Hotels, shops, attractions, and eateries have graced the fabled thoroughfare in recent years, with an aquatic anchor that's known around the world: Monterey Bay Aquarium, which sits on the site of "the largest sardine cannery on Cannery Row." If you're calling upon the otter-awesome institution, which is home to the incredible Open Sea exhibit, a low-lit space that can give agog guests a feeling of being underwater (an ethereal sensation aided by spying turtles, sardines, and other sea animals through a 90-foot window), you may want to sleep near the waves at one of Cannery Row's Pacific-adjacent inns. And new attractions are afoot along the legendary lane, with Oscar's Playground offering an arcade, virtual reality adventures, and other family-fun to-dos, and a Tipsy Putt due later in 2023. For everything happening around the multi-block Monterey landmark as spring starts to burst, visit this site now.