🪂 Marina

Marina is the Monterey Peninsula's airy northern gateway — a coastal city defined by towering sand dunes, wide beaches, and big open skies. Where the Peninsula's southern towns are dense with history and tourism, Marina feels expansive, breezy, and full of room to grow.

Marina State Beach is the city's signature feature — a dramatic stretch of dune-backed shoreline famous as one of California's premier hang gliding and paragliding spots, where pilots launch off the dunes into ocean updrafts. The Marina Dunes Preserve protects rare coastal dune habitat just steps from the water.

Like neighboring Seaside, Marina grew alongside Fort Ord and continues to redevelop former base lands into new housing, a university satellite presence, and recreation areas including parts of Fort Ord National Monument. The result is a city that's actively building its future, with newer neighborhoods and more attainable home prices than the southern Peninsula.

Marina is for people who want coastal living with elbow room — dunes, beach, and sky — at a more accessible price point, within easy reach of the rest of the Peninsula and the Salinas Valley.