🏖️ Seaside

Seaside is the Monterey Peninsula's most diverse, dynamic, and authentically local city — a community that feels different from its tourist-polished neighbors and is all the better for it. Built up rapidly around the former Fort Ord army base, Seaside today is a city of real working families, students, and a fast-emerging creative and food scene.

The arrival and growth of California State University, Monterey Bay on the former Fort Ord lands has injected youthful energy and steady redevelopment. Old base buildings have given way to new housing, a national monument of recreation lands, and a university campus that anchors the region's higher-education identity.

Seaside's coastline offers genuine beach access along Monterey State Beach and the broad dunes of the southern bay, with the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail running along the water. Inland, a multicultural food scene — from Oaxacan to Korean to classic diners — gives Seaside some of the most interesting and affordable eating on the Peninsula.

For buyers and renters priced out of Monterey, Carmel, or Pacific Grove, Seaside is the Peninsula's most attainable foothold — a city with beach access, university energy, and a community that feels lived-in and real.