Highlands County Park

If you live in the Santa Cruz Mountains and haven’t made Highlands a regular summer spot, you’re missing out. The San Lorenzo River runs right alongside it, and kids will spend hours poking around the shallow sections and hunting down the small waterfalls upstream. There’s a solid climbing structure for the younger ones, plenty of shade trees with picnic tables underneath, and enough open grass that you can actually spread out without sitting on top of strangers. The walking path is an easy loop that connects to the surrounding forest trails if you want to stretch your legs after lunch. Older kids gravitate toward the skatepark, which keeps the whole crew busy long enough for the adults to actually relax.