The stars
Red pandas & river otters
The red panda habitat has a bamboo forest and a viewing area built at child height. The otters are the ones nobody manages to walk away from.
Humboldt Bay · Northern California
Eureka and the Redwood Sky Walk
The largest city between San Francisco and Portland, built on lumber money and still wearing the Victorian architecture to prove it — with a quarter-mile walkway suspended a hundred feet up in the redwood canopy.
- Sky Walk
- 100 ft up
- The zoo
- Oldest in California
- Old Town
- State landmark
- From Arcata
- ≈ 20 min
The main reason to come
The Redwood Sky Walk
A network of suspended bridges and platforms running through the canopy of a mature redwood forest — the longest canopy trail in the western United States, and a genuinely different way to see these trees.
Standing at the base of a redwood, you spend the whole time craning your neck. Up here you are level with the crowns, looking along the trunks rather than up them, seeing the part of the forest that only researchers and birds normally get to. It opened in 2021 and offers a rare canopy-level view of the redwoods.
- Height
- 100+ ft
- Length
- ¼ mile
- Opened
- 2021
- Access
- Mostly ADA
Access to the Sky Walk is included with zoo admission — you cannot do one without the other.
The zoo
California's oldest, and one of the smallest
Sequoia Park Zoo opened in 1907, which makes it the oldest in the state, and it is one of the smallest accredited zoos in the country. Both facts are the point.
You will not find elephants or giraffes. What you get instead is a compact, well-kept collection of rare and unusual animals set inside a redwood forest, on land that has been Wiyot territory for thousands of years. Two hours is about right, and children reliably want longer.
Rare and unusual
Bush dogs & Chacoan peccaries
Species you are unlikely to have seen elsewhere, which is what a small conservation-focused zoo does well.
Walk-in
The free-flight aviary
African grey parrots, golden pheasants, whistling ducks and more, with the birds loose around you.
For younger children
The barn & petting yard
Miniature horses, donkeys, alpacas, goats, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs.
Also here
Spider monkeys, flamingos, bears
More than 150 animals across around 50 species, plus black bears and coyotes.
On site
Café & gift shop
Proceeds from both go back into supporting the zoo.
Sequoia Park Zoo, 3414 W Street, Eureka · (707) 441-4263. Typically open Tuesday to Sunday with seasonal hours; confirm details before you travel.
The city
Old Town and the lumber money
Eureka got rich cutting redwood in the nineteenth century, and it spent the money on architecture. Downtown is a designated California State Historic Landmark, with streets of preserved Victorian buildings.
The one everybody photographs is the Carson Mansion — an extravagant Queen Anne pile built by a lumber baron, now a private club. You cannot go in. You can stand outside it and understand exactly how much money there was in redwood.
Free, from the pavement
Carson Mansion
Queen Anne architecture at maximum volume. A private club now, so admire it from outside.
Walkable
Old Town
Galleries, bookshops, bars and restaurants in restored Victorian buildings, running down toward the waterfront.
On the bay
Humboldt Bay & the boardwalk
A working bay with fishing boats and oyster farms. The boardwalk is a short, flat walk with water on one side and Old Town on the other.
History
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
An 1850s army post on a bluff above the bay, with logging equipment and a slice of the county's complicated history. Free.
Honestly
Should you base yourself in Eureka?
It is the largest city on this coast, it has the most hotel rooms, and plenty of visitors do stay here. It is a reasonable choice — but it is worth understanding the trade.
- The most options. More rooms, more restaurants and more services than anywhere else in the county.
- An evening out. Old Town is the one place up here with a proper night-time atmosphere.
- But it is further from the redwoods. About an hour and a quarter to Prairie Creek and around fifty minutes to the Avenue.
- And it does not feel like a redwood trip. You are in a city of twenty-odd thousand people.
Fitting it in
How to spend a day here
- Sky Walk and zoo in the morning — two to three hours, and the light through the canopy is better early.
- Lunch and Old Town after — a ten-minute drive between the two.
- Walk the boardwalk if the weather is behaving, or Sequoia Park's forest trails if it is not.
- Stay for dinner. Eureka has the best evening options in the county.
- Good rain plan. The zoo and Old Town both work in weather that would ruin a day in the parks — though the Sky Walk closes in the worst of it.
Where to stay
Twenty minutes north
Eureka works as a day out from anywhere on the bay. From Bayside it is a twenty-minute drive, so you can have the evening in Old Town without giving up the shorter drives to the parks.
Baywood Redwood Retreat
Nine miles from Sequoia Park Zoo, three from Arcata Plaza, and roughly an hour from the redwood parks in one direction and the Avenue of the Giants in the other. Seven bedrooms, three bathrooms and room for sixteen or more.
- 7 bedrooms
- Sleeps 16+
- 3 baths
- Hot tub
- Outdoor kitchen
- Game room