Glass Beach California: First Time Visitor Guide
The Glass Beach in California is heavily advertised online and is one of the most popular spots to visit if you’re doing a west coast road trip. I’ve been here many times and the truth about this place is often very different than what most people think/see online which is why this post is going to share everything you need to know before you visit this spot.
Quick info:
- Name: Glass Beach (aka Glass Pebble Beach and Glass Pedal Beach)
- Location: Fort Bragg
- Cost to enter: Free
- Visitor ratings: 3.4 out of 5 stars
- Recommended? It’s a good place for a one time visit in my opinion but the better things to see and do are actually around the Fort Bragg area which I’ll cover shortly.
Background:
Glass Beach is basically a small beach with tons of sea glass scattered everywhere. You can easily get to this place by visiting Fort Bragg which is off Route 1 on the California Coast. Access to the beach is free and every year it attracts many visitors and locals alike. I’ve been to this place at least 3 times so far and personally I think it’s an OK place to check out for first timers.
Things to know:
- There’s actually 3 glass beaches in the area (only 1 is legal to access)
- You’re not allowed to take the sea glass
- Glass beach in my opinion isn’t as scenic as online photos make it out to be (see below)
- You can find other Glass Beaches like this in the US (details below)
- In my opinion the stuff you can do in Glass Beach is overrated and the better things to do are actually within the Fort Bragg area (train rides, museums, sightseeing, etc…).
How to get there:
- Input Glass Beach into your GPS
- You’ll first enter the Fort Bragg area before turning west (Noyo Point Road) towards the beach
- There is a large parking lot right by Glass Beach (Called Noyo Headlands Park)
- From the parking lot, you’ll walk across a very small trail before getting to the coast. Turn right, head down to the water/beach and it’s there that get to the actual beach.
Photos:
What to expect:
When you reach Glass Beach, you’ll find that the sea glass is scattered everywhere and the closer to the water you get the more of it you’ll see. One thing to know is that the glass is mixed in with the sand and if you’re looking to gather the sea glass, you’d have to pick it out individually (but remember, you aren’t allowed to take it with you).
Like I said before, I actually expected the entire beach to have nothing but sea glass based on the images I saw prior, but now I know better (and so do you). I won’t lie though, the sea glass is quite beautiful and there are many different colors of it you’ll find there (see more photos of Glass Beach California).
Sea glass colors you’ll find:
- White (most common).
- Emerald green (second most common).
- Yellow (pretty rare).
- Dark orange (about as rare as the yellow glass).
- Red (also as rare as the orange and yellow glass).
- Blue (extremely rare).
These sea glass pieces are also in different sizes, but checking them out is actually a fun activity that I enjoyed doing as did the other tourists who were there, including families with kids.
Other things to know:
- The sea glass is not sharp to touch/pick up (some rocks might be)
- The sea glass was formed by a nearby factory dumping glass into the ocean and the tides, plus years or erosion caused this to happen.
More places to see nearby:
While the Glass Pebble Beach is a good spot to check out once, if you’re planning a trip there just know that there’s way more to see than just that spot. In fact, here’s a bunch of nearby places to explore to make your trip to Fort Bragg even better:
- Pudding Creek Trestle (famous bridge and boardwalk): This is probably the best sight you’ll find in Fort Bragg, especially around sunset. It’s a boardwalk/trestle area. Right by it you will also find Pudding Beach.
- Sunset Cove: Great beach area for seeing the sunset. It’s about a 10 minute walk north from the trestle spot.
- Laguna Point: Great boardwalk to a scenic overlook area (cliff area with great views of the Pacific ocean). Another awesome sunset spot.
- Russian Gulch State Park: An awesome park 30 minutes south of Fort Bragg which has hikes, kayaks and Redwoods!
- Noyo Headlands Park: It’s a short 10 minute drive from Glass Beach and it is a small park with great a little bit of hiking.
- Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens: It’s right outside Fort Bragg (south) and is a highly rated botanical garden walk that is also right on the coast as well so you get amazing views of the ocean, botanical gardens and mixing that together with the sunset would likely make this spot the most scenic you’ll find by Fort Bragg.
- The Skunk Train: This is another awesome attraction right inside Fort Bragg Mendocino where you can take a tourist train ride through the Redwoods that are close to Fort Bragg. In my opinion it’s probably an even more fun activity to do with family than checking out the colorful pebble beach. I’ve created an article on the Skunk train ride on my other site that has all the info on it.
The bottom line is that while you can see glass at Glass Beach Mendocino and it’s a nice experience, there are just way more fun things to do right in Fort Bragg and near it and those other things will make your trip to this area even better!
More glass beaches to explore:
- One I have personally been to is the glass beach in Port Townsend.
- I have also seen lists of other sea glass beaches that you can find here.
25 years ago, we went to glass beach all the time and it DID look like the picture on the left. That many years of people picking up the glass and it.looks like you see on the right. Shame really. It was beautiful once.
Ah I see, thanks for clarifying this Paula.
I’ve been going to Glass Beach for over 30 years. There is significantly less glass than there used to be- I would say in part due to people going down with garbage cans and taking away tons of it. One thing you also need to keep in mind is the tide. Also, the time of year can make a big difference as beaches up here change a lot during the year due to storms. Anchor Bay Beach, for instance, loses almost all of it’s sand during the winter storms, and then gets covered back up with sand in the spring and summer. So that can also affect how much actual glass you see there. And yes- the glass is from decades of using it as a garbage dump – you can also find things like old dishes (parts of them), silverware, antique spark plugs, old leather soles from shoes, etc.
Hi Wendy thank you so much for sharing all this info on Glass Beach!
Glass beach in fort bragg california was formed because the city dumped trash directly into the ocean at the location of glass beach. Glass beach was the city of fort braggs dumpsite from the early 1900s through 1967. The glass did not come from a factory.
Hi Gary thanks for sharing this info. Personally I read it came from a factory dumping the glass into the water but I’ll take a further look to be sure.
You clearly missed the best spot at glass beach. It’s super hard to get to. I measured the depth of glass before you see any sand – 4” deep. It was truly amazing. But maybe you are trying to steer people away from the real gem. Thank you! I get it.
Hi Monica I’ll be honest I’m not trying to steer people away from the other spots in Fort Bragg. I know there’s more than one Glass Beach here but the other 2 (not the main one) are more difficult to reach and one of them might not even be legal to go to so I just pointed out the main ways to explore this area.