San Juan Bautista

San Juan Bautista is a city in San Benito County, California. San Juan Bautista is on both the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail and the mission trail, El Camino Real. The city is named for the Franciscan Mission of San Juan Bautista, which in turn is named for St. John the Baptist.

Despite having a modern population of less than 2,000 residents, San Juan Bautista was once of the more prominent towns in the Central Coast region during the Mexican Republic era, and it has a number of historic landmarks dating from that era.

Get in
San Juan Bautista is a few miles off US Highway 101. To get there, go east on California State Route 156 (exit 345) or south on the San Juan Highway (exit 347)

Go next

 * Salinas - Located twenty miles south of San Juan Bautista, fans of Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck will want to visit the National Steinbeck Center and soak in the sights that were the inspiration for much of the author's work. The historic downtown dates back to the town's founding in the mid-1800s, while the surrounding countryside is filled with vineyards and both floral and vegetable cultivation. Events include the California Rodeo, which is held during the third week of July.