Discover Santa Rosa’s peaceful waterway on these winter walks
When rain falls anywhere in Santa Rosa, Windsor, Rohnert Park, Cotati, or Sebastopol, the water will make its way to the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Sitting at the bottom of the greater Santa Rosa plain, the Laguna is the largest freshwater wetlands complex on the northern California coast. In 2011, it was designated a Wetland of International Importance. Yet how many locals could find it on a map? To be fair, parts of the Laguna have been altered and obscured by decades of development. Sebastopol dumped its sewage there until 1978. Restoration work has been underway since the 1990s, and December 2023 saw the release of the first-ever comprehensive restoration plan for the entire Laguna, designed to guide its continued recovery.