Lifestyle

This year’s Merry Healdsburg party is, surprisingly, only the fourth for this still-fresh city celebration, though the tradition of a tree-lighting the first week of December is much older. But it used to be a quieter affair—maybe the Community Band would play a program of holiday music from the gazebo stage or something, but the glamor and the glitz of Merry Healdsburg didn’t start until 2021...

The first major event that comes our way in 2025 is the annual Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival, on Saturday, Feb. 8. This one-day science fair of all things steelhead (and their allies, anadromous and otherwise), draws about 10,000 people on its single day of exhibitions and activities to the Milt Brandt Visitors Center, Lake Sonoma.

The annual Giro Vigneti, started in 1986 and formerly known as the Healdsburg Century, will return to Sonoma County’s Wine Country on Saturday, May 17. Registration is still open for this historic bicycle tour, starting and ending at Bacchus Landing...

The Healdsburg Arts Festival is back again this year, pared down to one busy day in the Plaza. Starting Saturday morning at 10am until 7pm, more than 40 artists will sell their personal and unique artwork of every description—from watercolors, oils and acrylics to...

With the closures and limitations of the pandemic fading into memory, restaurant dining has regained its position as one of Sonoma County’s most popular, close-to-home recreations.

An increasingly popular local festival returns this year as Scarecrows on the Plaza, bringing the Healdsburg community together to support the arts and Healdsburg youth at Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma-Marin.

In this "web extra," we take readers inside the JANE Dispensary. It officially opened last week right next to the Coyote Sonoma, a tasting room for Wilson wines and live music venue (aka the “Coyote Den”).

New Year’s Eve is a few hours suspended from the normal rules of time, neither one year nor the next, yet both. While a “memorable evening” is often the goal, it’s all too frequently a night whose details escape memory ...

One of the world’s largest collections of nutcracker dolls gazes down on breakfast diners at Healdsburg’s Costeaux French Bakery this time of year, promoting the holiday spirit at the 100-year-old bakery. From mid-November into mid-January, hundreds of the small wood effigies of spirits, tin...

Enter the rail trail. The concept developed in the 1980s as railroads across the country were decommissioned and a growing population sought new trails to travel. Thus the Rails to Trails Conservancy was formed out of timely necessity. Nearly 2,500 rail trails nationally now span 25,000 miles, as practical a reuse of a transportation corridor as one could conceive...