From giant pumpkins to local treats and parades, here is why you should visit the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival this fall.
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Autumn is here again and it’s harvest time in California. Every place is decorated with pumpkins and people are eager to start the holiday season. For many people living in San Francisco Bay Area it has become a tradition to head over to Half Moon Bay for the pumpkin festival to celebrate the fall.
For a few years now, we have also been driving over to Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival. It has been such an fun event with
But in recent years, the festival has become increasingly popular and the traffic to get there has gotten unbearable. Once you finally get there, it is very difficult to find parking. Therefore, I have found myself asking the question; is going to Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival even worth it?
The answer is quite simply; Yes! Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival is still worth going, and with a little bit of planning, it is not too difficult to get there. Here are our tips of how make most of your visit to the funnest festival of fall:
🥜 HALF MOON BAY PUMPKIN FESTIVAL IN A NUTSHELL 🥜
📅 Held annually in Half Moon Bay downtown (October 18-19th, 2025)
📋Programme includes a costume contest, parade, World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, Pumpkin Run, pie eating contest, pumpkin carving, music, art, vendors etc.
🍽 Best restaurants in Half Moon Bay to visit are Sam’s Chowder House, It’s Italia and Johnny’s
🗝 Best hotel to stay at is The Ritz-Carlton right by the beach
🎃 Visit local pumpkin patches in the Bay Area to buy pumpkins and other produce to take home
Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay is a small coastal town, a little over half an hour drive from San Francisco to the south. It’s a very tightly knit community, as the population is only little more than 11,000 people.
Originally Half Moon Bay was called San Benito but it was later renamed as Spanishtown. In 1874, the early American settlers renamed it again, and this time as Half Moon Bay. The name comes from the crescent shape of the bay that looks a little like a half moon.
Half Moon Bay is known for the agriculture, fishing and the yearly pumpkin festival. Many people visit there for the nurseries or christmas tree farms. During October, people usually go there for pumpkin patches. There are big playgrounds for kids, and you can get your decorative pumpkins as well as the ones you want to eat.
Half Moon Bay is said to be the pumpkin capital of California, although the pumpkin capital of the whole United States is Morton, Illinois. 95% of pumpkins in the U.S. come from Illinois.
I have also been in Half Moon Bay for a few times for horseback riding trips. Most of the trails follow the coastline or take you down to the beach, so the views on these trails are magnificent.
Half Moon Bay is also a popular stop for tourists as it is along the famous Highway 1, otherwise known as Pacific Coast Highway.
What to do at Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival?
Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival is held every October, and it runs through the weekend. However, before the festival weekend the farmers bring their biggest pumpkins for weighing, so pumpkin related things start already in the beginning of the week.
The biggest pumpkin, the one that wins the Safeway World Championship, will be showcased in a tent during the festival, and you can get yourself photographed with it for a small fee. Rest of the pumpkins that participated in the contest can be seen for free in the area, and they always look enormous too.
Half Moon Bay’s Main Street will be closed during the festival, and it is full of art and craft booths, food vendors and entertainers. The area is also nicely decorated. You can do some shopping, wine tasting, eat well and even dance with a live band.
The actual festival starts in the Saturday morning with a costume contest for both, kids and adults. Then it continues with a Great Pumpkin Parade which our favorite.
There are also plenty of things for kids too. They can for example participate in a pumpkin pie eating contest or pumpkin carving. There is a playground and last year, there was a miniature mechanical bull for kids. And if you walk a little further from Main Street, you can visit a haunted barn.. but only if you dare!
In my opinion, the most interesting thing to see is always what kind of pumpkins farmer Mike have carved. He truly is a master of pumpkin carving, or what do you think?
The first pumpkin festival was held in 1971. A committee which was established to maintain the historic downtown and Main Street started a festival tradition in order to raise some money. In the first year they got approximately 30,000 visitors during the weekend, but today this number has at least doubled.
There is no entrance fee for the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival but some activities might have a separate cost. If you plan to go, I would recommend you to reserve a whole day to this and to leave early! The earlier you hit the road, less traffic there will be. Maybe even bring some snacks and entertainment for the kids for a car ride.
The good news is, that after battling the traffic to get there, you will have so much that you don’t want to leave!
🎃🎃🎃
There are also many other things you can do at Half Moon Bay while you visit. You can go and get your own pumpkins from local pumpkin patches, drive along the Pacific Coast Highway, or go for a nice stroll on the beach. Half Moon Bay is one our favorite places in the Bay Area!
Have you been at a pumpkin festival somewhere?
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The Pumpkin festival looks fascinating. The entire area seems to be bathed in the colour of Pumpkins. And the pumpkins are so huge. I loved the pumpkin carving too. It must have been a fun and colourful experience.
The colours is one of the things I love about this the most.
This was a nice read! NorCal seems to have such a nice vibe to it (or maybe it is you convincing me it does, haha). I haven’t been to NorCal in nearly 4 years so am excited to visit later this year. Happy holidays!
Thank you Ehsan! I think you are due to a visit soon. 🙂
You are making me fall in love with NoCal more and more with every blog post! I am really missing all of the pumpkin related everything back home this year. We’ve been in Croatia and Romania for the month of October, and there aren’t many crazy pumpkin events to be had, although I did spot my first carved pumpkin a few days ago! I did have a PSL waaaay back in September, but one a season is never enough.
Thank you Suz, I’m glad if I manage to do that.
We love pumpkin festivals. Pumpkin pie is one of our favourite foods. Those pumpkin carvings were beautiful and amazing.
I had never eaten pumpkin pie before I visited Us. It took few tries to start liking it but now I love it!
This looks like a fun day out for the entire family. Farmer Mike is so talented wow ! Love the fact that it is free. All this pumpkin talk is making me want pumpkin fritters.
It is very fun and kids love it too.
This looks like so much fun for fall! I’ll have to go to this pumpkin festival one year, it looks so cute.
If you are close by, I highly recommend you go. It is so much fun!
I don’t like the taste of pumpkins at all, but I like the novelty of this place. So many photo opps, especially Mike’s pumpkins! so cute.
I am not a huge fan of the flavour either, however, I have started to grow into it. Pumpkin pies are ok, and I love love love butternut squash soup.
Pumpkin pie eating, pumpkin carving. This sounds like a load of fun. What’s the season for going here?
This festival lasts only one weekend every October.
Wow, never knew of this festival. Sounds quiet interesting. And the size of the pumpkins – simply mind blowing !!
Yes, if you want to see huge pumpkins, this is your place 🙂
Wow, as someone who has just finished (poorly) carving loads of pumpkins for a kids party, these carvings are just so incredibly impressive. Thank goodness the kids hadn’t seen before their party, they would have been even more unimpressed with my efforts!
I’m sure kids are happy to get any kind of carvings, they mostly care that someone is doing things with them 🙂 So I’m sure yours were great in their eyes!
Never knew what you can DO with pumpkins :O This is amazing! And how big they get! Halloween’s never been a thing in my hometown, so all I know about it comes from the fancy movies. Have to keep that place in mind!
Halloween is not big in my home country Finland either, but here in the USA it is one of the funniest celebrations.
Whoa that pumpkin is huge!!! Mike is a true artist – amazing what one can do with a simple pumpkin.
Thanks Lydia! Yes, some of the pumpkins were really big.
Hey. These are some huge pumpkins indeed! I love what this guy is carving. Seems like this festival really takes pumpkin to the next level 🙂
We love Farmer Mike’s carvings too. They are always great!
Those pumpkins are indeed huge! Mike’s pumpkin looks so amazingly carved! Once I should check out a festival like this!
I highly recommend! It is so much fun.
This sounds like so much fun! I am in San Diego at the moment and really wish the festival was just a little bit closer to here! 🙁
Yes it is a little far but maybe next year you can make it over here. Maybe San Diego has something similar?
Some really huge pumpkins there…what do they feed these things? 🙂
Fascinating carvings, a lot of ingenuity in craft, truly. Must be a lot of fun.
I know, right? 😀 Sometimes I wonder what how they make the pumpkins grow so big.