Santa Nella near the Pacheco Pass in Merced County is an interesting road stop with several hotels providing overnight accommodations for travelers along the busy Interstate 5. This highway connects San Diego with Oregon and Washington and is the most traveled west coast highway.
Best known for the landmark Pea Soup Andersen's Restaurant, tourists (especially the older generations) find this name a moniker that has provide a hearty bowl of soup to travelers for many decades.
Over 70 percent of the residents (under 2,000) are Latino with jobs and work supported by highway enterprises, and farming in Merced County. The county ranks 5th among 58 counties in California for farming. Its top crops include Milk, Chickens, Almonds, Cattle and Calves and Potatoes.
The landscape of Santa Nella is mostly acreage of farm lands. As a tourist destination, Santa Nella does not have an active tourism program, except for the businesses along I-5 trying to grab their market share of the freeway traffic passing by this unincorporated region.