Peanuts obsessive and collector Thalia Robinson, a 31-year-old manager for Skechers who’s based in Manhattan Beach, has gone to the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center every year since she discovered it — and has posted most of her visits on TikTok.
A video of her latest visit is a supercut of Snoopy-marked skateboards, vintage Peanuts paraphernalia, and of course, the many, many comic strips on display at the museum. It’s amassed more than 300,000 views since she posted it.
“A lot of people always comment, ‘I live right down the street and I never knew,’ because, to be honest, Santa Rosa is not really well-known,” Robinson said, before apologizing to the city. “You go to Sacramento, you go to San Francisco. No one's ever really talking about Santa Rosa.”
Santa Rosa, located about an hour north of SF in Sonoma County, is perhaps better known to outsiders like Robinson as a low-key hub for wine producers and family-owned farms. Odds are, if you aren’t interested in sampling various red and white varietals, you may drive right past the city without even noticing it.
But online, especially among the Gen Z and Millennial set, Santa Rosa has become known for just one thing: The Schulz Museum. (Or, as many people on TikTok refer to it: The Snoopy Museum.)
A broad Snoopy Renaissance is upon us. Fueled in large part by social media, the Peanuts gang’s charming kitsch has become cool. Snoopy fan accounts continue to sprout up on TikTok, Instagram, and X, forming an online subculture significant enough that it’s had its own minor political scandal. Peanuts merch, sold by brands both chic and drab, have routinely sold out.
The Schulz Museum has been around for more than two decades, but the last few years has marked a time of historic growth for the museum. From July 2023 to June 2024, the Schulz Museum saw its highest number of admissions in history — with nearly 106,000 visitors making the trip to the museum, according to a museum spokesperson. And that number could very well increase next year: Attendance from July to September this year eclipsed that of the same timeframe last year.
@camilaa.reyesss Defenitely reccomend visting!! I loved it 🥹 #fypage #foryoupage #charlesmschulz #snoopy
♬ trees and flowers by strawberry switchblade - Eissej
People are flocking from all over to get there. On one recent weekend, visitors came from nine foreign countries and 22 states outside of California, according to the museum, though its biggest market remains Bay Area residents.
“We have people from all over the world come because it's an international connection,” director Gina Huntsinger told Gazetteer. “People love the art, the simplicity, the design, the sentiment, and the humanity of his art.”
She recalled meeting sisters — one who lived in Texas, another who lived in L.A. — who flew into San Francisco International, trekked to the museum, then immediately went back to SFO. (It was a surprise birthday present for one of the sisters, who was a Peanuts head, Huntsinger recalled.)
The Schulz Museum boasts 360,000 Instagram followers, rivaling SFMOMA’s, and outright eclipsing the deYoung and Legion of Honor combined. Users between the ages of 18 and 34 comprise 59% of its Instagram engagement; 59% of its following are from other countries.
TikTok clips of the museum and its affiliated attractions — an ice rink and the ever-so-charming Warm Puppy Café — routinely draw thousands of cumulative views and comments marveling that the museum exists, and that it’s located in Santa Rosa. (Among the sampling of comments: “i’d go there and cry because i’d be so happy to be looking at snoopy.” “a trip here would heal me.” “this looks like the most wonderful place in the world.”)
The popularity of the museum hasn’t quite spread to the rest of Santa Rosa, whose tourism industry is still recovering from a double hit — first, from the devastating Tubbs Fire in 2017, and then the pandemic. An uptick in “revenge travel” spending across Sonoma County in 2022 has flattened out a bit; short-term rental occupancy in the county dropped nearly 5% between 2022 and 2023.
For Santa Rosa, the question is how to translate the Peanuts hype into broader tourism, especially from that much-coveted 18-34 demographic, which is traveling more and drinking less. There have been a few attempts: Sonoma County has a two-day itinerary for Peanuts enthusiasts, and the city’s visitor center recently put out a set of Peanuts strips featuring Schulz’s ties to the Santa Rosa area.
“We have an opportunity to do some more marketing to them and encourage them to come up and see what else there is to offer here,” said Lindsay Musco, the director of business development for Visit Santa Rosa.
Robinson, who visited the museum from Manhattan Beach, didn’t spend much time in Santa Rosa, heading instead to California’s Great America in Santa Clara, which has its own section dedicated to Charlie Brown and the gang. Aside from the museum, she explained, she didn’t feel like there was much else to do in Santa Rosa for a Peanuts enthusiast — despite these recent pushes from city and county tourism officials. She’s also obsessed with museums dedicated to singular characters and franchises, which are more popular in Japan (Speaking of Japan, Tokyo is host to the Schulz Museum’s sister, which is actually called the Snoopy Museum).
While interest in the museum has spiked among young people, attendance is fairly spread across generations, according to Huntsinger. At the end of the day, few cultural touchstones are as universal as Peanuts.
“Things are hard in the world right now, especially for Gen Z and Millennials,” Huntsinger said. “I think Charles Schulz hits these human topics and then he makes people laugh about it. He addresses it, but he also makes us laugh at our own humanity.”
