This is NOT normal surf for Huntington Beach, not even close. These sets in 2016 are about as big as waves ever get in Huntington Beach. H.B. may be the real "Surf City" from the Jan and Dean song, but most days the waves are 2-5 feet. But Huntington Beach still has one of the best overall stretches of urban beach, 8.3 miles worth, of anywhere in Southern California.
It's late June, 2021, as I'm writing this. California is emerging from 15 months of pandemic protocol restrictions, and people everywhere want to get outside, and go to the beach, and everywhere else. With 4th of July weekend coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought it's a great time to look at some of the best beaches in California.
California is a huge state, taking up much of the West Coast of the continental United States, as we all know. With 840 miles of coastline, it ranks third in total coastline, behind Alaska (over 6,000 miles of coast), and Florida). With all that shoreline, you can bet their are dozens, maybe hundreds, of great beaches in California. And Californians love to go to the beach. But people go for all different reasons.
For most people, though, the beach is either a day trip for the family, or for a group of young people, looking to meet other young people. Bikinis, trunks, laying out, volleyball, surfing, boogie boarding, and often evening bonfires, are the most popular things we do at the beach. But other people like to go to secluded, unpopulated beaches, to get away from the crowds. There are plenty of beaches in California for all. For this blog post, I concentrated on the beaches other people have written about online, trying to get a consensus of the most popular "beach day," type beaches. Then I tried to narrow it down to beaches where there's plenty of sand, you can swim, boogie board, or surf, and that have bathrooms, probably food stands, and very important, a decent amount of parking.
Let's face it, spending 45 minutes driving around a beach city, to find a parallel parking place, so you can go relax at the beach, kind of starts things off on a bad note. So these are a few of the overall, most popular beaches for a traditional day at the beach.
Southern California-
Orange County-
Huntington Beach- Huntington State Beach and Bolsa Chica State Beach- Huntington Beach is the only major beach city in Southern California that doesn't have houses built right up to the sand. It's in Orange County, basically straight west of Disneyland. With just over 8 miles of wide, sandy beach, good quality restrooms (for a beach), lifeguards, food stands, and tons of parking, the Huntington Beach State beach (south of the H.B. pier, along PCH), and Bolsa Chica State Beach (along PCH, about 2 miles north of H.B. pier) are the most popular "beach day" beaches for Orange County, the inland empire, and southern L.A. County. Fire rings are there in some locations for evening bonfires. I lived for most of 20 years in H.B., and spent lots of time at the beach. It's a lot more crowded and popular these days, and there's a reason for that.
Laguna Beach- Main Beach- Parking is an issue in Laguna, there are some small parking areas in the downtown area, but mostly street parking. There are good public restrooms near two parking areas, and lots of restaurants near Main Beach, located at Broadway and PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). Laguna Beach has miles of coastline, with big cliffs along most of it, leading to separated sections of beaches. It's one of the most picturesque beach areas in SoCal, which is why so many artists moved there 80+ years ago, and since. There are dozens of art galleries all around the Main Beach area. I discovered the work of Vladimir Kush in Laguna in the late 90's, and have been a fan since. He has a big gallery right by Main Beach, check it out.
Salt Creek Beach- Dana Point- Salt Creek Beach is another popular beach, a few miles south of Laguna Beach, officially in Dana Point. It's right below the Ritz Carleton hotel in Dana Point, and the beach parking is near the hotel entrance. This is one of the more popular beaches in south Orange County.
Crystal Cove State Park- Between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach- Crystal Cove State Park is a kind of secret beach that thousands of people drive by daily. I have been there a couple of times, and it's a great beach if you want to avoid the huge crowds without leaving Orange County. The beach is hidden from PCH, below some cliffs. It's just a wide open, scenic area with a great ocean view, as you drive by. There's a couple miles of beach, and multiple parking areas. There are restrooms, near the parking areas, but you have to walk a bit, and down the trails, to get to the beach itself. There are people around, but it's much less crowded than Huntington Beach or Laguna Main Beach. There actually are a lot of crystal stones there, by the way, most rounded by surf action.
Los Angeles County-
Santa Monica main beach- While Santa Monica is a great beach city, and there is some beach parking, the Santa Monica Pier is the main reason people go to the beach there, not the beach itself. But it's on a couple of the "best beaches" lists online. The pier is one everyone has seen in movies, it has a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster, bumper cars, and lots to do. There's also a lot of shops on the promenade just inland of the pier. If you're looking for a day on the beach itself, and you plan to actually get in the water, you may want to head a bit north, and find one of the Malibu beaches to go to.
Malibu- Known for luxurious homes of movie stars, there are several great beach areas in Malibu to spend a day at the beach. Much of it has cliffs right above the beach. Will Rogers State Beach, north of Santa Monica, before Malibu, is one I saw mentioned online multiple times. Less crowded than the other two places, the water's probably a bit cleaner than the Santa Monica area as well.
San Diego County-
Coronado Beach- San Diego- I've never been to this beach, but every "best beaches" list I looked at online listed Coronado Beach. The luxurious Hotel Coronado is right there. It's on the island where the Naval Air Station is, west of downtown San Diego, which you get to be going over the (you guessed it) Coronado Bridge.
Ocean Beach- San Diego- Located at the west end of the 8 freeway, north of downtown San Diego, Ocean Beach is where a San Diego local said was his favorite beach, when I asked on Facebook. There is beach parking, and also an area open for dogs.
I originally started this post to list a bunch of beaches statewide, but there are just too many, and this blog is pretty much SoCal-centric for right now. But for those of you farther north, here are some Central Coast and Northern California beaches that showed up multiple times in other articles and posts online. Google them at your leisure, and see if any sound appealing to go explore.
Heading north from Malibu: East Beach in Santa Barbara (a ways north of Malibu and L.A. on PCH). Pismo Beach, in Pismo Beach, just south of San Luis Obispo (Central Coast). Carmel Beach in Big Sur (near Monterey, a ways south of S.F. Bay Area) Santa Cruz Main beach, in Santa Cruz (west of San Jose area). Stinson State Beach in Stinson Beach, in Marin county, that's north over the Golden Gate Bridge, then follow CA route 1 (it's not called PCH up there, I guess).
For uncrowded NorCal beaches with no amenities, I've personally been to Muir Beach, which is a bit south of Stinson Beach, in Marin county, and much farther north, Big River Beach in Mendocino. I had a good day at both, and both take a little walk to get down to the beach. There will be some people, but probably not very many. I waded into a good sized sea cave at Big River Beach, which was cool.
If you really want to avoid all crowds, my old San Francisco based BMX friend, Maurice Meyer, suggested The Lost Coast. That's a huge area of undeveloped beaches in Mendocino ad Humboldt counties, basically a ways north of Fort Bragg, and south of Eureka, in redwood territory. I think that's where Sasquatch families go on beach day. If you head up there, remember, the water's pretty cold, and if there are lots of seals or sea lions on the beach, there are probably plenty of sharks in the water. Probably not the best place for a long solo swim.
OK, now I want to drive up the coast and check out all the little known beaches. But that's the idea of this blog, to give you (and me) some ideas for cool day trips, or maybe a longer excursion. Have a good summer people, and if you see my fat ass at the beach, don't drag me back into the water, like those Greenpeace people did. I'm going to lose weight, I swear.
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