Best Southern California Beaches

Life sometimes happens in cycles. I lived in Southern California in the 1950s and would often visit the beach as a way to take a break from my job, editing a local newspaper in Beverly Hills. Now retired, my wife and I moved back to Southern California from Tucson, Arizona about eight months ago to be close to our adult children. Although I love Tucson, my recent return visits to the Southern California beaches remind me how much I enjoy the beach, the ocean and the whole waterfront lifestyle.

Here are my suggestions for the best Southern California beaches to visit:

Malibu
One of the most famous surfing spots in Southern California is Malibu Surfrider Beach, part of the Malibu Lagoon State Park. Experienced surfers look for the big, five-foot-high waves, which are occasional, not common. This is a beautiful, natural coastline, with large kelp beds floating offshore and teeming with sea life. There is mainly residential development along the beachfront here, with a few restaurants.

The best free-access beach is next to the Malibu Pier, and visitors who like vintage movies will recognize the area where those 1950s teen surf and sand movies were filmed. Parking in the area is tough during the weekends. One great things to do is to rent an ocean kayak from the guy who sets up next to the pier. It's a lot of fun, and quite easy to paddle around the ocean offshore for a whole new perspective on the coastline. Just be sure to listen to the instructions on how to launch the boat into the surf, or you will get swamped and very wet.

Malibu Beach is about 10 miles north on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) from Santa Monica. For more information, check out the City of Malibu's own website, ci.malibu.ca.us.

Venice Beach
This broad beach is great for sunning and surfing, and just a few sandy steps away, visitors can also see and be part of an ongoing human circus. At one area is the famed Muscle Beach, an outdoor gym where weightlifters and other sculpted bodies strain and show-off to the admiring crowds on the boardwalk. On the Venice boardwalk (concrete not wood like in some East Coast resorts), you need to be careful not to bump into the parade of humanity, from gawkers to roller-bladers, from gangsters to families. There is a wide, bike and skater only path, that goes for miles from north of Santa Monica, all the way to south of Venice Beach.

On the beach side, you have small vendors and people selling crafts, on the other side of the boardwalk, you have larger shops and food places. There are a few bars and sit-down beachfront cafes along the way. This is also a daytime-only place, unsafe for night visits.

To get from Los Angeles to Venice Beach, take the Santa Monica Freeway West, exit at Fourth Street, turn left on Pacific Avenue and follow the signs to Venice Beach. Turn right for beach parking, which is very hard to find on the busy weekends. Read posted parking street signs, enforcement is fast and thorough.

For more information, go to laparks.org/venice/venice.htm

Santa Monica
This is as close to an East Coast summer beach town as you can get in California. Instead of the expected surfers and bikini babes, visitors find families on the beach, complete with their umbrellas, picnic baskets, towels and suntan lotion. Above the beach is Santa Monica Pier, a look-alike for Steel Pier or Coney Island, complete with games, music, amusement rides, food stalls and souvenir shops. The amusement park, Pacific Park, has been renovated with all new rides and facilities and is quite clean and nice. The pier is heavily patrolled by police and is quite safe. However, the beach area and boardwalk are daytime places only, night visits are unsafe.

To get there, take Santa Monica Freeway West, which exits right down a ramp into the Pacific Coast Highway. To get to Santa Monica and the Pier, continue down PCH and there is a turnoff to the right which takes you up the hill to Ocean Avenue.

For more information, go to santamonica.com.

La Jolla
This posh suburb just north of San Diego is famed for fine restaurants and shopping, along with perfect climate and beautiful oceanfront cliffs. The great beaches are free to everyone, and are varied for all tastes, from relaxing on the stretches of sand, to surfing, snorkeling and rock climbing. The northern beach area is called Black's Beach, where there are rugged 300-foot cliffs to explore (and naked people). The La Jolla Shores area includes a popular half-circle beach where families can enjoy the sand and gentle waves.

For those interested in ocean science, La Jolla is the home of the Birch Aquarium at Scripps, part of the internationally-renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography. La Jolla is about 10 miles north from downtown San Diego on Highway 5 north to Coast Boulevard. Special hint: there is a branch of the world famous Comedy Store in downtown La Jolla. A great evening is to combine some of their national headlining comedians, along with some of La Jolla's fine restaurants.