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Southern California Beaches
Los Angeles to San Diego

Selected beaches from our multimedia travel guide to Southern California. The guide contains more beaches and full screen photos, plus reviews of hotels, restaurants, recommended activities, sights and more to help you plan your vacation.
The 'map' below shows beaches between Malibu Surfrider and Pacific Beach down in San Diego in a correct progression from northwest to southeast. If your browser does not display the brief descriptions when you point to a photo, comments about the beaches follow below the map!
  Malibu Surfrider Beach is known around the world thanks to Baywatch, but the waves are just OK. Between Ventura and Santa Monica the coastline is hilly, with small coves and a couple of large beaches (Zuma, Pt.Dume..) At Santa Monica the coast turns south. 20 miles strip of wide sandy beaches and a nice bike path stretches to South Bay   Santa Monica   L
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  Santa Monica
Bay		 Venice - everything you heard about is probably true. Great people watching, but do watch out! Park in safe areas!
Volleyball Meccas Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach share the wide sandy stretch between Pacific Palisades and Palos Verdes.
20-mile stretch of wide sandy beaches with a nice bike path, running southward from Santa Monica, ends after Redondo and Torrance Beaches under the cliffs of Palos Verdes.		   Venice Beach



  South Bay

      Long Beach
The rocky coves of Palos Verdes end at Cabrillo Beach, popular with windsurfers. Wide Long Beach is nice, but adjacent to a huge port = questionable water, no surf.		   A
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    Pacific Ocean Between Sunset Beach and Newport Beach the flat coast includes such famous surfing spots as Huntington Beach ('Surf City') and Santa Ana River jetty, 2 wildlife estuaries at Bolsa Chica and Upper Newport Bay..
Popular sandy stretch of Newport Beach ends at the expert body surfing spot - The Wedge. After the pleasure harbor channel the coast becomes hilly
Laguna Beach is in the middle of a 15-mile stretch of beautiful hilly coastline running from Corona del Mar to Dana Point in the south. Picturesque coves, good tidepools.
After the pleasure harbor at Dana Point the hills retreat inland. Doheny and San Clemente beaches are popular for surfing, and even allow camping.		   O
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    Pacific Ocean North San Diego coast alternates stretches of cliffs with protected lagoons - here Batiquitos in Carlsbad.
North County cliffs hide several narrow beaches popular for beachcombing and surfing: 'Swami's Beach' in Encinitas + Cardiff beaches.Camping is allowed at South Carlsbad and San Elijo State Beaches
La Jolla Shores is an extremely popular family beach - this was December! Finding parking in summer is impossible.
La Jolla Cove is beautiful, but has strong currents! Explore the Underwater Park. Children's Pool is a safe lagoon a bit south. The coastline here is picture perfect!
Windansea is a world class surfing spot with great swells, but limited parking and not-too-friendly local surfing dudes
Tourmaline Surfing Park is another great surfing spot. A long strip of wide sandy beach with boardwalk and a bike path stretches south from here, through popular and crowded Pacific Beach and Mission Beach (a bit run down in places, but with nice beaches on both sides of its narrow peninsula!)		 S
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Here is a list of the beach photos from top left down:

Los Angeles County

Malibu Surfrider: well known worldwide from 'Baywatch' TV show, surf mostly just OK
Santa Monica: very popular, wide sandy family beach, the start of 20 miles bike path
Venice: ALL you've heard is probably true. Parts of Venice are not very safe!
Manhattan Beach + Hermosa Beach: beach volleyball Mecca.
Redondo Beach: 1st surfing place outside of Hawaii; a birthplace of the beach lifestyle
Long Beach: wide sandy beach, but adjacent to 2 international ports

Orange County

Huntington Beach: aka Surf City USA. A party town. 12 miles of wide beach to..
The Wedge, Newport Beach: world-class body surfing for the experts!
Laguna Beach: beautiful coves, tidepools, art festivals and galleries..
Doheny: another surfing hot spot, allows camping!

San Diego County

Carlsbad: pleasant small town with decent beach, a lagoon for bird watching and more
Swami's: another surfing beach, nice tiny park on top with very limited parking
La Jolla Shores: extremely popular family beach, VERY tight parking
La Jolla Cove: start of a series of beautiful coves. No dogs!!!
Windansea: great surfing, limited street parking, unfriendly dudes
Tourmaline Beach for surfing; the rest of Pacific Beach + Mission Beach is for everybody


Links

Another list of California beaches
A list of most California nude/nudist beaches - no pix, sorry ;-)

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