Pictured above: Laguna Beach
Image Credit: Caleb Bennetts
By Mary Moore Mason
Headed off to explore the golden shores of southern California? Then you have to make a decision – to quickly zip down coastal-hugging Highways 1 and 101, only diverting for photo ops, a surfside stroll and possibly a one- or two-night stay in a coastal resort, or to do as we did, meander leisurely down the coast, savouring the delights of the quite-different coastal cities all along the way.
You can begin your seaside safari at seductive Santa Monica (santamonica.com). Not only is it the western terminus of America’s most-famous road, Route 66, which celebrates its centenary in 2026, but it’s also home to one of the country’s most-famous and attraction-enhanced piers, now marking its 115th anniversary.
As a film buff, I insisted that our first stop was at the vintage carousel where Robert Redford and his buddy, Paul Newman, hung out in 1973’s The Sting. Then, savouring batons of cotton candy, my friend and I strolled past the world’s only solar-powered Ferris wheel, the nine-storey-high Plunge Tower and five-storey roller-coaster to lean on the rails at pier’s end and enjoy a spectacular sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Then, a blissful evening at the splendid Shutters on the Beach hotel.
The next day we walked along the wide, sandy beach, discovering from locals that it was not only the birthplace of beach volleyball but also a designated 2028 summer Olympics site; checked out the shops along the Third Street Promenade; browsed through the art galleries in Bergamot Station; and then headed south on Route 1 to Venice Beach (visitveniceca.com).
A stroll along the Boardwalk took us into a whole new fun and funky world of scantily-clad skateboarders, fortune tellers, vendors of sunglasses for dogs and quirky murals. And then there’s its Muscle Beach area, where Incredible Hulk- and early Arnold Schwarzenegger-lookalikes were flexing their muscles and strutting their stuff. Once again, a film vignette came to mind, of a ditzy Sarah Jessica Parker beginning a chaotic romance with disgruntled Los Angles weatherman Steve Martin after a casual Boardwalk meeting in 1991’s LA Story.
Image Credit: Leo Visions
Inland, there is the totally different ambience of the tranquil canals, crossed by bowed bridges and charming cottages, which inspired the resort’s Italian name.
Next, we lingered at Marina del Rey (visitmdr.com), North America’s largest man-made small-craft harbour, to view the ever-evolving circus of boats, kayakers and paddle boarders. Away from the hubbub, we were told, you could see sea lions and harbour seals.
For closer views of marine creatures, including moon jellies, sharks and octopuses, we dropped by Manhattan Beach’s (downtownmanhattanbeach.com) pier-sited Roundhouse Aquarium Teaching Center, continuing on down the coast to Hermosa Beach (hermosabeach.gov) where (film fan alert!) La La Land’s Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) sang the film’s Oscar-winning song, City of Stars, to Mia (Emma Stone) after they had visited the nearby Lighthouse Café, a jazz venue both in the film and real life.
Past Redondo Beach (redondobeachtourism.com), known for its expansive artificial Seaside Lagoon, Route 1 swerves away from the coast to rejoin it close to Long Beach (visitlongbeach.com) where we checked into a stateroom on the 1936 Queen Mary, transformed into a hotel and moored on the local waterfront since 1967. In its heyday as one of the world’s most luxurious ocean liners, it was host to the likes of Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Clark Gable and Bob Hope. A pleasant if not outstanding dinner on board followed, as did a blissful night, undisturbed by any of the ship’s reputed ghosts.
Image Credit: Perry Merrity
The next day, an hour-long Catalina Express ferry ride whisked us over the sea to picturesque Avalon on Catalina Island (visitcatalinaisland.com) where we strolled along the pier and took a glass-bottom boat around the harbour. We then hopped on a golf cart for a tour to such sites as the landmark, circular Art Deco-style Casino, dedicated not to gambling but to the island’s annual jazz and film festivals and other special events, and to Avalon Canyon’s Wrigley Memorial and Botanic Gardens, a tribute to chewing gum tycoon William Wrigley Jr, who once owned and preserved much of the island.
If we had been more adventurous – and time had been on our side – we could have visited the island’s other major tourism base, the rustic village of Two Harbors, ziplined over Descanso Canyon, or gone off in search of the bison that have been resident on the island since they were left behind from a 1920s film shoot. Instead, we enjoyed some delicious seafood at the NDMK Fish House and, returning to the mainland, we continued south to Huntington Beach (surfcityusa.com).
As this is known as ‘Surf City USA’, we obviously felt compelled to head immediately for the beach to watch a surfing lesson conducted by local pro Rocky McKinnon. Get me on a surfboard? No way – I have no sense of balance! But I was encouraged to see a couple of the wetsuit-clad novice surfers meet the challenge and gracefully soar over the waves and back to shore.
Next, a visit to the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum, where former Australian surfer and museum spokesman Peter Townsend proudly posed in front of the bust of Duke Kahanamoku, the remarkable Hawaiian who so brought surfing to international prominence that it is now officially an Olympics sport.
Image Credit: Dan Hadar
We admired historic surfboards, including one of Duke’s own, plus photos and art works inspired by other renowned surfers, and discussed our favourite surf films, including 1991’s Point Break, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, who, when he was not leading a gaggle of surfers, was directing their exploits as bank robbers disguised by US Presidential masks, including those of Abe Lincoln and Richard Nixon.
After admiring the ‘World’s Largest Surfboard’ (just over 42ft long and 11ft wide) hanging on the wall of the adjacent parking lot, we strolled down the Surfing Walk of Fame to enjoy a delicious waterfront seafood meal at Duke’s restaurant, followed by a sunset yacht cruise through the back waterways of the resort and an overnight at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach.
A quick swing by Newport Beach, (visitnewportbeach.com), known for its elegant waterfront, shops and six miles of white-sand strand and then on to Laguna Beach (visitlagunabeach.com), which professes to do for art what Huntington Beach does for surfing. We briefly joined a group of plein-air painters in beautiful, green Heisler Park, which crowns the cliffs overlooking the sea, heard about the local art galleries and festivals, and then toured the dressing rooms, scenery workshops and 2,600-seat amphitheatre where the Pageant of the Masters is staged.
Produced every summer since 1932 by a huge cast of volunteers, it stages reconstructions of famous art works, with actors portraying the human subjects and the surroundings created by local artists. The star creation for the past 49 years, we were told, has been Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, with the same actor proudly portraying Jesus year after year. (There is an inside joke among those portraying the 12 apostles that whereas above the table they are all in traditional biblical robes, under the table they are all wearing funny flip-flops.)
Laguna also claims to have the most ocean-front hotels in California, including the elegant, five-star Montage, where we enjoyed a gourmet lunch on the lawn overlooking the sea, and that evening stayed at the atmospheric, rustic Ranch at Laguna Beach, backed by towering mountains and overlooking a golf course. The ranch produces some of its eggs, vegetables, flowers and fruit on an allotment-sized farm, which we toured.
Then came Dana Point (visitdanapoint.com), where its beautiful bay was filled with kayakers, paddleboarders and dolphin- and whale-watching boats. Proclaiming itself ‘The Whale Watching Capital of the World’, the city’s surrounding waters between December and May are home to thousands of migrating Gray Whales, while other types of whales, plus dolphins and sea lions, can be seen throughout the year.
Dana Point also has California’s first state park, Doheny (founded in 1931), and its beautiful beaches and gentle waters are popular with fledgling surfers. Not far inland are the picturesque ruins of one of the state’s most famous Spanish missions, San Juan Capistrano.
A brief stop at Oceanside (visitoceanside.org) to admire its pier and beach activities and then we were in picturesque Carlsbad (visitcarlsbad.com), best known for its 50 acres of Flower Fields, which spectacularly bloom each spring, and being the home of the LEGOLAND® California theme park. We lingered to watch families wandering awestruck past giant dinosaurs and other creatures all made, of course, from Lego, and screaming in delight on thrilling rides. For sand and sea lovers, the town also has beautiful sandy beaches and three natural lagoons.
And now we arrived at the final stop on our coastal adventure, San Diego (sandiego.org), the state’s second-largest city with 1.3 million residents, and sometimes referred to as ‘The Birthplace of California’.
A re-creation of Cabrillo’s galleon, the San Salvador, as well as the actual 1863 Star of India, the world’s oldest active sailing ship, are in the Maritime Museum along the city’s waterfront Embarcadero, as is the famous US Midway World War II battleship. And in the waterfront park couples were taking selfies of themselves embracing in front of Seward Johnson’s Embracing Peace sculpture of a US sailor snatching a victory kiss from a passing lady.
Image Credit: Kara Peak
We learned more about San Diego by taking the narrated hop-on/hop-off Old Town Trolley, which links numerous places around the city. Among them are the Mexican-era originating Old Town, the lively Gaslamp Quarter entertainment district and, on bridge-linked Coronado Island, the grand 19th-century Hotel del Coronado, where Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis (in female attire as members of an all-girl dance band) frolicked the days and nights away (while evading the mob) in Billy Wilder’s delightful 1959 film Some Like It Hot.
But the highpoint of the tour, and of our visit, was 1,200-acre Balboa Park. Not only is it home to beautiful Spanish Baroque-style buildings remaining from, or inspired by, its setting for the grand 1915-1916 Panama-California and 1935 California Pacific International expositions, but many of them, and other park buildings, are now museums devoted to art, history, anthropology, aviation and space. There are also lovely gardens, a re-creation of London’s Globe Theatre, which stages regular productions, and, particularly notable, America’s most-visited zoo.
Originally sheltering some of the exotic animals abandoned after the exposition, the 100-acre zoo has pioneered in establishing cage-less environments for its inhabitants and is home to 12,000 animals from more than 680 species and subspecies as well as a vast range of exotic plants.
Image Credit: James Lee
As some of the zoo terrain is quite hilly, we chose to take the guided bus tour past elephants, giraffes, monkeys and more, followed by a brief aerial view from the Skyfari gondolas. And then, although we longed to spend more time enjoying the miles of beautiful beaches, particularly around chic and scenic La Jolla, it was time to return home. So we hopped on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Train (pacificsurfliner.com), admiring the coastal views along the way before disembarking at Los Angeles’s Central Station to link up with the Flyaway bus to the airport and our flight back to London, vowing to return soon for another California coastal adventure.
