Over the last 4 months, my time spent in the US of A — mostly California, briefly Nevada and Arizona — had been nothing short of incredible and amazing.
Not only have I met many different, inspirational people whom I’m proud to call my friends, the Californian landscape really never ceased to amaze me. Before I went to California, I didn’t know what to expect nor did I have any expectations of California’s landscapes.
Little did I know, I got extremely lucky because California lies right by the pacific ocean, which meant you could see an expansive, breathtaking view of the west coast of USA. Not only that, California offered a very good mix of urban and natural landscapes.
Out of all the states in the US, California has the most number of national parks (9) but I only had the chance to visit 2.
Because I went to California during the end of summer and left during winter, the seasonal differences not only gave each landscape its unique, phenomenal appearance, they let me experience a good variety of temperatures and experiment with different styles of clothing. Coming from Singapore where all we experience is summer, all of these were very exciting and interesting to me!
In order of the beach I found least to the beach I found most interesting:
Half Moon Bay State Beach (San Mateo)
I drove to this beach on my way down from Berkeley/ San Francisco to Los Angeles/ Riverside. Along the way there were some views of the Pacific Ocean. Not going to lie, the views from my drive along the way, down to the views at the beach itself were pretty mundane.
Apart from a campsite, the beach looked quite featureless and gloomy.
Next.
Huntington Beach (Orange County)
To be fair, I went to this beach really late with my friends and I was very tired by the time we got there. So I didn’t take a lot of photos and it was understandable that the beach wasn’t too eventful during the time we were there.
We only went to the pier and there was a shopping area right next to it. Most of the shops were closed by the time we were there, except for the bars and night clubs. There was also a good amount of drunk/ tipsy people around where we were! It was pretty amusing watching them making a din.
Newport Beach (Orange County)
I like this beach because it’s so vast (actually all the beaches from this point on offer really expansive views) and the area around this beach is pretty posh and upscale. There were a lot of nice houses immediately by the beach.
The water on this beach was pretty clear and as you can see from the photos, people also surf there. If only I had enough time and money to pick surfing up!
There were some restaurants and pubs around and there was one, Bear Flag Fish Company, that we had gone to a couple of times. It offered really good burritos and I also really like their poke bowls.
Laguna Beach (Orange County)
Similar to Newport Beach, the area around this beach is really upscale and posh – we saw many big houses along the beach and there were more of them inland, up the hills next to the beach.
There wasn’t much to do along the beach since there wasn’t a pier that we could go on nor was shopping immediately available. There was however a beach volleyball court and a playground for children.
There were shops, restaurants and shops along some of the streets nearby. The shops sold pretty interesting and hipster stuff!
La Jolla Cove (San Diego)
I liked this beach better than Laguna and Newport because it wasn’t the typical sandy, depositional beach. If I didn’t remember my Oceanography class wrongly, La Jolla Cove/ Beach is an erosional beach. Technicalities aside, it basically had a landform that was different from the typical sandy one we associate with a beach. Novelty was an important factor for me throughout this entire California trip so I preferred this beach.
There were shops, restaurants and pubs around the beach but we didn’t go to any of them because we didn’t have enough time. From the looks of them, they were similar to those in Newport and Laguna.
For some reason there was a good amount of seals laying by rocks and they seemed really cool with so many people going near/ taking photos of them. It was pretty interesting!
People also do scuba diving and kayaking at the La Jolla cove area of this beach.
Venice/ Muscle Beach (Los Angeles)
Venice beach ranks high for me because it was really vibrant with different street performances, street art, food and there was great diversity in the people I saw there.
There was a skateboard park in Venice beach and a bunch of facilities (pull-up bars, ropes etc.) that bodybuilders/ athletes might be very interested in on Muscle beach.
Of course, the beach offered a wide view of the Pacific Ocean with loads of people enjoying themselves, playing frisbee, volleyball, jogging etc. It was really quite the sight and by evening it was really breezy and relaxing.
Venice/ Muscle beach had a good mix of vibrance and chill which I really liked!
Santa Monica Beach (Los Angeles)
My favourite beach yet! It might be because this beach was the first one that I went to and I got really blown away by the sights it offered.
What first drew me to like this beach so much was (obviously) its impressive, clear view of the ocean. Then I saw the hustle and bustle on its pier, which offered a sizeable amusement park, an arcade, a few restaurants, several pushcarts and there were different interesting buskers and street performances. It was so full of life!
Parallel to the beach, there were a few streets that offer good shopping. The most prominent of them all is the Third Street Promenade, with various big brands such as American Apparel, A&F and Old Navy. It also helped that we went to Burgerlounge, a burger joint there, which had awesome burgers!
I only went into the waters of Santa Monica beach because it was the only beach I went to with beach wear. But ironically the water of Santa Monica is the least clear out of all the beaches in this list. It was also during summer when we went so I could tolerate the coldness of the Pacific Ocean. We went to the other beaches during fall so the temperatures weren’t exactly suitable for swimming, at least for me. The waters of all the beaches listed here are typically pretty cold.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself the two times I went to Santa Monica beach so I really, really liked it there!
So this concludes the list of beaches that I went to in California. I hope this list helped provide you with a sense of what to expect if you intend to visit the beaches of California or at least entertained you!
There were other beaches along the Californian coastline that I didn’t get the chance to visit, such as the El Matador State beach in Malibu and the one(s) on Catalina Island. So this list is definitely not exhaustive and it only documents the beaches that I went to.
Until the next entry on Cali-Livin’!
bohsupremo 