A Local's Guide to the Best Beach Towns in California — With Epic Surfing, Beloved Seafood Restaurants, and Storybook Charm

I live in California, and these are my favorite beach towns in the Golden State.

Wherever you are in the world, conjuring the platonic ideal of a beach day probably looks a lot like a California dream, thanks to a cultural zeitgeist loaded with imagery of the Golden State’s 840 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline, 427 public beaches, and fabled weather — mostly sunny with high clouds and palm-swaying breezes.

Iconic surf cities like Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach may be thriving centers of commerce and development, but smaller coastal communities, with populations of less than 25,000 residents, seem to have more local seaside traditions and the slower pace of life required to detect all of those proverbial good vibrations. From Malibu’s place in music history to Carmel’s fairy-tale cottages to the legendary big-wave break in Half Moon Bay, here are 10 of California’s best beach towns, organized from south to north. To find one, just pick a highway — either Highway 101, Route 1, or the Pacific Coast Highway will do — and drive.

Solana Beach

Start the day in this easygoing coastal haven, located in San Diego's North County region, by picking up Kyoto-style cold brew at local mainstay Lofty Coffee before heading on foot, cautiously across Highway 101, to watch surfers shred southwest swells at Table Tops, a break on the northern tip of 1.7-mile Solana Beach.

Further south along this bluff-protected stretch is the popular Fletcher Cove, a.k.a. Pillbox, where a grassy ocean-view park is a hub for local picnickers laden with fresh-picked provisions from the Solana Beach farmers market, a Sunday event in the Cedros Avenue Design District. This bustling area is packed with indie shops (like florist Native Poppy), decor destinations (Bixby & Ball supplies coastal-chic accessories), and one venerable live music venue: Marquee shows at Belly Up, located in an old Quonset hut, include Taylor Swift dance parties and seated concerts for yacht-rock legend Ambrosia.

Malibu

No shortage of odes have been crafted in honor of this iconic California beach town, whether in the form of music (think “The Last Resort” by The Eagles and “Malibu” by Miley Cyrus) or architecture (like the tidal contours of the famous Wave House, muse for the design of the Sydney Opera House). Located 27 miles from Hollywood, Malibu has long been a bohemian escape, where the solitude of the canyons meets a roaring coastline of 29 beaches — “Malibu” is derived from Humaliwo, or “the surf sounds loud,” in the language of the area’s native Chumash people. Of the hiking trails in the Santa Monica Mountains, the 2.6-mile Solstice Canyon Loop, complete with waterfalls and historic ruins, is as quintessential to Malibu as joining the lineup for the “perfect wave” at Surfrider Beach or descending upon the Baywatch-famous sand at busy Zuma for sunset. Both the renovated and retro Hotel June (where Bob Dylan wrote his album, "Blood on the Tracks," in 1974) and The Surfrider (once a haunt for Jimi Hendrix and The Doors) honor Malibu’s history as a creative enclave.

Montecito

Many locals think of Montecito’s Butterfly Beach as a sandy extension of their (likely Mediterranean Revival) home, a place where they can start their day with a SUP session on mostly calm waters and then, a workday later, end where they began, with a walk along the shoreline at sunset. At the famous Lotusland botanical garden, you’ll immerse in plots and thickets, and orchards and fields, of rare plants that bloom, spike, veer, and radiate as splendidly as nature intended.

Montecito Country Mart is another community hub anchored by Bettina, whose wood-fired Neapolitan pizza is known to entice the likes of Alice Waters and Gwyneth Paltrow.

If, perchance, you’d like to decamp from such a seaside idyll for an afternoon, Santa Ynez wine country and all of its under-the-radar restaurants and tasting rooms, is just 45 minutes by car over the San Marcos Pass.

Related: I've Lived in California All My Life — and These Are the Most Underrated Destinations in the Golden State

Cayucos

Known for its decent kitesurfing and even better tidepooling, the main attractions of this so-called “last great California beach town” — a 19th-century shipping port for lumber and livestock that succumbed to seaside tourism around the 1920s — aren’t necessarily oceanic. For instance, a four-mile meander atop the rocky coastline at Estero Bluffs State Park is replete with sightings of otters, harbor seals, and snowy egrets. Or, get the best of land and sea with a low-tide, sand-dollar-speckled hike on Morro Strand, starting from southern Cayucos to Morro Rock Beach, where the eponymous monolith marks the end of a 3.1-mile trail.

Accommodations range from retro-chic beach motels like The Pacific to luxury inns like the historic Cass House, the Victorian home of town pioneer James Cass, who built the 982-foot-long fishing pier.

But everyone knows a beach hamlet is only as reputable as its beloved seafood restaurants. At the Sea Shanty, where a ceiling clad in trucker hats hints at the dress code, fried snapper — à la Baja-style tacos or classic fish and chips — is the house specialty. Meanwhile, at Duckie’s Chowder House, order the Nolan-style chowder topped with bacon and croutons plus a side of onion rings.

Carmel-by-the-Sea

Refreshingly devoid of commercial development, this one-square-mile village — where historic "Hansel and Gretel" cottages coexist with Frank Lloyd Wright modernism and postal addresses that forgo street numbers for appellations like "Neverland" and "Go Away" — is situated on a hillside that gently descends into crescent-shaped Carmel Beach.

Here, you can enjoy a beach picnic with stacked and slathered tri-tip sandwiches from Bruno’s Market & Deli, sign your dog up for surfing lessons, practice building coastal citadels for the town’s annual Sandcastle Contest in September, or simply meander along the 3.5-mile Scenic Bluff Path.

In fact, Carmel’s walkability is part of its allure, since every step packs an enchanting punch. On either side of the main drag, Ocean Avenue, a grid of backstreets and hidden pathways contains magical bookshops (like Pilgrim's Way), Michelin-starred restaurants (like Chez Noir, which specializes in hyperlocal produce and the seafood of California’s central coast), and designer boutiques (like Chartreuse, where elegant silk slip dresses are sewn in the on-site atelier).

Drawn to its dramatic coastline and storybook charm, Hollywood A-listers — from former mayor Clint Eastwood to late Golden Girl Betty White to newly minted local Brad Pitt — have called Carmel home. Or, at least home for the weekend, like this fantastic foursome.

Capitola

Consider this town a quainter, more laid-back alternative to its neighbor five miles to the north, the iconic surf city of Santa Cruz. The town relishes its uncontested status as the “oldest seaside resort on the Pacific Coast,” dating back to the 1870s.

Of Capitola’s claims to fame, perhaps the most cinematic is having served as artistic inspiration for "The Birds" after an unexplained invasion of sea fowl in 1961 darkened skies over Pleasure Point, the famous local surf break.

But its most recognized view is of the colorful and historic Italianate cottages overlooking Capitola State Beach. While partaking in the town’s trademark photo op, you might as well stake an umbrella in the sand and stay a while. Nearby Capitola Beach Company rents all manner of self-powered watercraft, from boogie boards to stand-up paddleboards, in addition to offering surf lessons. (The town’s other beach, New Brighton, is more wooded, making it a great place to pitch a tent, but the water, for better or worse, is lapping at best.)

In the summer months, you can catch a movie or a twilight concert under the eucalyptus trees and stars at Capitola Beach’s neighboring Esplanade Park. For award-winning refreshments, seek out the tucked-away oasis of mixed-fermentation saisons known as Sante Adairius Rustic Ales. Pair the pours with “inauthentic Detroit-style pizza” from Bookie’s, located inside the brewery.

Half Moon Bay

For most people, staying out of the frigid ocean at this beach town located 45 minutes south of San Francisco is understandable. For big-wave surfers, it's the place to conquer 50-foot swells at the infamous Mavericks surf break.

For all of your panoramic views and ocean-spray needs, there’s the 11.5-mile Half Moon Bay Coastal Trail. If you still need more communing with nature, you can pitch a tent at the Half Moon Bay State Beach campground, or head inland about 10 miles to Purisima Creek Redwoods for a forest fix.

Downtown Half Moon Bay is a charming avenue of locally owned shops and restaurants that gets particularly busy around Halloween, when droves of Bay Area families come to pick out their jack-o'-lantern gourds from the surrounding pumpkin patches.

Head to Sam’s Chowder House for heaping lobster rolls that befit a well-respected West Coast seafood shack, or to Dad’s Luncheonette, a vintage-train-caboose-turned-modern-diner owned and operated by a former Michelin-starred chef, for maitake mushroom sandwiches and homemade potato chips. Since seating at this Highway 1 favorite is limited, bring your takeout order to the ocean-view tables at nearby Francis Beach instead. Whatever you do, be sure to snap a selfie with the town’s most vigilant landmark, the historic Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which has been preventing ships from running aground on this rocky coast since 1871.

Stinson Beach

The best time to visit Stinson Beach — a vacation community located in a secluded pocket of the Bay Area that’s only accessible via a long and winding road or steep wilderness trail rife with switchbacks — is on warm-weather, long weekend holidays like the Fourth of July or Labor Day. On these special occasions, the three-mile, crescent-shaped shoreline, bordered by a 51-acre grassy park complete with barbecue grills and picnic tables, is teeming with all manner of beachgoers, from surfers to Spikeballers to sun worshippers.

Just off the sand, the old-fashioned Parkside Snack Bar serves epicurean-level smash burgers and shakes, and hosts wine country’s finest — think Scribe Winery of Sonoma County and Mommenpop, Napa winemaker Samantha Sheehan’s juicy vermouth label — for gourmet collaboration dinners and thirst-quenching pop-ups.

Take care when browsing the boutique art galleries, surf shops, and bookstores along the town’s main thoroughfare — nary a pedestrian-friendly stoplight, nor a sidewalk exists on this stretch of iconic Highway 1.

Guerneville

Who says beaches have to be coastal? The forested hamlet of Guerneville — a longtime haunt for hippies, artists, and members of LGBTQ+ community absconding from San Francisco, about 75 miles south — is located on the Russian River, a slow-moving waterway intermittently lined with beaches. Guerneville’s Johnson’s Beach, for example, is a gravelly bank chockablock with rivergoers on summer weekends.

The town is also a basecamp for the Russian River’s lively float scene, for which gobs of sunscreen and hydration by the gallon are just as imperative as well-inflated inner tubes. One popular stretch — Sunset Beach to Johnson’s Beach — can take more than six hours; the river can be very lazy, sometimes crawling at a rate of a half-mile per hour. If you’d rather stay on dry land, the nearby 805-acre Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve offers hiking trails and a cool respite, while Porter-Bass Winery makes day drinking a biodynamic pursuit.

Good food is part of Guerneville’s DNA, whether you opt for chorizo tacos at the popular Guerneville Taco Truck, located in the Safeway parking lot, or local mushroom mac and cheese at Boon Eat + Drink. Chef-owner Crista Luedtke is also the proprietor of the Boon Hotel + Spa, which offers mid-century-style fireplace suites, luxury glamping tents, and one gleamingly cute vintage camper built for two.

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