A lifeguard tower on the Pacific Coast Highway. Image credit: Maciej Bledowski/Alamy Stock Photo
CALIFORNIA CULTURE
The sprawling Los Angeles cityscape. Image credit: Susanne Kremer/4Corners
Picturesque La Jolla Cove is a small beach surrounded by cliffs. Image credit: 4Corners/Susanne Kremer
LIVING LIFE OUTDOORS
Crescent-shaped beach coves strewn with spindly palm trees, a sparkling glint of sun on an aquamarine wave, and a silhouetted island stretched along the distant horizon. Squint your eyes and you could be in Hawaii or a hillside town on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. This is Heisler Park in Laguna Beach, California – an oceanfront, blufftop garden that serves up the seaside splendor of this coastal hamlet. It’s also the first place I take visitors when I want to show them the bewitching allure of the Southern California coast. Laguna Beach is just one of numerous captivating, coastal towns that dot Southern California’s roughly 200 miles of shoreline. And while the region’s iconic imagery that has been served up via a lifetime of pop culture is technically accurate – yes, there are beaches lined with umbrellas, surfboard-toting locals, and endless palm trees – it doesn’t do the real thing justice.
While California shares a similar climate and landscape with its Mediterranean doppelgangers – Santa Barbara is aptly known as the American Riviera – the culture is famously our own. Geologists may note the state’s (thankfully infrequent) tectonic movements, but the greater shifts have been cultural. From Walt Disney to Dr. Dre, Southern California has fostered cultural juggernauts and infinite trends within food, music, and design. Likewise, the coastal towns of SoCal – as Southern California is often called – boast their own culture and style, blending a contemporary aesthetic with nostalgic elements of surf culture, a style that has evolved beyond the kitschy beach party films of the 1960s. For a sampling of SoCal’s breezy, coastal style, explore the shops and cafés of its many open-air hubs such as Montecito’s Coast Village Road in Santa Barbara and Venice’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard. In Newport Beach, the stylish Lido Marina Village is set amid the yacht-filled docks of Newport Bay and brims with boutiques, restaurants, and an undeniable seaside joie de vivre. Start with a sea salt foam-topped iced coffee from Humanity Coffee before browsing independent retailers such as local sneaker brand SeaVees, where you might also pick up a retro, nautical-inspired flag by Slightly Choppy or a Matisse-like print of local beaches by Ventura artist Daniella Manini.
With an idyllic climate and coastal land set between two major mountain ranges and the Pacific Ocean, Southern California’s natural landscape serves as a veritable playground for its residents. You’re likely to find a bike, paddleboard, skateboard, or hiking boots in every household. When you consider that both the ski resorts of the looming San Gabriel Mountains and Joshua Tree’s otherworldly desert landscape are both a 90-minute drive from the shore, you can grasp why Southern Californians cherish the outdoors. Each morning, you’ll be able to witness sun salutations at innumerable waterfront yoga classes such as the gathering at San Diego’s Jacobs Park, paddleboarders gliding across the calm waters of La Jolla Cove’s marine preserve teeming with seals and vivid orange Garibaldi fish, and the shouts of beach volleyball games at Huntington Beach, where the sport gained popularity before earning a slot in the Summer Olympics. Huntington Beach’s moniker, Surf City, U.S.A., is a reminder that California is the birthplace of mainland surfing, first introduced in 1885 by three visiting Hawaiian princes. Its legacy endures with today’s tech entrepreneurs surfing the same breaks as the Beach Boys did in the 1960s, from Encinitas’ Swami’s (given a shout-out in “Surfin’ U.S.A.”) to Ventura’s world-renowned Rincon Point. While I never found my footing atop a surfboard, I’m perfectly content to plunk down on the sand at The Wedge in Newport Beach and marvel at surfers slicing through impossibly steep waves.
The stunning sunset shines beneath Manhattan Beach Pier. Image credit: Susanne Kremer/4Corners
From San Diego to Santa Barbara, you’ll find sun-kissed beaches and an endless summer climate
California Dreaming
Destination: California
September 2025 (Volume 29)
The iconic Hollywood Sign on Mount Lee looks out over the California landscape. Image credit: 4Corners/Susanne Kremer
The diversity of Southern California landscapes is matched only by its residents. Its welcome of newcomers has bolstered a cultural cross-pollination, and nowhere is this better seen than in its food and menus. The modern food truck movement, which blossomed throughout the United States, began in part with L.A. chef and restaurateur Roy Choi, who brought fine-dining chops to the traditional lonchera (Mexican food truck) and caused a stir with his newfangled Korean tacos and kimchi-spiked quesadillas. The same cultural mash-ups that buoy modern food trucks also inform local menus. My visits to Venice usually start with a stop at Gjusta, whose display cases run the length of the airy, upscale delicatessen and are filled with freshly baked breads, smoked fish, and delectable pastries. It’s a mish-mash of Jewish, Italian, and French influences, yet feels effortlessly Californian. Its varied menu also reflects SoCal’s reigning ethos of fresh, seasonal-driven ingredients made possible by its agricultural abundance. Swing by the nearby Wednesday farmers’ market in Santa Monica and you might spy chefs such as Josiah Citrin of Michelin-Starred Mélisse selecting seasonal finds to shape the evening’s tasting menu.
CALIFORNIA CUISINE
Not until you feel the tingle of sunshine on your forearms at La Jolla’s Windansea Beach in San Diego, breathe in the salt-tinged air while strolling the Malibu Pier, and sense the vitality of Santa Monica’s athleisure-clad residents dashing by on foot, beach cruiser, or Rollerblades at Ocean Front Walk, do you realize how immersive this singular region is. Just as New York City buzzes with its own frenetic energy, so too does the Southern California coast radiate decidedly more relaxing vibes that immediately wash over you. Credit the perennially sunny days or a spark of creativity in the air, but Southern California beams with an infectious optimism. I suspect most visitors don’t leave without taking at least a casual peek at local realty listings. This is where I grew up, and I continue to revisit numerous times each year since moving farther up the coast. While I return again and again to stroll the bluffs of Heisler Park in Laguna Beach or dip into the turquoise waters of Malibu’s Paradise Cove, I also delight in swapping flannel for linen shirts, watching the sun dip into the Pacific with an al fresco mai tai (the tropical cocktail was created in California, not Hawaii), and dusting the sand off my legs at the end of each day. Exploring the Southern California coast isn’t just a sightseeing endeavor, but a dip into a covetable lifestyle, distinct not just from the rest of the state, but anywhere in the world.
Beaches remain Southern California’s defining feature, and every section of the coast offers a unique experience
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By Garrick Ramirez
Beaches remain Southern California’s defining feature, and every section of the coast offers a unique experience. For a wide stretch of uninterrupted sand, look to Newport Beach with 10 miles of sandy shorefront stretched along the Balboa Peninsula and marked by wooden lifeguard towers. As a bonus, you can hop aboard a $2 ferry to cute-as-a-button Balboa Island and treat yourself to an old-timey, frozen banana dipped in chocolate. Heading south to Laguna Beach, you’ll discover fetching beach coves peppered all along the Pacific Coast Highway, locally known as PCH. Crescent Bay and Treasure Island beaches are rightfully popular, the latter with critter-filled tide pools and a lovely blufftop path, yet I’ll often sneak off to the lesser-known Table Rock Beach, whose snug cove and turquoise waters feel like a secluded island.
For timeless seaside amusements,
Venice Beach features a boisterous boardwalk with exceptional people watching
You’ll discover attractive outdoor dining spaces such as the cliffside terrace overlooking the Pacific at Geoffrey’s in Malibu
SoCal’s quintessential dining experiences are hardly limited to fine dining. You’ll see locals taking ahi poke bowls from Newport Beach’s Bear Flag Fish Co. to the nearest beach, indulging in a fried shrimp plate at Neptune’s Net in Malibu, or slurping an oceanfront milkshake at Crystal Cove Shake Shack in Laguna Beach. Yet there is one ubiquitous facet of local meals: al fresco dining. Exemplifying the region’s outdoor lifestyle, alluring dining spaces include the cliffside terrace overlooking the Pacific at Geoffrey’s in Malibu or the lush, palm-filled patio at La Paloma Cafe in Santa Barbara, set amid the town’s whitewashed, terracotta-roofed Mission Revival structures.
For all its cultural influences and seasonal-driven ingredients, perhaps the most satisfying way to sample a taste of SoCal is via the handmade scoops of McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams in Santa Barbara. Order a waffle cone with Churros con Leche or a Eureka Lemon & Marionberries and stroll down State Street to Stearns Wharf, which juts out 2,300 feet into the Pacific and is the perfect viewing point for a sunset you’ll never forget.
For timeless seaside amusements, Venice Beach features a boisterous boardwalk with exceptional people watching, while neighboring Santa Monica Beach offers carnival rides including an iconic Ferris wheel atop its 1909 pier. Perhaps nowhere is the diversity of SoCal’s landscape better captured than in the coastal enclave of Malibu, where a welcome sign promises “21 miles of scenic beauty.” This stunning, car commercial-worthy stretch of PCH, squeezed between the sloping foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains and the azure Pacific, reopened earlier this year after a rehabilitation following fires six months earlier. One by-product of the recovery is the bolstering of community pride and resilience, notably among local shop and restaurant owners, who are welcoming back visitors. While it’s worthwhile to walk the length of the scenic pier, it’s the beaches that draw as many glances as its celebrity residents. In addition to the popular Zuma and Surfrider Beaches, seek out the lesser-known El Matador State Beach, where a staircase leads down a blooming, flora-filled cliffside to a dramatic landscape of craggy outcrops and sea caves.
A skateboarder attempts a midair grab at Venice Skatepark. Image credit: 4Corners/Brooke Mitchell
The sprawling Los Angeles cityscape. Image credit: Susanne Kremer/4Corners
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