Escape the Tourist Areas: El Segundo Beach

While others are fighting crowds and stuck in traffic trying to visit the Santa Monica Pier or Venice Beach, El Segundo Beach offers a beautiful beach with ample parking, much less traffic and congestion and plenty of space to catch a wave or throw out your beach towel.

Ignore the little pin on the Google Map.  It’s close but not the area I’m talking about.  From LA, get on the Imperial Highway and take it west to Vista Del Mar and head south. From El Segundo, get on Grand Street and take it west to Vista Del Mar.  Head south past the power plant and look for the beginning of residential streets going west.  Turn right and work your way to Ocean Drive.  Go south again and just look for an area of beach you like.  Angled meter parking lines much of Ocean Drive in this area.  For getting the feel of it on a map, it is in the area near Rosecrans Ave.

And if you simply must have a pier to walk out on, Manhattan Beach is just south of El Segundo.  A little more crowded but still nothing like Santa Monica or Venice.

Photo Credit: Mark Stout Photography