California Beach Vacations
California beach vacations don't come any better than those waiting to be had in sunny Huntington Beach CA. On sands that stretch for 8.5 seamless miles, you'll find three beaches in one, each with its own refreshing personality and all with showers, wheelchair-accessible restrooms and access ramps, food concessions, sand volleyball courts and fire rings.
Beach vacations for families often include relaxing time spent on Huntington State Beach, on the city's southern end, stretching from the Newport Beach border to Beach Boulevard. With surfing restricted in the summer, swimmers, bodysurfers and body boarders have the waves to themselves during the most popular season for California beach vacations. One of the endangered residents of Huntington Beach CA, the rare California Least Tern, can often be spotted in a nature preserve at the southern end of this beach.
Those in search of California beach vacations that inspired Jan & Dean's 1963 hit song "Surf City" will want to head for the action on Huntington City Beach, from Beach Boulevard to Seapoint Avenue. Anchored by our historic pier, this is where such international sports competitions as the US Open of Surfing and the Association of Volleyball Professionals Pro Beach Volleyball Tournament take place. As you ride the big waves and rub shoulders with radical surfers and chiseled athletes, you'll feel the special energy of Southern California beach vacations spent on Surf City USA® shores.
For California beach vacations that include Fido, "Dog Beach" along this stretch is the perfect spot to let your four-legged best friend run free without a leash. You can even do a little tandem surfing on beach vacations here.
If you're just learning to surf or want to do some surf fishing on California beach vacations, spend some time in the mellow waves at Bolsa Chica State Beach, across Pacific Coast Highway from the 330-acre Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. Visit between March and August and you may find the moonlit beach covered for a few hours with thousands of silvery grunion, laying their eggs in the wet sand - an amazing sight you're not likely to take in on other Southern California beach vacations.
To learn about lodging and dining with a beach view, as well as all the beach activities and attractions you can enjoy here, click on the appropriate link at the top of the page.