Malibu's state beaches, and how to time them over a month

Outdoors · Los Angeles

Which Malibu state beach should you use, and when?

It depends on the tide and the day of the week, and that is the point. Malibu's state beaches are a string of coves and long sand stretches along the Pacific Coast Highway rather than one destination, and over a stay of a month or more in Los Angeles you can learn which one suits which conditions instead of guessing once.

The rocky, cove-style beaches are the ones worth learning. At low tide they open up into tide pools and walkable points; at high tide some of them shrink to almost nothing, which is why people sometimes arrive, find twelve feet of sand, and leave unimpressed. Check the tide before you drive. The long open beaches are the opposite. They work at any tide and are the better choice on a windy afternoon when the coves funnel the swell. A tide chart on your phone is the most useful piece of local knowledge available here, and it takes about a week before you start checking it automatically.

Parking is the real gate. The state lots are paid and they fill on weekends and through the summer; the shoulder of the Pacific Coast Highway is legal in places and emphatically not in others, and the fine is not small. This is the most useful reason to go on a weekday. A Tuesday morning in Malibu is a genuinely quiet coastline; the same beach on a July Saturday is a parking problem with a view.

Be realistic about the water and the weather. This is Southern California, not the tropics. The Pacific here is cold year-round, and the marine layer of May and June can leave the coast gray and cool for most of the day. Autumn is the local advantage, with the warmest water of the year, clear air, and far fewer people through September and October. Winter delivers the most dramatic light and the biggest surf, along with the occasional storm that closes stretches of the highway. Wetsuits are normal year-round for anyone planning to be in the water for more than a few minutes.

Then there is the drive. Malibu is not a suburb of the rest of the city. It is a long, thin corridor on one road, and the Pacific Coast Highway is the only realistic way in and out. From Santa Monica it can be twenty minutes or an hour depending on nothing you can control. If Malibu beaches are the reason for your stay, base yourself in Malibu or Pacific Palisades. If they are one part of a wider month, treat them as a deliberate half-day rather than a spontaneous one.

If you're here for a month or more

Go midweek and go often. A month in Los Angeles gives you the thing a short visit never can: the ability to wait for the right tide, the right swell, and the right air, and then be at the coast within the hour.

Long-stay residents keep a bag in the car with a towel, a layer, and water, because the good conditions in Malibu tend to announce themselves at 8am rather than on a schedule.