California destination
Orange County
Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach. The perfect first stop for UK visitors — within 45 minutes of LAX, reliably sunny, and exactly what California promised.
Why start in Orange County
Most travel advice tells you to fly into San Francisco or go straight to Los Angeles. We disagree. After a ten-hour flight, what you need is a beach, a good meal and an early night — not a bewildering city and a full itinerary.
Orange County delivers all three. The beaches here are wide, clean and reliably warm. The pace is relaxed. The restaurants are excellent. And LAX is close enough that you can be on the sand within an hour of landing.
Spend two or three days here before you start moving. You will enjoy everything that follows considerably more.
Newport Beach
The most upscale of the Orange County beach towns, with a working harbour, excellent restaurants along the Balboa Peninsula, and some of the best people-watching in Southern California. The Wedge — at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula — is one of the most powerful shore breaks in the world and worth watching even if you have no intention of going in the water.
Newport Beach is the setting for Arrested Development and inspired The OC — the TV series that introduced a generation of British teenagers to the idea of California as a way of life. The geography of both is surprisingly accurate.
Dolphin and whale watching tours depart from Newport Harbor daily. Common dolphin sightings are almost guaranteed. Grey whales migrate past December to April; blue whales are seen in summer.
Huntington Beach
Surf City USA — the name is official and the culture is genuine. Huntington Beach has been the centre of California surf culture since the 1960s and the main street and pier feel exactly as you would expect. Less polished than Newport, more authentic for it.
The beach itself is exceptional — wide, flat and stretching for miles in either direction. It is the kind of beach that makes British visitors understand why Californians talk about the beach the way they do.
Laguna Beach
The most artistically inclined of the three towns, with a genuine gallery scene and some of the most dramatic coastal scenery in Southern California. The town tumbles down the cliffs to the ocean, and the coves and beaches below are worth exploring on foot.
Victoria Beach has a stone tower — the Pirate Tower — built privately in 1926 and accessible only at low tide. One of those California curiosities that rewards the visitor who goes looking.
The Pageant of the Masters — a summer arts festival in which famous paintings are recreated using live human figures — is extraordinary and unlike anything else in California. Book well in advance if you are visiting in summer.
Day trips from Orange County
Disneyland in Anaheim is twenty minutes from Newport Beach — the original park, opened by Walt Disney in 1955, is smaller and more manageable than Disney World and has a historical atmosphere the Florida resort lacks. Knott's Berry Farm is next door and significantly less crowded.
Los Angeles is forty-five minutes north — close enough for a day trip to Beverly Hills, Griffith Observatory or the Getty, far enough that you are not in the city when you don't want to be.