Los Angeles' beaches have a lot of hype to live up to, immortalised by the Beach Boys, Beach Blanket Bingo and Baywatch as miles of golden sand awash with babes and bronze muscular dudes, but in reality the city's beaches are often polluted and sparsely populated. Despite this Malibu is the archetypal Southern California babe beach and your best bet for sunning and swimming. They are backed by the rugged mountains of the Santa Monica Mountains national recreation area, but it can be quite difficult to find a stretch of sand, as much of the shoreline is privately owned.

Santa Monica is one of the city's most appealing beachside neighborhoods. The heart of Santa Monica is the 3rd St Promenade, a lively pedestrian mall packed with buskers, movie theaters, bars and cafes. The Santa Monica pier, built between 1909 and 1916, is the oldest pleasure pier on the West Coast and has a charming old world carnival atmosphere about it, as featured in the movie the Lost Boys.

Venice pretty much sums up the LA lifestyle, going back to the sixties when its was LA's equivalent to San Francisco's hippie Haight-Ashbury precinct, and bands such as the infamous Doors started out here. The beach's Ocean Front Walk is a human circus of jugglers and acrobats, tarot readers, jug-band musicians, pick-up basketballers, oiled-up fitness freaks and petition circulators.

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