Laguna Beach

The town is built along a run of small beaches and rocky coves rather than one long strand. Main Beach sits at the foot of the village with volleyball nets and a boardwalk. To the north are Crescent Bay, Shaw's Cove and the coves below Heisler Park. To the south you reach Victoria Beach, Thousand Steps and the broad sand at Aliso by steep stairways between cliffside houses. The water is clear and good for snorkelling around the reefs.

The Pacific is the limit. It reaches about 20°C to 22°C in late summer, is cool in spring, and June often brings a grey morning marine layer. The best months are August and September. Waves and rip currents vary from cove to cove, so the lifeguarded beaches are the safe choice with children. Popular coves get crowded on summer weekends.

Eating out follows the rhythm of a well-off beach town. There are ocean-view dining rooms on the cliffs, casual places for fish tacos and poke, breakfast cafés where surfers fuel up, and a few serious kitchens built around local seafood and California wine. Coffee is good and the setting at sunset does a lot of the work. Range and depth are limited, though, there is no distinctive local cooking or real market life, and many dishes are priced for the view. Visitors who want variety drive inland to the wider Orange County food scene, especially its Vietnamese, Mexican and Korean restaurants.

Laguna's heritage is its history as an art colony. Plein air painters settled here in the early twentieth century, and their legacy lives on in the Laguna Art Museum, which focuses on California art, and in the large number of galleries along Coast Highway and Forest Avenue. Small craftsman cottages, the old lifeguard tower at Main Beach and public art around the village add character. That is about the extent of it. A morning covers the museum and the galleries, and the larger historic sights, such as the mission at San Juan Capistrano, are outside town.

Going out means a drink after dinner. A few old beach bars and dive bars in the village, some wine bars and hotel lounges with ocean terraces fill up on summer weekends, and that is the whole scene. There are no clubs to speak of, and the town is quiet well before midnight on most nights. If you want a proper night out you have to drive up the coast to Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, or further to Los Angeles.

The town sits between the ocean and a ring of protected coastal hills. Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Aliso and Wood Canyons have chaparral-covered ridges and canyons with hiking and mountain-biking trails, and from the Top of the World viewpoint you can see across to Catalina Island on clear days. Crystal Cove State Park to the north adds bluff-top walks and backcountry trails.

Offshore, the whole town's coast is a marine protected area. Tide pooling at low tide, snorkelling and shore diving over kelp and reefs, kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding are everyday activities, and there is surfing at nearby breaks. Dolphins are common and whale-watching boats leave from Dana Point, with grey whales passing in winter. The Santa Ana Mountains are within an hour for longer hikes. The hills turn green after winter rain and are dry and brown by late summer.

Southern California lies within reach, as long as you have a car. Mission San Juan Capistrano, one of the best preserved of the Spanish missions, is about twenty minutes inland. Newport Beach and the Balboa Peninsula, Huntington Beach's surf culture and Dana Point harbour are all close along the coast. From Dana Point or Newport a ferry crosses to Catalina Island and the small resort town of Avalon.

For bigger outings, San Diego with its Old Town, Balboa Park and Gaslamp Quarter is about an hour and a half south. Los Angeles is a similar drive north, though traffic can make it much longer. The Temecula wine country, with its tasting rooms set among vineyards, is about an hour inland.

For children the town is mostly about the shore. Lifeguarded beaches, tide pools full of anemones and crabs, the Main Beach playground and easy snorkelling keep younger ones busy. The village is safe and relaxed, and the free trolley along the coast helps. The theme parks are the other draw. Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about forty minutes away, and Legoland and the San Diego Zoo are a longer drive south.

The drawbacks are practical. Many beaches are reached by long, steep stairways, parking is scarce in summer, and family-sized rooms are expensive. Most families with a theme-park plan stay closer to Anaheim and visit Laguna for beach days instead.

The village around Main Beach and Forest Avenue is easy to walk, and a free trolley runs along Coast Highway between the northern and southern beaches. Beyond that you need a car. There is no rail service, regional buses are slow and infrequent, the nearest airports at Santa Ana and Long Beach and the theme parks are freeway drives, and the town is long and hilly, with many coves reached only by stairs. Parking is scarce and fills early on summer weekends, so a car is a necessity that also takes effort to manage.

Shopping in town means art and small boutiques. Dozens of galleries line Coast Highway and the North Laguna gallery row, selling plein air landscapes, ocean painting and glass, and there are beachwear, jewellery and home-decor shops along Forest Avenue. In summer the outdoor art festivals sell handmade crafts straight from the makers. For serious fashion and luxury brands, shoppers drive about half an hour to the large open-air and enclosed malls in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, where all the major luxury labels are represented.

This is one of the most expensive beach towns on the California coast. Clifftop resorts and even simple motels charge high rates, especially in summer and at weekends, ocean-view restaurants cost a lot, and paid parking adds up quickly. The beaches, trails, tide pools and trolley are free, which helps. Visitors on a budget often stay inland or further up the coast and come to Laguna for the day.

The signature event is the Pageant of the Masters, a summer tradition dating back to the 1930s. Each evening, in an outdoor amphitheatre in Laguna Canyon, live performers recreate famous paintings and sculptures as staged tableaux, with an orchestra and narration. It is part of the Festival of Arts season, which also brings concerts on the festival grounds. The Laguna Playhouse, among the oldest continuously running theatres on the West Coast, puts on plays and musicals throughout the year, and a few bars have live bands.

For opera, symphony and touring Broadway shows, the large performing arts centre in Costa Mesa is about half an hour away by car.

Laguna is a place to slow down. The pace is unhurried, mornings start with coffee and a clifftop walk, and the large resorts on the bluffs have full spas with ocean views. There are also yoga and meditation studios in the village and day spas offering massage. There is no bathing culture, though, no thermal springs or public bathhouses, and most of the spa offer is in expensive resorts. The calm itself is the main draw, together with the long sunsets over the water.