I'm visiting the Anaheim area of California and am not renting a car. I'm looking to go to a beach near me, but it seems a lot of them require a payment just to enter the beach. Some sites mention parking fees and I'm not worried about that, I just want to swim in the Pacific ocean for an hour or so to say I did. Is Seal Beach free to swim? I need some help here trv.
No beach in California requires a payment to enter the beach, they are all considered public property, some places require payment to park. If you take public transportation or an uber just walk on. Seal Beach is very nice, much nicer than Sunset Beach or Long Beach because joggers and mexicans aren't shitting it up as bad.
Thanks!
Not in the budget unfortunately. Thinking of trying public bus or something.
I prefer swimming in surfing conditions, makes it more fun than a pool. But is there any other reason I'd injure myself here more than any other beach?
I'm not a woman, nice to know though. I'm not very smart but I read a lot of google reviews and the words "entry fee" got used a lot. But I'm a little more confident those are just parking fees and not entry fees. I suffer a fricked from of anxiety which would prevent me from using other spots... Without going into stupid amounts of detail.
Definitely. Would love to come back in more of a vacation setting and rent one and see whatever I want.
Thanks everyone honestly that was a huge help.
>I won't go to other beaches besides these specific ones and I won't explain why
>I'm not a woman
You sure about that?
I didn't say there was a specific beach I would go to, just that is prefer it to be a recognized park and not just a stretch of coastline.
If I was a woman I wouldn't be going to the beach, I'd be home sucking dicks like you!
I've lived in the town next to Anaheim for 25+ years. Not having a car is going to be rough. SoCal has a lot of great stuff in it, but public transit is not one of the things. You really do need a car to function around here. I think the bus from Anaheim to like Newport or Huntington is a 3+ hour ordeal with multiple transfers, but I haven't done that trek since I was a teenager. I am not trying to rain on your parade but I think this should be made very clear.
Raining on the parade is certainly welcome, I don't want to do anything unrealistic. Google says getting to the beach is about 1.5 hours. Which is insane for sure. Wonder how quickly I could do it renting a bike or something lol
1.5 hours is optimistic for public transit. The drive would probably be about 25-30 minutes depending on traffic. The 55 can be a pain going south sometimes near Costa Mesa. When exactly are you going to be in Anaheim?
I'm here right now and for a other 4 nights or so. I'm very handy to Disney but that's not why I'm here.
Is Uber an option for you, Anon?
It is, but for the side quest of being able to say I swam in the Pacific, it would be close to $60 USD. I really underestimated the size of this place! If I don't complete my quest I'll certainly have to come back and budget for all the things I would want to do.
>am not renting a car.
gl with that, its tricky to get around and into some of the nicer spots
ride hailing is pretty expensive around there, but you'll figure it out
if you are in anaheim I recommend taking a stroll through balboa and going to newport beach and balboa pier
>Is Seal Beach free to swim?
You'll snap your spine, kid
The coastline from Santa Monica to San Diego is like 300+ kilometers. And that's only like 10 percent of the California coastline. It literally would take millions of people to collect the payment. OP doesn't sound very smart. If you're a chick, there's an 80 percent chance that you're going to end up getting sold into sex slavery on the first day.
Alot of stuff to do there but without of car it kinda makes things rough
>im not renting a car
Thats fine, even if you did rent a car, if you dont plan it out or have a local take you around, it can be a special type of hell visiting this place. The beaches are free, its the parking that isnt. If you want to take public transit to the beach from Anaheim be my guest. Ive never used it as long as ive lived here. Your best bet is to have a friend take you around or rent a car and plan your activities around avoiding traffic so you dont waste time.
Also im sure youll find that the Pacific is pretty cold, this isnt Cancun or Miami. I recommend you take a trip to Santa Barbara if you want to see a nice beach town, but thats a few hours North of LA. Santa Barbara is the only place ive been in California in the last two years where I walk down Main St and see 90%+ white people. Consider staying up there. I cant even imagine Disneyland these days. My best memory is going there during a light drizzle and getting on every ride in succession without a single wait. Otherwise it blows. Universal Studios is garbage. Six Flags Magic Mountain is world class if youre into roller coasters.
Depending on the amount of time you have, you can potentially take public transport to the Pacific Surfliner and take a train ride along the coast. As far as taking in scenic coastline without a car I think this is probably your best bet.
https://www.pacificsurfliner.com/globalassets/pdfs/schedules/1207189257_pacific-surfliner-timetable_10-1-23.pdf
This is really the black and white of what I was worried about. I'm glad I can get to any of the beaches for free. Sadly I'm from very far away and don't have any friends around. Not really here for a vacation, more of a work thing, but the mention of world class roller coasters makes me think I'll come back. I've got a few days to figure out how I'm gonna get to the ocean, I really had no idea what size of a metropolitan area L.A. and surrounding area really is, I thought being here would just mean the beach would be close, but the rumours of traffic here seem true.
That being said I'm a lot more optimistic I'll swim in the ocean and really appreciate your response. As for it not being Cancun, no worries it's just a novelty swim really, but I'm from a much colder climate so 15 minutes is fine if it is cold but I'll swim for an hour if it's nicer.
Thanks again, Anon.
The bus, at least from what I remember, doesn't actually enter the beach park at like Bolsa Chica. You'll have to hoof it from where it drops you on PCH. Not that far but not as convenient as it could be. So if you're avoiding beaches for that reason just pick the one that's easiest to get to on the bus I guess (this probably won't be the nicer ones). Yes it will take forever compared to driving and yes the LA metro area goes on and on and on for fricking ever and most of it looks the same with strip malls, billboards and aging sprawl development for over 100 miles.
If you want something else to do you could go to little tokyo if you're a weeb you can take the train, if you like asian food go to the OC night market.
Honestly if you're riding an hour or more to the beach try to go somewhere you can do things the whole day maybe some craft breweries or places like that too.
its one of the least friendly places in CA for people without their own transport, by design
the richgays who live there do their utmost to keep poorgays contained to poorgay areas, and if public transport was widespread and usuable, the poorgays (+homeless / Black folk /etc) would spread into richgay spaces
it's a common problem in much of the usa, not just because its very large and spread out distance wise making public transport very expensive to maintain and offer a decent number of routes
anyways, it means 'daytripping' to a particular location with lots to do is how you should look at it
The homeless problem is real for sure. I never thought of it that way but it makes sense.