After three days in Los Angeles with our teenagers, we were nicely acclimatised to our new time zone and excited to head off on the first section of our California road trip towards San Francisco. The first stretch promised palm-fringed beaches up to Malibu followed by more rural landscapes beyond, with an inland route to the Danish town of Solvang, before returning to the coastline at Pismo Beach. But would it all live up to expectations?
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Pick up California State Route 1 (Highway 1)
If you’ve enjoyed some time in Los Angeles doing touristy things then it will no doubt feel like the start of a new holiday when you collect your hire car and head off on the first part of your California road trip.
In our case, we didn’t get the hire car that we booked from AVIS – it’s now a standing joke in our family that we never do! We were given an old car which smelt strongly of weed when the air con system was on, and didn’t have any sat nav. We were however able to rent a plug in sat nav system, which worked better than expected, and I had a physical road map with me, just in case it was needed.
From the AVIS rental centre it’s a 40 minute drive north on California State Route 1 towards Malibu.
Make Malibu your first stop
Malibu doesn’t really seem to have a centre as such, instead flanking both sides of Highway 1 for miles along the coast, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and houses in the hills on the inland side. So you have to go looking for the action….
Historic Malibu Pier
The historic Malibu Pier is a good place to start looking for a slice of Malibu life. This is a great spot to stretch your legs, watch people fish off the iconic pier, pick up some Malibu merchandise, and grab a cup of coffee from Malibu Farm.
Beach access
Access to many of the beaches along the coastline are hidden by prime ocean-side real estate, with amazing views of the Pacific Ocean in front of them and Highway 1 directly behind them. Look out for the brown signs denoting Coastal Access if you want to visit one of the beaches on the strip. Zuma Beach is one of the main beaches in the Malibu area.
Note - Palisades Fires January 2025
When I first wrote this blog, I included a stop at Carbon Beach, otherwise known as Billionaire’s Beach – a beautiful strip of golden sand lined by the most incredible beach-front houses. A perfect place to stretch your legs and soak in the sea air.
However, the extensive Palisades Fires of January 2025 destroyed the majority of the houses on this beach, along with houses in the Pacific Palisades, Malibu and over 23,000 acres of the Los Angeles area.
I understand that the rebuild is on-going.
Stop at Paradise Cove Beach Café for lunch
Paradise Cove Beach was put on the map by celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, who did a photo shoot on the beach when she was 26 years old, and the Beach Boys who shot the cover photos for their album, Surfin’ Safari, on the beach – there is a sign marking “the Spot” where the Beach Boys’ album cover photos were taken in 1962.
Paradise Cove Beach has a small pier and an old fashioned white wooden lifeguard station. It also featured in one of The Rockford Files episodes and the final scene of Indecent Proposal with Demi Moore, amongst many other films and music videos.
Overlooking the beach is the Paradise Cove Beach Café, with a large outdoor patio and an ocean views making it a perfect spot for lunch. Be warned – the plates of food are huge so consider sharing plates if you don’t want a belly buster meal before getting back in the car. Also the seagulls are hungry and will swoop if you don’t finish your plates and are sitting outside!
Drive inland towards Solvang
After lunch and another beach stroll, continue along Highway 1, until just north of Santa Barbara. Whilst Santa Barbara is a destination of choice, we decided to leave it for a future trip.
Randomly, we passed a huge sand dune by the side of the road which people were surfing down. On the opposite side of the road were hundreds of piles of pebbles (Inuksuk) in front of the ocean which looked pretty and were worth a photo stop.
Shortly after Santa Barbara, turn off the coast road onto Highway 154, inland towards Solvang. Then you will be driving towards a hilly, more mountainous, landscape which is pretty and unexpected – I don’t know why I expected the landscape to be flat, because it absolutely wasn’t.
As it takes 1 hour 45 minutes to drive from Paradise Beach Cove to Solvang, you can make a short pitstop at Cachuma Lake to stretch your legs. We made sure to stick to the paths on our short walk because of the rattle snake signs around the area. There was a bird of prey circling above us when we stopped, looking for lunch….
Solvang, the Danish Capital of America
Eventually you will arrive in the town of Solvang, formed by a group of Danish settlers when they emigrated to the USA. All the buildings in Solvang are Northern European in style. So much so, that it almost feels like a ‘Disney set’ rather than a real town.
Solvang is filled with all things Danish – clogs, Danish flags, bakeries, souvenir shops, a replica of the Little Mermaid statue and a windmill. There is even a Tivoli Square named after the Copenhagen city park and a Hans Christian Anderson Museum, so it is easy to see why it has the nickname of the Danish Capital of America.
Solvang was an interesting diversion from the coast on our California road trip, and meant that we experienced driving through the rolling farmland and vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley which we would not have seen otherwise.
Stop overnight in Pismo Beach
From Solvang, pick up Highway 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway) and drive a final 50 minutes to the town of Pismo Beach.
We stayed at the Vespera Resort Pismo Beach (Marriott) and, once checked in, went to have a look around and find some dinner.
There was a small pier in front of the Vespera Resort with a Pismo Beach sign which lit up as it became dark. The town seemed to be alive with teenagers and young kids on holiday, meeting up and enjoying some freedom from their parents, whilst the parents enjoyed a glass of wine around the cosy outdoor fire pits in front of the hotel. It seemed like a safe place to give your teenagers some space in a relatively contained area.
In terms of where to eat, as Pismo Beach claims to be the ‘clam capital of the world’ there is only one place to go for dinner and that’s Splash Café to enjoy a special clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. Apparently, they make 40,000 gallons of it each year – yum!
This stretch of our California road trip was very varied, offering fantastic ocean beach views, links to popular culture (music and film references), mountains, rolling farmlands, vineyards, and something unexpectedly Danish. It felt like a million miles away from Los Angeles, even though it was only a short drive up the coast.
Has it lived up to expectations – definitely! So far, so good. Let’s see if the next phase from Pismo Beach to Big Sur is as rewarding…
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