Crystal Cove State Park

Crystal Cove is a coastline that still remembers how to be stubbornly beautiful. You arrive under the hum of Pacific Coast Highway, drop down through a pedestrian tunnel, and the world immediately feels slower, saltier, rougher. Tide pools gurgle at low tide, populated with anemones and scuttling crabs that draw a small, quiet congregation of kids and cameras. Trails climb the bluffs and cough up views of long, clean sand and surf that stretches for about three miles. There is a cluster of restored beach cottages, wooden and sun-bleached, that smell faintly of varnish and history. In the evening photographers stake out the coves for sunsets that turn the cliffs molten. Parking is metered and can be tight on weekends, so come early, walk the ridge, and time the tide; the stair down to the sand is slippery after a swell, pay attention to your footing.