Every year my in-laws visit South Orange County for a week at the end of summer. They always stay in the same Air Bnb in San Clemente and always go to the same beach.
South Orange Country is further from LA and closer to San Diego. Some of the cities include San Clemente, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach and Mission Viejo. It's very fancy and offers a lot of activities!
Instead of doing a blog about my trip, I'm going to share with you what South Orange County has to offer. There's a great food scene and the beaches are less crowded!
San Celemente is where we always stay and it's definitely become one of my favorite towns. It's an adorable, walk able beach town with shops, bars and restaurants. Avenida Del Mar is one of the more popular streets that's lined with shops, free parking and great places to eat. You can also walk to the beach from Del Mar and the walk is gorgeous with tons of fun beach houses on the way!
Del Mar also hosts a lot of festivals like the arts fest and farmers market. They run along the street and definitly worth checking out if you're in the area.
While Rob and I love the beach, we tend to get stir crazy and want to find other things to do. After all, California has SO much to offer it's hard to stay in one spot! One of our favorite little cities near San Clemente is Mission Viejo. It's about 20 drive inland and they have a great mall we love to visit everytime we're there.
Another fun place is in Laguna Beach. It's a tradition for the whole family to take a trip here and shop along the beach! It's a few blocks of more shops and restaurants. Thalia Street is also just steps from Laguna Beach so you can take a break from shopping to hang in the ocean. Or grab a drink on a roof top bar!
There's also an adorable cafe we always go to called Penguin Cafe. You can literally see the ocean from the back door while eating delicious diner food!
Another great thing about South Orange County...you're not too far from Disneyland! Of course Rob and I ALWAYS make a trip when we're there. It's about a 35 minute drive (without traffic) we leave really early to beat the work traffic and never have issues.
We kinda went for one thing really...The Main Street Electrical Parade! This is my fave parade ever and I was so happy we we're going to be in town while it was going. MSEP goes until September 31st!
Oceanside is also a close city. It's towards San Diego and about 25 minutes away from San Clemente. It's an adorable beach town that you can walk around and literally just 10 minutes south is the city of Carlsbad. They have an amazing outlet mall that we love!
And of course just 40 minutes south is San Diego, which is totally doable for a day trip. (San Diego is about an hour from South Orange County).
If you're up to the drive, LA is another option. It's a lot farther and with California traffic might seem impossible but it can be done in a day! Rob and I usually spend some time in LA because it's out favorite city in California and we like to visit Universal Studios!
Keep in mind it's about an hour and a half without traffic so it can get bad depending what time of day you go. We always leave before the work rush in the morning and night. When you've lived in California you learn to just wait out the traffic haha.
There's also a really fun IT event going on right now! Totally free and worth it. Check it out here. It goes until September 8th.
I hope you add South Orange County to your travel list, it's very different from LA and the "popular" destinations in California. A good place for vacations, especially for the calmer crowd. We love visiting every year!
Let me know if you make it out there! Tag me on IG @golden_aimeee
-xoxo, Aimee