Imperial Beach, CA

Imperial Beach is the last city on the coast before Mexico, the most southwesterly in the continental United States, set at the south end of San Diego Bay where the Silver Strand meets the mainland. Coronado lies up the Strand to the north, and Palm Avenue, which is also Highway 75, links the town east to Interstate 5 in Nestor. The town began in 1887, when some of the crews building the Hotel del Coronado settled here, and it incorporated in 1956. In July 2026 the Sun and Sea Festival marked the 70th birthday with master sand carvers building castles at Pier Plaza and a street fair along the beachfront. The pier is the center of things. Benches shaped like surfboards at Pier Plaza carry plaques about the big waves that rolled in here from 1937 into the 1950s, and Boca Rio is a beach break San Diego Magazine once ranked second in the county only to the Black's Beach area. To the south, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve protects San Diego's largest coastal wetland, with a visitor center on Caspian Way and about four miles of trails to the river mouth. Border Field State Park sits on a bluff at the reserve's far corner, beside an 1851 marker where the international line begins. For a meal out, Filippi's Pizza Grotto on Palm Avenue serves red-sauce Italian from a family name that has been around San Diego since 1950. Brigantine Seafood, near the pier, is the oyster stop. Pier South Resort, the beachfront hotel that opened in 2013, added Sammy's Woodfired Pizza and Roppongi Asian Bistro in 2025. The town is small and mostly residential, with few hotels and a short commercial strip, so bigger shopping trips head up the interstate. Closer to home, the Breakwater shopping center along Palm Avenue added a full grocery store and a few restaurants. MTS buses connect to the wider county. Imperial Beach, usually shortened to IB in conversation, trades a short list of stores for open coast that runs unbroken from the pier down to the border.