Malibu, CA

Malibu runs for more than twenty miles along the western edge of Los Angeles County, a long, skinny city pinned between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific. Pacific Coast Highway serves as its main street, and the town strings out along that road in a chain of beaches, canyon mouths and small shopping centers. Point Dume is a quiet headland of wide lots, Zuma and Malibu Park still has horse corrals and avocado trees, and Trancas feels almost empty on a winter weekday. Housing follows the land. Beach houses crowd narrow lots on the sand side of the highway, hillside homes angle toward the water, and the western shelf still holds postwar ranches on big parcels. Much of that older stock has been replaced by larger new builds, and fire-resistant construction is now the norm for anything going up. The coast is the backyard. Zuma is the wide public swimming beach, surfers line up at First Point off Surfrider, and El Matador hides sea caves below a steep trail down the bluff. Inland, Solstice Canyon follows a creek up to a little waterfall. Food spreads out along the highway. Malibu Seafood is the roadside shack for fish and chips at outdoor tables, Nobu Malibu sits over the water for sushi, and Paradise Cove Beach Cafe puts its tables on the sand. Mornings often start at Alfred Coffee, tucked into the Country Mart. Almost everything depends on one road. A crash, a slide or a work zone on PCH can slow the whole city, and summer beach traffic stacks on top of that. People here plan errands around the highway and clear brush every year, and the ones who stay accept both in exchange for waking up to the ocean.