Road Tripping Through Long Beach
The birthplace of freeways, home to one of the world’s most spectacular coastlines, and full of great roadside attractions and cozy diners to grab a bite, California is one of the best places to take a road trip. Here is our suggested itinerary for places to pass through or stop in Long Beach during your next coastal California road trip.
A VIEW FROM THE ROAD
One of the best views of Long Beach can be seen from the bridges that pass over the port complex on the west side. If you drive south on the 110 freeway and take the Vincent Thomas Bridge exit, you’ll experience the only suspension bridge in Los Angeles County and the fourth-longest in California–1,500 feet of teal green steel that may look familiar from its appearances in movies like To Live and Die in LA, Charlie’s Angels and Inception. After crossing the Vincent Thomas, you rise a second time over the Gerald Desmond Bridge, which features a modern cable-stayed design enhanced by dramatic lighting at night. From the bridges, you get an exciting view of the Long Beach skyline and, in winter, snow-capped mountains to the north.
CRUISE OCEAN BOULEVARD
Music lovers may know Ocean Boulevard from a Lana Del Rey album that mentions Long Beach’s main coastal thoroughfare. This street enters Downtown Long Beach on its western edge and passes the city’s notable skyscrapers, including the tallest, the Shoreline Gateway Tower at Ocean and Alamitos Avenue, and some of the most iconic, like the Villa Riviera and International Tower. As you leave downtown and cross into the Belmont Heights neighborhood, the view opens up to the beach, and on a clear day you can see across the water to Catalina Island.
BELMONT SHORE BREEZES
Ocean Boulevard leads you into Belmont Shore, one of the city’s most popular neighborhoods for shopping, strolling, and dining. 2nd Street is lined with dozens of restaurants, bars, and boutiques, and also hosts an annual car show that attracts hundreds of classic and exotic cars. Cruise along 2nd, where the 25 mph speed limit is perfect for people watching, perusing the shops for places you might want to stop, and rolling the windows down to enjoy the fresh ocean air. If you’re in a convertible, definitely drop the top here.
ROLL THROUGH THE ROUNDABOUT
Many people drive the full 600-mile length of California’ Pacific Coast Highway each year, and it’s one of the country’s most popular routes for a road trip. Long Beach’s section of PCH, also known as California State Route 1, passes through the state’s largest traffic circle, which was built in Long Beach in 1932 in anticipation of the Olympic Games. Unlike many roundabouts, the Long Beach traffic circle is painted with lane lines for easier navigation.
A CLASSIC DINER
No California road trip is complete without a meal at a mid century diner, complete with a milkshake. George's 50s Diner (4390 Atlantic Ave) is just a few minutes’ drive north of the 405 freeway and is open seven days a week for breakfast and lunch, serving patty melts, pancakes, pastrami, and pie a la mode. George’s is the real deal, a historic landmark open in the same spot in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood since 1951.