Orange County

Orange County's coastline is one of the most concentrated collections of boutique hotel design in California — and the reason is Laguna Beach, a town that has been an art colony since 1920 and a surf town since longer than that. The confluence of artists, surfers, and the kind of serious wealth that accumulates in Southern California over generations has produced something specific: hotels that take design as seriously as the surf, a food scene that has been sourcing locally before it was fashionable, and an art walk on Thursday evenings that is a genuine local institution rather than a tourist product. Laguna's geology also helps — coves, bluffs, reef breaks, the kind of coastline that rewards attention and produces waves that are fast, hollow, and specific to the underwater topography below them.

Newport Beach, thirty minutes north, is Laguna's counterpart: more polished, more harbour-focused. The two towns share a coastline and almost nothing else, which is what makes the guide work — you can move between them in thirty minutes and feel like you've crossed a cultural border. The surf at Trestles, just south of the county line in San Clemente, is where the best waves on the coast are and has been a WSL venue for decades. Most people who come to Orange County for a week stay in Laguna Beach, venture north to Newport for a day, and drive south to Trestles for a surf at least once.