5 Reasons Why I Love The Beach At Night

We all love going to the beach. Well, most of us. In Southern California, beaches are so dang easily accessible. The long strip of coastline contains numerous beaches such as La Jolla, Newport Beach, Crystal Cove State Park, Laguna, Long Beach, Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu, and the dozens and dozens of hot sand and freezing water.

There are not a lot of places on earth where you can hit the beach in the morning and go ski in the afternoon. Living in SoCal is truly a privilege. BUT, even with so many beaches, they are almost always crowded or parking is too difficult to find which then make me not want to go to the beach. I mean there could literally be like a thousand people on the beach. Imagine a sea of shirtless men and women in bikini just laying around everywhere almost on top of one another and don’t even get me started on all the canopies that destroy the view. There are too many people at the beach all the time especially in the summer.

If you can’t tell already, I really don’t like crowded places. Because of this reason, I ended up not going to the beach as much as I should or could considering that it’s really 15 minutes away from where I reside. Until one night, my friends and I were just hanging out at a coffee shop in Fullerton, CA called the Night Owls (delicious coffee by the way with live performances on certain nights), and we just got done with homework around 2am; we were all bored and for some reason, were just not sleepy. I then proposed that we should go to the beach. I was certainly nervous at first because I thought that we could get a ticket. I then googled if going to the beach at night was illegal; I found that although it is technically not appropriate but it is rare that anyone will ever get in trouble at the beach late after hours unless they become disruptive or doing illegal things like smoking weed or something. I wasn’t planning on doing anything bad that night, so I went to the beach.Oh man, it was the best decision ever, and I couldn’t believe that I had waited this long. I LOVE BEACHES AT NIGHT! even more than during the day; here are the reasons why!

5 Reasons Why I Love The Beach At Night

1. Free Parking: if you didn’t know, at most beaches in Southern California, parking is extremely expensive. At certain places like the Crystal Cove will charge you up to $15 flat fee for parking while at Newport Beach is about $1 per hour and the meter only takes quarters or you have to do that stupid online app thing which doesn’t really work. Now, after 6pm, parking become free (or at least in Newport), so you could park right next to the beach for free.

2. No Crowd: tired of kids running around kicking sand at you or noisy families and teenagers? Well, after 10pm, there are usually NO ONE AT THE BEACH. The best feeling ever is when I walk down the beach at night, looking at the moon, staring into the horizon, and there are absolutely nobody around.

3. The Night Sun: On clear day and full moon, you can see the horizon with moonlight reflection in the water. To me, this is my favorite thing about night beach.

4. Peaceful sound: No one is talking around you. I like to sit down on the beach and just listen to the wave. It’s hard to hear all the things you can hear at night when there are a lot of kids around. The sound the ocean and the breeze really put my mind at peace.

5. You Can Do Crazy Things: like actually playing catch or frisbee on the beach. Yes, sometimes there are too many people to play frisbee at the beach in SoCal. When I go to the beach at night with friends, we all just run toward the water and scream off the top of our laughs. Now, we can’t do that during the day or people will think that we’re crazy. You can spin around, sing, dance, play tag, throw sand at each other, and just talk as low as you want because the beach IS YOURS!

Tips On Going To The Beach At Night

1. Don’t Go Alone: unless you’re confident that you can fight off an attacker. Why? because there could be other people there! and they may rob you, so go with a buddy or bring protection like pepper spray.

2. Let Someone Know: Just like hiking, don’t just disappear without letting someone know! Tell your roommate or a friend that you’ll be down a the beach at 3am and will be back by the dawn. If you don’t return or give them a call, they know that something is wrong with you.

3. Bring A Blanket: Yes, the beach gets old at night even in SoCal during the summer

4. Bring Beach Towel: I hate getting my pants wet and I want to be able to sit down on the wet sand

5. Bring Sandals: I am super spontaneous, and I usually go to the beach randomly with no plan after a late night dinner with friends at midnight and I usually swear sneakers so they will get destroyed after the adventure time at the beach. Keeping a pair of sandals then became my habit because I do so many random things. Now, sandals are great because you can dip your feet in the freezing water and walk on tide breakers and run around without getting your nice shoes dirty.

Now, here it is. I think you should go to a beach at night this weekend too! It’s one of my favorite free things to do at night.