Redondo Beach

Redondo Beach runs more than a mile and a half south from the horseshoe-shaped Redondo Beach Pier to Torrance Beach, with a parking structure at the pier plus street parking. The beach is used for swimming, surfing, windsurfing, and volleyball, with lifeguards in daylight hours, restrooms, showers, beach wheelchairs, and access to the beach bike path. The pier itself is popular for fishing and has many restaurants and shops.

Redondo has a big place in surfing history. In 1907 Henry Huntington, who owned much of the town, hired George Freeth, a young Hawaiian-English athlete, to demonstrate surfing twice a day in front of the Hotel Redondo. Freeth cut the usual 16-foot boards down to a more workable size, became the town's official lifeguard and the first in Southern California, and is credited with inventing the rescue can lifeguards still use; a bronze statue of him at the pier is often draped with leis. The town later had the world's largest saltwater plunge, Depression-era gambling halls, and a water taxi to an offshore gambling ship before King Harbor was built starting in 1956.

The Avenue A beach access ramp is being rebuilt as the only ADA ramp between Torrance Beach and the pier; until it reopens, use the Avenue C stairs and ramp or the Knob Hill stairs nearby. Beach Cities Transit 102 and Metro buses 3 and 7 stop at the pier.