Malibu And The Beaches On The 4th Of July

As the 4th of July rolls around, you might still be settling plans on what you'll do to celebrate locally, and the beaches are the obvious destination for such festivities. If you're brave enough to face the traffic on PCH heading out to Malibu, here's an overview of the broad spectrum of what takes place up the L.A. coastline.

[photo via] Santa Monica's beaches will be filled with scores of folks sporting Lakers jerseys and cringe-worthy Speedos. People bring picnic lunches, boom boxes, and folding chairs.  If you want to "lean like a cholo" this is the place to be.

As you move north down PCH you'll see the never ending line of cars trying desperately to find parking spaces on the side of the road to avoid paying the $15 dollar parking charge to get into Zuma Beach. While that could take hours, eventually you'll find a space and you can go relax on the relatively clean sands with the rest of the Palisades families and surfers who come to this spot.

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Zuma [photo via]

Passing Zuma, you'll find yourself in Malibu's swanky Broad Beach where celebrities, hipsters, and deep-pocketed L.A. denizens spend their day. The scene here is completely different than the other two spots: rather than coolers and bags of Lays chips, these parties come with valet parking, caterers, live entertainment, and of course a bevy of young Hollywood socialites schmoozing with with directors, producers, and the like. The area has been known to showcase Lindsay Lohan, Mischa Barton, Nicole Richie, and many other starlets the paparazzi stake out the area to get shots of.

If you can manage to get invited to one of these exclusive parties, this is definitely the place you want to be for a fantastic 4th of July on the beach.

Broad Beach [photo via]