When planning this year’s summer getaway many Southern Californians are thinking local. With the economy still struggling to right itself, saving travel dollars can give a big boost to the budget. Happily for us, we live in one of the most celebrated tourist destinations in the world, so there’s no loss of quality when it comes to vacationing close to home.
Our coastal communities are especially alluring with their beautiful beaches, sidewalk cafes and and boutique shops, not to mention proximity to big ticket entertainment venues like Disneyland, The San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld, Legoland, Wild Animal Park and more.
On a recent visit to Huntington Beach I realized that if you’ve seen one cute beach town you haven’t seen them all. Like such counterparts as La Jolla, Carlsbad, Laguna Beach and Santa Monica, Huntington Beach has a history and personality all its own, one worth exploring.
Historically, the trendy area has enjoyed two distinct spurs to vitalization. Both, ironically, began around 1920. First came the discovery of oil, a story that played out in true American fashion. In 1914 Americana encyclopedias bought land from the Huntington Beach Company at a rock bottom price to divide into small lots and give away as premiums to buyers of sets of books. When oil was later discovered on one of the properties, many of the owners of the “encyclopedia lots” became instant millionaires, to the chagrin of Americana. The pumping of oil slowly took over the coastal community, but left an 8-mile stretch of undeveloped beach, an ocean mecca that prospers to this day.
The long sand beach became the
