I guess I have actually never been to Venice Beach before. My mind thought I went to the boardwalk but I mixed that up with Santa Monica, whoopsie! As you can tell, I'm not really a beach person. I actually have not seen the beach (with actual sand, not just the coast side) during the day time in over 3 years. Naturally this is not my scene.
Free street parking is available or you can pay a fee to park closer (helps maintain the beaches though), just make sure to read the signs.
I have only heard of horror stories of Venice Beach, getting peer pressured to buy burned mix tape CD's (the way you deter this is have something in BOTH your hands, be it a drink, your phone, holding onto the strap of your bag so nothing can be placed in them), getting accosted and into a fist fight with a vagrant (never happened to my boyfriend despite living next to Skid Row for 2 years, but happened here), abandoned movie level horror Halloween decorations, and much more.
So I was a tad worried to say the least.
But it's one of those, you gotta visit at least once in your life kinda places, especially if you're a SoCal native. And this was my most recent visit.
I DESPISE all the of the AI slop being used to advertise food and other businesses, so there's that.
You can walk on the pier bridge to where people fish, you can walk the pedestrian side and see lots of dogs and such, there's a bunch of street vendors and performers, some with their own hand curated and crafted goods, others with Temu drop shipping slop, so just keep that in mind. There's lots of live art and displays too, very avant garde, so that's neat.
I also got to see Tokyo Revengers in real life when there was a huge mini bike gathering. All of them were super nice and chill, great community and I got to see them do donuts which was pretty cool. First time I was that close to an LAPD helicopter and seeing the police SUV's dart across the sand. That made the day for me to be honest.
Also some promoters give out freebies too, so I got some free Synchron Shohei Ohtani drinks.
I don't think I'll ever go out of my way to go here, but it's not bad. Definitely cleaner than some of the other beaches, but again, not an outdoors let alone beach person. read more