Laguna BeachSeven miles of marine-protected Orange County coast — 30+ named coves, the 1918 Laguna Art Museum, and the 90-year-old Pageant of the Masters

Laguna Beach sits in a 9.86-square-mile pocket of Orange County coastline, 50 miles south of Los Angeles and 30 miles north of San Diego. The Tongva called the canyon-and-cove network Lagonas ("lagoons") for the two freshwater pools at the head of Laguna Canyon; settlers arrived under the 1862 Homestead Act, the post office opened as Lagona in 1887, and Pacific Coast Highway completed the coastal link in 1926. Residents — calling themselves "Lagunatics" — incorporated as a city on June 29, 1927, specifically to keep the artist village small. Their 22,000-acre dedicated greenbelt has held back Orange County sprawl on three sides ever since, leaving a coastline framed by hills instead of malls.

The art identity arrived in 1903 when San Francisco plein-air painter Norman St. Clair came down to paint the coves; by 1920, half of the town's 300 residents worked in creative fields. Edgar Payne opened the gallery that became the Laguna Art Museum in 1918, the Festival of Arts staged its first show in 1932 hoping to draw business after the Los Angeles Olympics, and vaudevillian Lolita Perine added "living pictures" — the Pageant of the Masters tableau-vivant tradition that still runs nightly July through Labor Day at the Irvine Bowl amphitheater. The 1960s added the Sawdust Art Festival (started by exhibitors the Festival of Arts had rejected) and a brief but well-documented hippie chapter — Timothy Leary on Gaviota Drive, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love in the Woodland Drive neighborhood. The whole coastline became California State Marine Reserve and State Marine Conservation Area in 2012.

Plan a full day minimum, two for the Festival weekend. Park once and stay parked — the free trolley runs three loops (Coastal, Top of the World, Mission Hospital) every 20 minutes, weekends September–June and daily late June through Labor Day. Start at Main Beach Park (Broadway and PCH), walk north on the Heisler Park bluff trail to the gazebo and the Laguna Art Museum, drop down the stairs at Picnic Beach or Divers Cove for tide-pooling at minus-tide (check NOAA), then drive (or trolley) south to Aliso Beach and Thousand Steps. Evening: Las Brisas patio or Madison Square for dinner, then the 8:30 PM Pageant of the Masters at Irvine Bowl if you booked in February. The Festival grounds open at 10:00 AM during summer; the Sawdust grounds open at 10:00 AM across the canyon.