Malibu in Two Stops: Wide-Open Zuma and Surfrider's Waves

Zuma is the wide-open half. Walk in from the PCH main entrance and the sand keeps going in both directions, wide enough that a slow loop down to the waterline and back takes a good half hour, with the Pacific flat to the horizon and the Santa Monica Mountains at your back. Winter is also when grey whales move past, and the county names Zuma as a place to watch them, which is an opportunity rather than a schedule. The same county page calls the surf rough and warns of riptides, so read the water from the sand.

Then you drive. Nine miles of Pacific Coast Highway separate the two beaches: 15 to 20 minutes with a clear road, 30 or more when weekend traffic bunches up near the pier. Zuma in the late morning, Surfrider after lunch, one coastline all afternoon.

Surfrider is the other end of the same shore: a point break that holds longboarders most of the year and turns into a viewing gallery when it works. There is no promise of rideable surf on the day you drive down, and the lineup belongs to people who know it. This is a place to watch experienced surfers from the sand, not to paddle out for a first lesson. Malibu Pier is a short walk up, but access stops at the second white gate: the pier's end has been closed since January 2025 for repairs, State Parks expects the work to finish by the end of January 2027, and no reopening date has been set. The shops at the end are shut and the restaurant outside the closure is open; photograph the pier from the beach instead, where the white buildings and fishing lines read better against the water than from the deck.

Parking is where the two stops split. At Zuma the county lots and the street parking along PCH run 6 AM to 10 PM, and the entrance to use is the main gate on PCH, because the Zuma Creek underpass at Busch Drive is still listed as closed in the county's current status note, last updated June 12, 2026, with no reopening date. At Surfrider the state lot at the Malibu Lagoon State Beach entrance off the Cross Creek Road light is $3 an hour or $12 for the day, 8 AM to sunset, and special rates can apply in peak season, around holidays and at weekends. A separate county lot sets its own fee. Winter dark arrives around 5 PM, well before the Zuma lots close.