Southern California has been a really pleasant surprise for our family. We have spent the last 1.5 years here and have really made a point to see and experience as much as we could, even in the middle of a pandemic!of There’s everything from beautiful beaches, to famous farmers markets, to farm tours you can go on as a family! See below for all of our favorite things to do in Southern California!
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Farmers Markets in Los Angeles
There are a ton of different farmers markets in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. (You can click here for a full detailed guide.) I did not visit them all, but I did visit some of the most popular ones.
Santa Monica Farmers Market
This farmers market was raved about by every produce person I talked to. They have a market every Wednesday and Saturday and the Wednesday markets are the hub for all of the produce pickups by local produce buyers in the area.
- Highlight: There are a lot of growers out of the Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo area there and it was great to be able to interact with them. This market is also in a great location, right next to an outdoor shopping area and in walking distance to the Santa Monica Pier!
Hollywood Farmers Market
This market, along with the Santa Monica Farmers Market, is very big on social media. It is also a very big actual market, in terms of space. It is really cool that so many vendors show up and there are local restaurants all around. However, what everyone forgets to mention is that the entire surrounding area is full of homeless encampments. (This is not a political statement, it is just the facts.) There are encampments directly outside of the farmers market, as well as driving up to it and throughout the overpasses leading up to the freeway exit.
- Highlight: Experiencing a really well setup booth that had a ton of different types of leafy greens and carrots. It lured me in and I got to try a bunch of new lettuce varieties, as well as rainbow carrots for the first time, which was really one of the greatest things!
Pasadena Farmers Market
This was the smallest market we visited, but there was still a line to enter. I went here because it was the closest to my house, and I wanted the first cherries of the season so badly and I could not find them at my local grocery stores!
- Highlight: They unfortunately did not have any cherries, but it did give me the opportunity to buy some Gaviota strawberries, which are very popular throughout the Los Angeles Farmers Markets. It is a specific strawberry cultivar that everyone raves about and they charge a large premium for. One company, Harry’s Berries, charges $12 per clamshell for them and another company I found was charging $6 per green basket, so I gave in to try them. They were good, but they were too sweet for me. It was almost as though they left them on the vine for too long to ripen and the only thing I could think about was to add them to vanilla ice cream!
- Con: There were only a few vendors and a lot of them were already sold out of their products when I arrived at 9am. A lot of the vendors do presale orders and the customers just arrive at the market to pick up what they ordered (smart for them, not for people like me who don’t participate!).
When I first moved to Southern California, I had a really hard time connecting with local growers and was told that I should visit the farmers markets to do so. It was a totally different vibe than I am used to, where people didn’t want to be showcased or have any visitors. So, after a while, the excitement of the markets quickly died down and I stopped going because all of the produce sold there is really expensive, and none of them were closer than an hour to our house. That is not to say that I do not think they are a good weekend outing, it is just not something that I would be doing every weekend!
(If you are interested in learning more, you can click here to read my thoughts on farmers markets, in general, as well as regarding food safety practices.)
Fun Outdoor Family Activities
Carlsbad Flower Fields
This was probably my favorite outdoor activity of them all, besides the beach! Rows and rows of flowers, lined up as a beautiful piece of art is only something you get to see on that scale so often. I would 10/10 recommend going here. It is a little bit of a tourist attraction, but it is a great family adventure and they even have a full on park for kids to play at when you are done! (You can click here to learn more about the Carlsbad Flower Fields.)
Tanaka Farms
Tanaka Farms is a family friendly farm that actually has two locations in Irvine, California: a fruit and vegetable farm and a sunflower farm. We visited both!
The fruit and vegetable farm has farm tours and u-pick opportunities. (As someone with a food safety background, this always makes me a little nervous, but as someone with two small children, it’s not an opportunity I’m going to pass up.) We did two tours of the farm, which consist of wagon rides around the perimeter, a very brief explanation of the crops they grow, and the opportunity to get out and pick produce into containers provided. The tours last around 20 to 30 minutes and cost $20 per entry (for everyone over 3 years of age).
The sunflower farm is only open two weekends of the year, which during 2021 was the last weekend of August and the first weekend of September. They offer you the option to pay $5 per entry (over 3 years of age) or to pay $20 per entry if you want to pick flowers into a container provided. It is in an area right next to a major freeway, but there were maybe eight different sunflower varieties that we got to experience that we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to otherwise!
Outdoor Splash Pads
These are great, when California is not in the middle of a large drought! If you have kids, this is like a park experience times 1,000, where water comes out of everywhere and once the button is pushed to start, water keeps coming for like 20 minutes at a time. There are splash pads throughout the Los Angeles area that you can check out. We only personally tried out the ones in the Riverside, California area.
Idyllwild
If you enjoy getting outdoors and being in nature, Idyllwild is a good option for you! To be honest, we never made it to the town of Idyllwild because our kids were done in the car before we reached the actual town. But, it is a place where there are a lot of random trails that you can stop on and enjoy. We found one and were very pleasantly surprised to find some leftover snow for the kids to play with!
San Bernardino Forest
This is the picturesque place that you would expect to see in the mountains. There is a lot of greenery, a lot of different hiking trails and it is easy to stop off and enjoy the different trails at your own pace. We visited in the middle of summer and did not have any issues with overcrowding.
Joshua Tree National Park
I will start off with the shock factor: it costs $30 to enter this California State Park. We also had to wait in a car line for 30 minutes just to pay to get in because Joshua Tree was so overcrowded on an early Saturday morning. I was happy we went here because they have trees like I have never seen before, which seriously remind me of Dr. Seuss illustrations, but I would not go back. You can see those same types of trees leading up to the park and there were just too many people everywhere there.
Best Beaches in Southern California
After trying out a ton of different beaches, our favorites are Newport Beach and Solana Beach. These two were the nicest, cleanest, friendliest beaches around.
Newport Beach
Newport Beach is a popular place and if you go near the pier, I am not sure you will ever find a parking spot! However, we found a secret little entrance to the beach, where it is near a lot of beach homes, there is very little foot traffic and it is super clean.
There also just so happens to be a playground on the beach in a separate bay area, which can be found just across the street from the actual beach. If you have kids of any age, from what I have observed, they all seem to love this concept! I have been able to go there numerous times (all on week days), found parking for this area and we were able to really enjoy our time there. The best part for the kids is that there are no waves, so they can have a little more freedom dipping their toes in!
Solana Beach
This beach is in a really nice area and also has a playground right next to the beach. It was really pretty, clean, secluded and not very crowded on the weekend. If it were closer to our house, we would have been there a lot more often!
Grocery Stores in Southern California
Surprisingly, there were quite a few new stores I was introduced to that you can’t find in Northern or even Central California. Below are my takeaways from each store.
Cardenas Markets – They have homemade bolillos and corn and flour tortillas that were really just the greatest thing! In terms of produce, they have a wide variety of produce that you would find in the Mexican cuisine: lots of different types of peppers, cactus, plantains, and much more. This really allows for the opportunity to be adventurous with your eating! They also have a fresh-cut bar where you can mix and math different ready-to-eat produce.
Specialty Produce – This is just as you would expect: a specialty grocery store that has all sorts of rare produce findings, as well as a lot of other products you would find in a traditional grocery store. This is not a chain, so you have to go to the one storefront to properly experience it. (They also have a very informative online presence as well.) I only went twice (but would have frequented it if it were closer to my house), but was introduced to a lot of really good produce that I would not have known about otherwise, such as different mandarin and mushroom cultivars.
Stater Bros. – They have a large produce department. I visited two different local Stater Bros. and one of them had a fresh-cut station in the middle of the produce department, where they were cutting the produce in front of you, while the other did not. Most importantly, the wet racks (the things where the produce is placed) were very clean in appearance at both places.
Ralph’s – Ralph’s to me is just like your Safeway or Albertsons that you can find anywhere else across the state of California. It is your average grocer with average prices. I was happy to find that the one near us in Riverside carried rainbow carrots, and somehow, the kids loved the berries there more than any other grocery store!
Clark’s Nutrition – I was really excited to stumble upon this grocery store. The store in Loma Linda, California is beautiful and the lighting in the produce department is almost magical! (The Riverside, California location is not worth your time.) The produce department has a lot of offerings that are hard to find elsewhere, such as celeriac, broccolini, different colored beets and, my favorite, rainbow carrots. In addition to produce, they are the only store that has cashew butter (where I was initially introduced to it), they source some really good local breads and have a large array of bulk items you can buy (e.g., trail mix, nuts, dried fruit, etc.). Another really great thing about this store from the consumer perspective is that it was never overcrowded and it was always great to see someone always working in the produce department.
Gelson’s – This visit happened by coincidence when we were on a daytrip and the first thing I did was order a sandwich for the kids, and the second thing I did was head to the produce department, where I had such sudden sticker shot as I saw apricots being sold for $7.99 per pound. There produce might be great and it might be the best store there ever was, but those prices don’t work for me and I imagine they are not welcoming for a lot of other people. I will say, though, that since it was a one-off, I did agree to buy some cut melons because the kids really wanted this cantaloupe that was cut into little balls and it was delicious! It was the first time I had tried the KISS melons and I would buy those again 100 times!
I know there are more grocery stores that I missed, but if you are in the area, there is a good chance you will come across one of these!
It is also important for me to add that two of the stores that I frequent the most, which are not singular to this area, are Costco and Walmart, and both of those really made a great appearance here. There was great quality at both, and the diversity of stone fruit offered at both during both summers I spent here was really such a treat for my whole family!
Fun Local Finds
San Diego Hat Company
One of my favorite things that we learned about while here was the San Diego Hat Company. They make hats for women, men and children and to say that finding cute hats for kids to keep us all excited about living in the almost desert, and to keep the actual hat on the kid, is a win-win!
Hans’ Homemade Ice Cream
I might be a produce blogger, but I am not sure you will find someone that loves ice cream more than me! We unfortunately discovered this place at the end of our time there, and it is so good! They have homemade delicacies, including homemade drumsticks, which are out of this world! They also have three locations, so there are more options to visit depending on where you are going!
I hope these tips help you if you either are looking to visit, or are in the area and are looking for something new to try! We had a great 18 months in Southern California, and now it is time for the next adventure!