Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Long Beach - California
Round The World Trip Journal

(18th Aug - 4th Sept) Long Beach
We flew into LA from Honolulu and were met at the airport by Jo's Fairy Godmother, Sue. This was well appreciated since it was at such an unreasonably early hour in the morning! Sue drove us about an hour south of LA to Long Beach where she lives with her husband Lou. They live just off the main Belmont Shore high street and about a 10 minute walk from the beach - a fantastic location. We were pleasantly surprised by the area - Jo had expected it all to be high rise condos - but it was a pretty residential area with lovely houses and quiet residential streets (see photo of a typical street). And such lovely deep and long beaches that seem to go on for miles and miles - think Baywatch beaches and you'll be there! See the aerial shot to see just how long Long Beach is! There is so much water around this area - what with the sea and the inland canals. Lots of brown pelicans and lots of sealions. All in all it is a beautiful area with so much to see and do and truly exceeded our expectations. We stayed with Sue and Lou for a couple of weeks (with our trip to Las Vegas in the middle - see later posting) and really appreciated their amazing hospitality. We also spent some time with their daughter and her family: Tracey, her husband Chris and their children Cole and Grace-Anna. What fantastic tour guides they all were - we saw lots of stuff we never would have found on our own so this really made the most of our time here. Thank you so much guys for making our trip so memorable!