San Onofre Trails - Hiking, Nudists, and Secluded Beach

This weekend was another beautiful, sunny November day and at a perfect 70 degrees, it seemed fitting to go for a nice hike. We chose one of our favorite local hiking spots that seems to be surprisingly relatively unknown by lots of San Diego and Orange County locals, which are the trails at the San Onofre bluffs. There are 6 different trails that lead you down to the approx. 3 miles of state beach.  Just south of the state beach, the beach trail continues through Camp Pendleton. This is also an awesome place to go for some uncrowded long boarding!

You're guaranteed to run into a few nudists just south of trail 6. As we've found, the common trend among nude beach goers is they typically tend to be male, age 40+ and love to stand up and do a little stretch coincidentally always when you are walking by. This weekend was no exception for this norm based on the few we ran into getting their tan line free sunbathing in.

The good news is once you pass the nudist section you are on completely remote beach. How many places in Southern California can you be the only one on a beach???

Getting There: From the 5 fwy, exit Basilone and head west. You'll go south past the San Onofre Surf Beach and follow signs to San Onofre State Beach which leads you to the top of the bluffs and the beginning of Trail 1. This is a state beach so the typical $15 day use applies if you do not have a state beach pass (which is awesome to have, by the way).

We like to start at trail 5 or 6 and head south to do the more remote part of the trail which very few people seem to head to.

Here are a few pictures from our hike this weekend: