Del Mar City Beach

Del Mar City Beach is the main public sand beach of the city of Del Mar in northern San Diego County, running from roughly 15th Street north to the San Dieguito River mouth at Del Mar Dog Beach. It sits below the Coast Boulevard bluff, with stairways at most cross streets giving block-by-block access down to the sand. The L'Auberge Del Mar resort fronts the bluff at 15th Street, and Powerhouse Park sits alongside it at the south end of the beach. From July through September, the Del Mar Race Track's summer season fills both town and beach with race-day visitors.

Sand bottom, breaking surf, and no offshore reef or kelp structure along the named beach place Del Mar City Beach in the surf zone biome. Surfers and swimmers account for most of the use, and hook-and-line surf fishing is common alongside them. With no rocky structure to hold fish, spearfishing, snorkeling, and scuba are all uncommon.

Meters run along Coast Boulevard near 15th Street, with a paid public lot at 17th Street and a second pay lot at L'Auberge Del Mar on Camino Del Mar. Free street spaces line Coast Boulevard from 17th to 22nd and the cross streets from 22nd to 28th. Most spaces fill before 11 a.m. on summer racing-season afternoons, and the free stretch of Camino Del Mar from 22nd to 29th is often the easier alternative nearer the river mouth. Fishing and spearfishing are legal here under standard California regulations.