The stunning beachside suburbs in LA Australians don't visit - but should

Los Angeles' best beachside suburbs are in an unexpected place, just a short drive from LAX.

The best beaches in LA are barely 15 minutes' drive from LAX, but no-one knows it - especially if they're not from LA. Even if you are, you're far more likely to join the throngs at Santa Monica or Malibu, like the rest of the planet. The drive there is like hitting the M1 out of Sydney on the first day of summer holidays ... m-a-d-n-e-s-s.

I'm nervous when I land at LAX from Sydney because I hate driving in this city. LA freeways are where souls go to die; they're jammed tight with ginormous American cars; on the odd occasion they're not, I'm always in the wrong lane taking turns I never intended to take, to parts of LA I never intended to visit. Adding to the anxiety today is knowing I'll be driving in "rush" hour: most planes from Australia land early morning, condemning us to LA's worst cross-town commuter traffic by the time we're behind the wheel.

I pass through immigration and take a shuttle to my rental car. I put the address of my hotel into Google Maps. Seventeen minutes? And the route's mostly blue, with just a dash of orange. I might be driving on the wrong side of the road, even on the wrong side of the car, but I only need to make three simple turns, and I'm nowhere near any freeway. Nine minutes' driving time from Thrifty Rentals, I'm already beside the Pacific Ocean, passing palm trees, looking out at fit-looking people jogging, biking, skating and strolling.

My hotel's in Hermosa Beach. If you've never heard of Hermosa Beach; it's right next door to Manhattan Beach. If you've never heard of Manhattan Beach, it's next to Redondo Beach. These beach 'burbs are all part of an area called South Bay LA. I'd never heard of it either, but South Bay LA has been largely forgotten ever since it was built, which was mostly in the boom years after WWII (there was nothing here prior to that) when the oil, aerospace, defence and automotive industries went into overdrive (pardon the pun).

I only knew to come because a friend from here told me to stop in if I ever needed to kill time before I had to fly out of LAX. "Manhattan Beach is $15 away in an Uber," she told me. I came for two hours, and have been planning this trip ever since.

The first thing I discover about South Bay LA is I won't need the car. In a city synonymous with automobiles (for nobody walks In LA) South Bay is an anomaly. On my first circuit it seems few people drive at all - except in golf carts (they're legal to drive on the streets); if they do, they're in Teslas. The only traffic jam I see in downtown Hermosa Beach is when rollerbladers, e-bikers and skaters cross paths on a bike trail built just beside the beach, part of the 35-kilometre-long Marvin Braude Trail which runs all the way south from east of Malibu, in northern LA.

South Bay might've been built for the defence and automobile industries, but these days it looks prettier than Santa Monica. Cute beach bungalows in blues and greens and yellows, and fancy homes made mostly of glass and steel are built along perfectly curated narrow laneways that slope gradually - sometimes, drastically - to the most pristine-looking beaches in southern California.

Boutique shops - and there's not one chain store among them - boho-style cafes, chic gastropubs and fine-dining venues sit among grungy food trucks selling cheap but great tacos. Surfers walk down every street on their way to LA's best waves, designer dogs rule the footpaths, and forget what you hear about LA; in the quieter times of day everyone here says hello. In the distance, I can see all the way north to where the glass in those expensive houses in Santa Monica glints in the sunlight. It's only when a plane takes to the skies that I remember what part of LA I'm actually in. Inglewood - the suburb that made us tremble in John Singleton's iconic but brutal gangs bio-pic, Boyz n the Hood is also just a 10-minute drive away.

These beach towns weren't always so wholesome either - probably part of the reason they still fly under our radars. Gangs once ruled this part of LA and hard-core punk bands like Black Flag launched out of here singing songs about the sort of life today's soy-latte crowd know nothing about. The past 20 years has seen gentrification fuelled by the expansion of film and TV studios and new media.

I recognise Kelly and Donna's beach house from Beverly Hills, 90210 right by the sand at Hermosa Beach, but I'm not in Beverly Hills on a celeb-spotting bus tour so I pretend not to notice. (Other movies filmed here include Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Gone in 60 Seconds, Thor, Jerry Maguire and Point Break, and TV shows, Glee and The OC.) While there's wealth here - the average house price in Manhattan Beach, for example, is $US2.9 million ($4.2 million) - it's not the in-your-face variety like it is in Bel Air or Malibu.

Indeed, in all my visits to LA this is the first time I think: I could live here. There's a sense of community you feel just walking the streets or ordering a coffee that reminds me of my own native southern Gold Coast. When I embark on an impromptu beachside bar crawl as the sun sets in a blaze of orange across the mountains behind Malibu to my north-west, I wonder how all the "normal" people I meet afford to live here at all.

The best way to see South Bay LA is by e-bike. And the best way to e-bike is with a local. Guide Erik Hines is taking me all the way north to where South Bay ends at the largest man-made marina in North America, Marina Del Ray.

Surfers are riding waves in between the 270-metre-long pier as we cycle past, and I can see Catalina Island 50 kilometres off the coast, and the snowy peaks of Mt Baldy, high in the San Gabriel mountains to the east. There were sea lions barking near the pier at Redondo Beach, and now dolphins swim past kayakers I see paddling beyond the breakers. "South Bay is our little secret," Hines says. "No-one used to want to live here, now everyone wishes they could. Every day I think, I should've bought here 20 years ago."

There's a lot to see along the Marvin Braude Trail. Everyone in South Bay seems to own a bike; bands play for them by the concrete, though many riders play their own music through speakers and the whole beach seems like one giant beach volleyball court. "If you live in South Bay and you're not in a beach volleyball league, then you're not actually living in South Bay," Hines says (the sport was created along these LA beaches in 1932 by the Olympic Committee). Hang gliders take off from a beach just north of Manhattan Beach, locals congregate on the porches of their homes to stare at the sea; as we pedal north, we ride past campfire pits on the beach and carparks where RVs have five-million-dollar beachside views virtually for free.

Hines tells me to go south tomorrow; that South Bay LA includes a peninsula overlooking the ocean that's actually South Bay's best-kept secret.

The beach suburbs stop at Torrance, just south of Redondo Beach, where surfers ride waves off a craggy headland, below humble seaside apartments. I'm still kilometres from a freeway and I have the road to myself. Beyond Torrance the roadway climbs steeply as it skirts the edge of a rising headland with huge estates, some hidden behind gates. This is the Rancho Palos Verdes peninsula.

While tour buses traverse Bel Air, Malibu and Beverly Hills viewing stars' homes, I have a wilderness that's been home to everyone from Steven Spielberg to Oprah to Tiger Woods to Arnold Schwarzenegger, for myself. There are more leaf blowers than vehicles here. Below me huge waves that are compared to Hawaii's famous North Shore for their perfection and power are ridden by die-hards scaling 200-metre-high cliffs like mountain goats just to paddle out. Catalina Island looks so close I feel I might swim there, while some of California's best golf courses are built out along the coastline.

There are botanic gardens, national parks and nature reserves but I discover the best views of all over lunch at a restaurant, Nelsons, where I sit at an outdoor table watching gray whales swim below me on their way south to breeding grounds in Baja California. There are dolphins, too, and a pod of transient orcas. Nelsons is part of a resort called Terranea, built along 40 hectares of oceanside clifftops where I spend my whole afternoon, mostly getting lost.

It's barely a 25-minute drive back to the beach at Hermosa. The traffic's light - even in the evening rush hour, though I see the I-405 Freeway that runs north-south is grid-locked. Hermosa's busy instead with locals out walking and riding before dark. Night kicks in once the orange dwindles out, and I take a seat beside the pier at Manhattan Beach, staring at the twinkling lights across the water at Santa Monica and Malibu. So near, but so, so far.

Topanga Canyon: It's only 20 minutes' drive from Malibu, and the same from Santa Monica. Take the turn inland off Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) at the pet supply shop to a secret hippie enclave that's long been a hide-out for rock stars and actors. Hike, mountain bike, horse-ride or just stare at trees and see what inspired the likes of former residents, Jim Morrison and Neil Young.

Marina Del Ray Canals: Over a century ago an eccentric magnate created a maze of canals, pedestrian bridges and landscaped footpaths to replicate Venice's canals. Most are in Venice Beach and are often busy with tourists. But right next door you'll find the same canal system leading right onto a less-visited beach without any of the tourists at Marina Del Ray. Take your time wandering the waterways, stopping for coffee.

Silver Lake: Located just east of untrendy Hollywood and East Hollywood, Silver Lake has quietly become "the Brooklyn of LA" with its indie dining and boutique scene. Celebs who really want to hide away live here, and there's a burgeoning art and music scene ... but you'll need to dig to find the real gold. Look towards the boho bars and eclectic fashion stores off Sunset Boulevard, then sample outdoor attractions at its manmade reservoir on the edge of town where hipsters love to picnic.

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Getting there: Fly to LA from Australia's east coast with Delta Air Lines, Qantas or United Airlines.

Staying there: Stay close to Redonda Pier with views across the ocean from $359 per night at Sonesta Redondo Beach and Marina, (sonesta.com); sleep metres from the sand at Hermosa Beach at the Beach House (beach-house.com) from $578 per night; watch for whales at Terranea Resort (terranea.com) from $1356 per night.

Where to eat: Eat the freshest seafood right on the water in Redondo Beach at Sea Level (rb.shadehotel.com); eat some of LA's finest farm-to-table produce in a room overlooking Manhattan Beach Pier at Manhattan Beach Post (eatmbpost.com), feast in Hermosa Beach on southern California's best birria tacos (tacoselgoloso.com)

Take a tour: Check out everything South Bay has to offer on a variety of bike tours, including private, food and group tours (bikesandhikesla.com); learn to surf or refine your skills with Wave Huggers on LA's best waves (wavehuggers.com/hermosa-beach)

Explore more: visitcalifornia.com; discoverlosangeles.com

The writer travelled courtesy of Visit California and LA Tourism.