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Southern California Close-Ups | A vacation guide to the Southland

Here, as part of our Southern California Close-Ups series, are seven micro-itineraries in Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, along with tips for LAX (about seven miles north) and Marina del Rey (about 12 miles north).

We'll tell you what to pay for an hour on a beach cruiser (that's a bike, not a person); where to sleep by the airport; why fish and ice cream belong together in Manhattan Beach; and why Jay Leno slips away to Hermosa Beach most Sunday nights. Read more...

--Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

10 micro-itineraries

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1. Pedal the Strand. The Strand bike path covers the South Bay coast, stretching south to Palos Verdes and north to Playa del Rey, and, if you're ready to pedal around Marina del Rey, you can bicycle all the way north to Pacific Palisades. That's a 22-mile trip, with scarcely a break in the waterfront scenery, lively humanity and architectural triumphs and follies. Click for more...

2. Redondo's Riviera. Redondo Beach has a pier and beachfront complex designed just for tourists — a place where visitors who like a rough-around-the-edges destination can stroll over the ocean, buy urchins at Quality Seafood (130 International Boardwalk), rent a paddle boat, sleep at the Portofino Hotel (260 Portofino Way), duck into the din of a dark arcade or catch a tribute band at Brixton South Bay (100 Fishermans Wharf, No. J). Click for more...

3. High-style Hermosa. Hermosa Beach is just 1.3 square miles. But it has plenty of action, beginning with the surfers in the water, the anglers on the pier and the world-class volleyball players thumping and sprawling by the nets on the sand. Click for more...

4. Pier, plaza, party! Hermosa Beach's Pier Plaza is the last little bit of street before the beach itself begins. It's also where the hard-partying 22-year-olds tend to end up. If that's your scene, the plaza is car-free, lined by palm trees and chock-full of raucous bars and restaurants. Click for more...

5. Jay's other job. Leno's day job pays pretty well and keeps him busy. Yet the host of "The Tonight Show" continues to moonlight like a man whose mortgage is on the line. Most Sundays, he takes the stage at the Comedy & Magic Club (1018 Hermosa Ave.) in Hermosa Beach, testing new material in a black-box space with about 250 seats. Click for more...

6. For young and old. Yes, there are three major South Bay piers, and they're all reasonably kid-friendly. But the Manhattan Beach Pier is the one with a little aquarium at the end. The Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium operates inside the eight-sided Roundhouse building (built in 1922, rebuilt in 1991), and it's free (though donations of $5 a family are suggested). Click for more...

7. Bagels and Metlox. Walk a few blocks up the hill from the Manhattan Beach Pier on Manhattan Beach Boulevard, pass Noah's Bagels on your right, and look left. That's Metlox, a sun-splashed semi-minimalist collection of shops and restaurants that's too genteel to call a mall. Click for more...

8. Hotel confidential. No leisure traveler should spend more than a single night in one of those big hotels in the soulless zone that is Century Boulevard. But if you have a late-night arrival or early-morning departure, or both, that single night can be crucial. Click for more...

9. In the white spider. You know you've wondered exactly what's inside that spider-legged Jetsons-era Theme Building in the middle of LAX. The building and its Encounter lunch-and-dinner restaurant just came out of a three-year renovation in 2010. Click for more...

10. To float your boat. Just 10 miles north of Manhattan Beach and right next to Venice, Marina del Rey is an 800-acre sailors' haven -- a man-made lagoon with six hotels, six yacht clubs and about two dozen marinas and anchorages along its shores. Click for more...

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