Pirate’s Tower | Victoria Beach, California

A couple of years ago for work, I had the privilege of representing my company at a conference in Newport Beach, California. I volunteered to get there a day early so I could pick up the rental car and all the material we needed for the exhibitor booth. On my first day in Newport Beach I wanted to find a fun, trendy lunch spot. I googled a few places and found a restaurant called Sqirl. Sqirl was in East Hollywood. If you’re not from LA like me, East Hollywood and Newport Beach only looks like they’re about 30 minutes a part. Boy, I was wrong. It took me an hour and a half to get there because of traffic …. at 10am! Regardless, Sqirl was my first “foray” into hipster brunch options, and I was not disappointed. This was also where I had my first vanilla bean limeade, and needless to say, I can’t drink limeade any other way now! Yummmmm!

Anyways, The conference ended at noon on a Friday, but my flight out wasn’t until 8am the next morning, so I had quite the time to kill. Some of the other folks on the trip had decided to go to a baseball game. They invited me to go, but baseball isn’t really my thing, so I decided I’d stay back at the hotel and find something fun to do on my own.

First, I wanted to just take a drive up and own the Pacific Coast Highway. I drove south on Highway-1 from Newport Beach to Laguna Beach. In Laguna Beach, I parked in a parking lot to do some quick Google searches to see what was around me. Since it was getting close to dusk, I knew it needed to be something close by.

One of my first Google searches gave me a result for “Pirate’s Tower.” The pictures I saw online looked cool, so I wanted to check it out.

Getting to Victoria Beach was quite the accomplishment in itself. I had to literally park on the side of Highway-1 because the neighborhood roads near the beach entrance were too narrow. I think I waited to get out of the car for over 20 minutes before I decided to get out on the passenger side — the traffic just wouldn’t stop!

I then walked through the neighborhood to the beach entrance. I swear, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’d never find it!

Once I got out on the beach, I took off my shoes, veered right and walked towards the cliffs. At one point I felt pretty stupid. No one else was walking in this direction. I was also rock scrambling for a bit, so I figured may be this is where I’d get swallowed up by the sea. (shrug) Finally, I turned another corner of another cliff, and ta-dah! I saw the Pirate’s Tower!

According to multiple sources on the internet, the tower was built in 1926 to enclose the stairs that led to the beach from a wealthy California senator’s home.

I will say, it was a pretty cool sight to see. Unfortunately, the doors to the tower were locked, so no one could go inside, but it was pretty to look at. I walked around the base for awhile, but saw the tide starting to come back in, so I decided it would be best to head back towards the car.

One thing no one told me in any of the blog posts I saw was that the hike to get back up to the car would be exhausting!

I was so excited to see the Pirate’s Tower at first, that I forgot how many steps and steep hills I had to climb down to get there…going back up was way worse and a killer on my thighs. I think at one point I stopped in the middle of the street of the neighborhood gasping for air because it literally felt like I was walking straight up!

The Pirate’s Tower was such a cool thing to see in Laguna Beach – especially when short on time. The beach itself was also very clean and quiet (at least it was in April), that I would definitely go back to visit!

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