Del Mar
Del Mar (North County San Diego) · near Del Mar · San Diego
Surfing
At a glance
- Skill level
- intermediate
- Best season
- Year-round · Good exposure to all swell directions
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Surfing detail
- Break types
- beach · reef
- Swell
- All directions · 2–6ft · Sand-bottom beach break plus patchy reefs
- Tide
- Works across tides depending on peak
- Wind
- Morning offshore best
- Crowd
- Spreads from the river mouth south to Torrey Pines — easy to find your own peak even in summer.
- Board
- Shortboard, fish, or longboard
- Wetsuit
- 3/2mm most of the year · 4/3mm mid-winter · Water 58–66°F
- Intl tip
- Del Mar's beach sits below the bluffs of Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve (hiking, in that guide) and the Torrey Pines Gliderport (paragliding). The Del Mar racetrack and fairgrounds are the town's summer social hub.
The guide
Del Mar is among the most reliable surf zones in San Diego — good exposure to all swell directions and a mix of sand-bottom bea…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Del Mar — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 32.9595, -117.2653