The Best Beach Hotels in Ventura, California

With a sultry, peanut-shaped outdoor pool to laze by and all the trappings of a smart, big-brand hotel (top-spec gym, sports bar, bike rental), the Marriott is the choice for busy urban types and digital nomads who want predictable quality and attentive service. Set slightly back from Ventura Beach, with its promenade and long pier stretching into the Pacific, you’re perfectly placed for lacing up your boots and hitting the San Buenaventura coastal hiking trail.

There’s a vintage charm to this periwinkle-blue clapboard inn, with its white wooden balconies and shutters. Sitting right on the shore, this Ventura Beach hotel, soundtracked by the hefty rollers outside, it’s got charming but chintzy decor – and every room faces the ocean. Sitting on your balcony before the sun-worshippers hit the sand is a meditative moment. Free parking onsite means it’s made for road-trippers who favour the faded Americana of a motel.

You won’t find it hard to track down this hulking yellow building, sandwiched between the freeway and Ventura’s boardwalk. It’s popular with surfers and windsurfers for its proximity to the breaks at Surfer’s Point, but heading inland you’re also a five-minute walk from the taphouses and burger joints around East Thompson Boulevard. A generous outdoor pool and great mai tais at the beachfront bar complete the holiday vibe and make this one of the best hotels in Ventura.

Just off Highway 101, this homey, tasteful guesthouse (established 1910) has plenty of warmth and character. Set in lush gardens with sea views beyond, it has a main building of rooms as well as several craftsman-style cottages, with original wood beams and fireplaces. The outdoor pool is smallish and unattractively fenced off, so this is more of a base for getting out and doing rather than reclining resort-style. Book one of the ground-floor rooms with a generous terrace at this hotel in Ventura to make the most of those balmy Cali nights.

A beachy trailer park of beautifully renovated vintage Airstream, Spartan and Imperial trailers is a quirky, only-in-California base. Done up in polished butterscotch-tone woods with Seventies-look furniture and light fixtures, you feel like you’re on tour with the band – but with memory-foam mattresses, TVs and bathtubs on hand. Quirky names such as Root Beer Float and Aluminaughty help you choose your palace on wheels. Rented your own campervan for the trip? You can book a pitch and BYO, too.

A truly central location between the beach, the highway and the cluster of diners, taco joints and bars around Main Street, Amanzi has all the bells and whistles of a business hotel, but with spacious yet cozy rooms and a great hot breakfast. On the terrace of this Ventura Beach hotel, a petite kidney-shaped pool is the place for a dip, but to keep things simple, head straight for the surf and sand, which is a 15-minute walk away.

Slightly north of Downtown Ventura, sandwiched between Mussel Shoals and Pier Shoals beaches, this vintage-look guesthouse sits right on the rocks, with a sea-facing heated pool and loungers on a lawn overlooking the waves and neon-pink sunsets. Rooms are beach-house style with cream tongue-and-groove and large ceiling fans, while the locally-famed oceanfront restaurant serves up seafood salads and juicy burgers.

Comfort Inn does what it says on the tin: smart, basic but modern rooms and a 24-hour reception, just off the Freeway. Closer to Ventura Harbor than most of the competition, it’s a nifty base for hopping onto boat trips, or kayaking and paddleboarding excursions, as well as the golf courses south of the city centre. Things to know: there’s no pool and Downtown Ventura, with the best restaurants, is a short cab ride away.