The random nugget following this one has some complaints about Malibu. Briefly, NIMBY homeowners blocking beach access, tarballs on the beach, tiny strips of beach where houses are located too close to the waves, massive crowds, and icy cold water.

But Malibu beaches can be fantastic. Clockwise from the upper left:

• Thanks to shoreline shape and easy access there are numerous great surf breaks for both beginners and more experienced surfers.
• There's a reasonably large tidefall, so at low tide there are large rocky areas of the shoreline that provide rockpooling opportunites that are relatively safe from heavy surf.
• On days when it is unbearably hot inland, the Pacific marine layer tickles the Malibu coast providing extremely pleasant weather all day. Even though the large county beach parks can get crowded, it's still possible to find some quiet patches of sand. This is Westward Beach, next to Point Dume (pron. "doom"). This is where Charlton Heston damned us all to hell in the final scene of Planet of the Apes (1968).
• In winter, even on weekends, there are days with no crowds, sunny skies and mild weather.