Pacific Edge Hotel

Perhaps it’s the moment when a beach sherpa scurries out with your chair and umbrella on the white-sand beach that happy shock sets in. Or maybe when you’re curled up in an Adirondack above the waves on your beachfront balcony that you’ll shake your head in giddy bafflement. How you can be camped out at a chic hotel on the prettiest stretch of beach in Laguna and not be going into credit-card debt is best left a mystery. Here are sassy chartreuse walls, Endless Summer surf art, and pillow menus that you’ll appreciate when you’re not on the sand, in one of the two pools, or finally taking that surf lesson.