La Serena's beach strip runs for six kilometres along the bay, a broad avenue of palms, low-rise hotels, and apartment buildings facing the Pacific. The beach itself is grey-gold sand, the water cold (the Humboldt Current is just offshore), and the wind from the south is reliably strong by afternoon.
Swimming is permitted only at marked stretches; rips and the cold keep most people on the sand or paddling at the edge. The whole avenue comes alive in summer, January and February, when families from Santiago and Argentina fill the beach and the seafood restaurants line up along the boardwalk.