Things to Do with Kids in the South Bay

Soccer on Saturday mornings, junior lifeguards running the sand in June, a birthday party under the trees in a Torrance park. There is a lot to do with kids here, and the list changes more often than you would think: Mulligan Family Fun Center closed in 2020, Gable House Bowl and Palos Verdes Bowl are gone, and the Automobile Driving Museum closed in October 2024.

This page is current as of September 2026 and covers what is open now: the attractions, the leagues, the camps, the teen centers, where to hold a birthday party and what each city will and will not let you bring to it.

What is the Junior Lifeguard program and how do you get in?

Start here, because it fills early and the way you get in is easy to misread.

Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and El Segundo do not run their own junior lifeguard programs. The Los Angeles County Fire Department runs one program with classes at each of their beaches, and registration happens on the County’s website, not your city’s.

The sites run the length of the coast: Torrance Beach, Redondo at Avenue A, Tim Kelly at 2nd Street in Hermosa, Hermosa 14th at the pier, Manhattan at Marine Street, El Segundo at the Jetty, Dockweiler, and Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. Dockweiler takes ages nine to thirteen only.

Ages nine to seventeen, grouped by age as of 1 July. C group is nine to eleven, B is twelve to thirteen, A is fourteen to seventeen. Sessions run four weeks in summer, morning or afternoon, and not every site runs both.

How do you get in?

1. Pass the swim test. New applicants swim 100 yards freestyle in a pool, under 1:50 for ages 9 to 11, 1:40 for 12 to 13 and 1:30 for 14 to 17, by age as of July 1. Each child signs up for one test and brings a birth certificate or passport. In 2026 the tests ran March 14 to April 12 at pools around the county. If your child cannot make that time in March, that is your winter project.
2. Wait for your number. Once all the tests are done, every new applicant gets a randomly generated selection number, and places are filled in that order. The County says which test you attend does not affect your place, and neither does signing up the minute registration opens.
3. Returning Junior Lifeguards go first. Children who completed the previous summer get priority re-enrollment in February and March. The County says that window is not first come, first served.

The County lists the estimated cost at $685 per child, including the uniform shirt and suit, and notes that the fee schedule is under review by the Board of Supervisors. Needs-based financial aid exists and must be applied for before you pay. Returning A-group participants can move on to the Lifesaving Team, and there is a Cadet track for sixteen and seventeen year olds with two years in the program.

Separately, City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks runs a pool-based Junior Lifeguard Training for ages nine to seventeen at around $50, which is the relevant one for San Pedro, Westchester and Playa del Rey families.

One caution: several private surf schools sell programs with similar names. They are fine as camps, but they confer no standing in the County program.

Where do you take kids on a weekend?

On the water and about it

• Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, San Pedro. Tide pool touch tanks and the best aquarium in the area for young children. Free, with a suggested donation.
• Roundhouse Aquarium, at the end of the Manhattan Beach Pier. One room, free, and about twenty minutes of attention span, which is sometimes exactly right.
• Battleship IOWA, San Pedro. A museum ship you walk through, now joined by the National Museum of the Surface Navy which opened in 2026.
• Marine Mammal Care Center, San Pedro. A working seal and sea lion hospital. Viewing is free.
• Point Fermin Lighthouse, San Pedro. 1874, hourly tours, free.

Outdoors and free

• Polliwog Park, Manhattan Beach. The duck pond, the playground, the summer concerts.
• Hopkins Wilderness Park, 1102 Camino Real in Redondo Beach. Four habitats on eleven acres, and you can book tent camping. Closed Wednesdays. Note that people call this Wilderness Park and Hopkins interchangeably. It is one place.
• Madrona Marsh Preserve, Torrance. Forty three acres of vernal marsh with a nature center, in the middle of a city. Free.
• White Point Nature Preserve and Deane Dana Friendship Park, San Pedro. Coastal sage habitat, and Deane Dana protects the Palos Verdes blue butterfly.
• Abalone Cove, Rancho Palos Verdes. The tide pools are the real thing. Grounds are free, parking is paid.
• Dockweiler State Beach. Roughly forty first-come fire pits, no permit needed, bring your own fuel. The only local beach where you can legally have a fire.

Indoors, and for rain

• AdventurePlex, 1701 Marine Avenue in Manhattan Beach. Sixteen thousand square feet of indoor play with a rock wall and ropes course, ages four to twelve, run by the Beach Cities Health District.
• K1 Speed. Marketed as Torrance, physically at 19038 South Vermont in Gardena. Indoor electric karting.
• Sky Zone. Same situation, marketed Torrance, actually at 1625 West 190th in Gardena.
• Climbing. Hangar 18 in Hawthorne, Sender One near LAX in Westchester, Class 5 in Torrance.
• Bowling. Bowlero Torrance and Gardena Bowl. That is the entire list. There is no bowling alley in Carson, San Pedro, Lomita or El Segundo any more.
• Ice. Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo, which is the Kings practice facility and has three rinks, and Skating Edge in Harbor City.
• Old Town Music Hall, El Segundo. A 1921 theater running silent films on a 1925 Wurlitzer. Worth doing once with an older child.
• Western Museum of Flight, Torrance. Ten dollars, free under twelve.

There is no children’s museum or science center in the South Bay. The nearest are the Cayton in Santa Monica, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Kidspace in Pasadena and Discovery Cube. All are drives, and worth planning as a day rather than an afternoon.

Skate parks, all free

Charles Wilson Park in Torrance, where helmets are required and under-tens need an adult. Marine Avenue Skate Spot in Manhattan Beach. Westchester Skate Plaza. Peck Park and the community-built Channel Street park in San Pedro. Veterans Park in Carson. Rowley Park in Gardena. El Segundo at 405 East Grand. Hermosa Beach has an outdoor skate park at the Community Center on Pier Avenue, which has been there for years. Redondo Beach now has one at the pier as well.

Getting between them is its own question, and e-bikes have changed how teenagers move around here. We wrote about the rules and the realities in our guide to e-bikes in the South Bay.

Where do you hold a birthday party?

This is the most searched and least well answered question in this whole category, because the answer is different in every city and the restrictions are buried in fee schedules.

What each city rents, and what it bans

• Manhattan Beach. Parks and Recreation at 310-802-5448. Joslyn Center halls run roughly $40 to $200 an hour, plus Manhattan Heights and the Marine Avenue Rocketship Hall. Book two weeks ahead, in person.
• Hermosa Beach. 310-318-0280. The Clark Building, renovated in 2025 and seating 200, plus the Community Center.
• Redondo Beach. 310-697-3386. Hopkins Wilderness Park day use is about $75 for three hours, and overnight camping is available. Anderson and Perry Park rooms run around $130 an hour plus staffing. The Alta Vista picnic shelter is roughly $125 for five hours.
• El Segundo. The Checkout Building at 310-524-2700. Rec Park picnic areas, the BBQ Pit and the Fire Circle. Built-in grills only.
• Torrance. 310-618-5982. Eight park buildings, but private party use is limited to Saturdays and Sundays, 11 to 3, at about $40 an hour for residents. Torrance also publishes the longest ban list in the region: no rock climbing walls, dunk tanks, obstacle courses, laser tag, Nerf courses, hamster balls, trackless trains, game trucks or oversized inflatables, and one 10 by 10 canopy only. Read it before you book the entertainment.
• Lomita. 310-326-0140. The Tom Rico Center, the Fosnaugh Gym, and, unusually, the Lomita Railroad Museum at around $55 an hour, which the city markets explicitly for parties. Lomita bans moon bounces, game trucks, Nerf parties, trackless trains, petting zoos, food trucks and alcohol.
• Rancho Palos Verdes. Hesse Park and Ryan Park rent by the hour. The outdoor picnic areas at all three parks are first come and cannot be reserved.
• Rolling Hills Estates. 310-377-1577. Ernie Howlett Park needs a permit for twenty or more.
• Palos Verdes Estates. No recreation department and no rentals. Group permits only.
• Gardena 310-217-9537 and Carson 310-847-3570 both rent halls and gyms, and Carson’s Veterans SportsComplex is the only city facility locally that holds 200 and allows an indoor jumper.
• San Pedro, Westchester and Playa del Rey book site by site through LA City Recreation and Parks. The Cabrillo Beach Bath House ballroom holds 200 at about $75 an hour with a four hour minimum.
• Any LA County beach requires a Special Event Use Permit for an organized group with tables, chairs or vendors, applied for between three weeks and ninety days ahead. Dockweiler’s fire pits need no permit.

Venues with actual party packages

Fit Kids Gymnastics in Redondo and Torrance, Aerial Gymnastics Club, My Gym in three locations, South Bay Aquatics Swim School, Sky Zone, Scooter’s Jungle in El Segundo, AdventurePlex, South Play in Redondo, K1 Speed, Go Kart World in Carson which lets you bring outside food, Bowlero Torrance, and Color Me Mine in Torrance.

Two that people do not think of. The Roundhouse Aquarium runs shark and dolphin parties for four to seven year olds and a squid dissection party for eight to twelve. The Peter Weber Equestrian Center in Rolling Hills Estates has a petting corral with alpacas, goats, a pot-bellied pig, a miniature donkey, a miniature horse and chickens.

Worth knowing what is not available: South Coast Botanic Garden has no children’s party package, and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium has none either, though groups over fifteen can call ahead.

How do kids join Scouts in the South Bay?

Scouting America packs, troops, crews and ships meet all over the South Bay, and families join by ZIP code on Be A Scout: pick Cub Scouts for kindergarten through fifth grade, Scouts BSA for ages eleven to seventeen, or Venturing and Sea Scouts for fourteen to twenty, open a nearby unit and choose Apply Now. Most local units list a $170 cost to join plus their own dues as of October 2026, and in San Pedro, Sea Scout Ship 1992 sails the Los Angeles Maritime Institute’s tall ships.

Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles uses the myGS troop finder: enter a ZIP code and grade, pick a troop with open spots and pay the $45 membership plus council fees, for a year that runs October 1 to September 30. Teens can also look at Exploring career posts, Civil Air Patrol Squadron 107 at Torrance Airport, the South Bay Young Marines in San Pedro and Sea Cadet divisions in Redondo Beach and San Pedro.

Packs, troops, crews and ships by city, with meeting places, costs and sign-up steps: Scouting in the South Bay

What sports do kids play here?

AYSO was founded in Torrance in 1964 and is still headquartered there. Regions cover most of the area: Region 18 for Manhattan and Hermosa, 92 for El Segundo, 17 and 34 for north and south Redondo, 12, 14, 15 and 16 for south, west, central and north Torrance, 10 for the Peninsula, 6 for San Pedro and 7 for Westchester and Playa. Carson, Gardena and Lomita have no region of their own, so use the Region Locator. Fall is the main season, divisions run U5 through U19, and regions add EXTRA and Alliance teams plus EPIC and VIP for players with disabilities.

Baseball and softball are dense. Little Leagues include Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Torrance, North Torrance, Riviera in Torrance, Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, Lomita and Eastview in San Pedro, and Westchester Del Rey runs girls softball and tee ball. Boundaries go by address, so check yours in the League Finder. El Segundo also has Babe Ruth baseball, and Peninsula girls play in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Girls Softball League.

Beach volleyball has a full youth pipeline. Manhattan Beach Youth Volleyball takes ten to sixteen year olds, the Junior 6-Man Tournament runs 12U, 14U and 16U divisions during the International Surf Festival in early August, and AVP Juniors and CBVA Juniors run circuits locally. Clubs include MB Surf, MBsand, South Bay Volleyball Beach Academy, Surfside Juniors and Beach Cities Volleyball Club.

Surfing has a high school league. The South Bay Scholastic Surfing Association runs from October to March, with contests at the Hermosa Beach Pier, El Porto, 26th Street and Torrance Beach and teams from Mira Costa, Redondo Union, Palos Verdes, Peninsula, El Segundo, San Pedro and Torrance. The South Bay Boardriders Club Surf Series has youth divisions up to eighteen and under. Campsurf is the official surf school of Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach.

Sailing runs through the King Harbor Youth Foundation in Redondo, a US Sailing accredited nonprofit for ages seven to eighteen, with Learn to Sail, a nine week summer camp and invitation-only Opti and KHYF Race teams. In San Pedro, Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club runs Opti and high school teams, and Sea Scout Ship 1992 sails the Los Angeles Maritime Institute’s tall ships, for ages fourteen to twenty-one.

Basketball runs through the YMCAs as Jr. Clippers Basketball, ages four to fifteen and free for Y members, at the Torrance-South Bay, San Pedro and Peninsula, Gardena-Carson and Westchester branches. Hermosa Beach Youth Basketball and Torrance’s city league run winter seasons, Gardena and Lomita have city leagues, PlayLA covers San Pedro and Westchester, and the Westchester and Peck Park rec centers have leagues.

Football and lacrosse. The Beach Cities Sharks play Pop Warner tackle football, with cheer, out of Redondo Union High School, and Palos Verdes Youth Football & Cheer, the Carson Colts and El Segundo Football and Cheer also field teams. Torrance runs city flag football and cheer, Gardena runs city flag football, and the YMCA runs NFL FLAG. Lacrosse is played through the PV Youth Recreational Lacrosse League, El Segundo Lacrosse and the Westchester Recreation Center.

Water polo runs through OVAC, formerly Palos Verdes Water Polo Club, which starts Splashball and Rookie Polo at six and fields 10U to 18U teams, and South Bay United in El Segundo, which also offers Splashball. Club swimmers train with Beach Cities Alpha, Surfside Swim Team, Swim Torrance, Palos Verdes Aquatics and the Manhattan Beach Dolphins.

Equestrian is a Peninsula thing. Peter Weber Equestrian Center in Rolling Hills Estates is city-owned and privately run, with English and Western lessons, pony camps from age three and after-school programs. The Portuguese Bend landslide complex remains active, and the Portuguese Bend Pony Club relocated to a new address in February 2026.

Hockey, gymnastics, climbing, golf and more: Youth Sports Leagues and Clubs in the South Bay

Where do teenagers go?

Six cities run a dedicated teen center. Several do not, and that is worth knowing before you assume.

Center	City	Who	When
Manhattan Beach Teen Center, at Manhattan Heights	Manhattan Beach	Grades 6 to 8, residents or MB students	School year weekdays 3 to 6, summer 10 to 6
Perry Park Teen Center, 2301 Grant Avenue	Redondo Beach	Not specified	Monday 2 to 6, Tuesday to Friday 3 to 6
El Segundo Teen Center, 405 East Grand	El Segundo	Grades 8 to 12	Weekdays 3 to 8, Saturday 12 to 8
THE ATTIC, 2320 West Carson Street	Torrance	Ages 14 to 18, residents or Torrance public high school	School year weekdays 3:30 to 7, summer 1 to 5. $10 a year
Nakaoka Center teen camp	Gardena	Ages 13 to 17	Seasonal
Lomita Teen Program	Lomita	Ages 11 to 14	Summer only

Hermosa Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates and Carson have no dedicated city teen center.

allcove Beach Cities is worth knowing about on its own terms. It is an integrated youth mental health center for ages twelve to twenty-five at 514 North Prospect Avenue in Redondo Beach, open weekdays 1 to 7, covering mental and physical health, education and employment support, and peer and family support. It is free. The Beach Cities Health District also runs a Youth Advisory Council for grades eight through twelve, and members earn community service hours.

The Annex at the Peninsula Center Library in Rolling Hills Estates is a rooftop teen space for grades six to twelve, open weekday afternoons, with its own teen advisory council.

One structural thing nobody says out loud: after-school care in most of these districts stops at fifth or sixth grade. Hermosa runs TK through 6, Redondo grades 1 through 5, El Segundo TK through 5, Torrance TK through 6. PVPUSD covers 7th and 8th only as space allows. If you are moving here with a middle schooler, the after-school hours are a real planning problem and the teen centers above are much of the answer.

Where can a teenager volunteer?

Service hours are a requirement at most local high schools, and the minimum ages are the thing that catches families out. These are the published floors.

• Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy. Outdoor Volunteer Days most Saturdays with no minimum age, which makes it the most accessible option locally. The Rapid Response trail team takes fifteen and up, team leaders sixteen and up. Hours are verified for school credit.
• Friends of Madrona Marsh, Torrance. Short-term restoration is open to all ages, under fourteen with an adult. The Advanced Restoration Crew is fifteen to eighteen by application.
• Friends of Ballona Wetlands. Geared to ten and up, under thirteen with an adult. Staff sign off on the day only, so do not expect retroactive verification.
• spcaLA. Twelve to seventeen year olds only alongside an adult who completes the same application and training.
• Marine Mammal Care Center, San Pedro. Teen Greeter roles for fifteen to eighteen, six month minimum commitment.
• Libraries. Fourteen and up at LA County Library and LAPL, fourteen to eighteen for the Peninsula library’s teen council. LAPL’s Teen Council takes members from eleven.
• Torrance Memorial. Fourteen and up, but you must be in ninth, tenth or eleventh grade at orientation. Twelfth graders are not accepted, and the commitment is thirteen consecutive months. Apply in the winter of sophomore or junior year, not senior year.
• Torrance Youth Volunteer Leadership Training Program. Grades ten to twelve, a mandatory week of training in June plus 100 volunteer hours through the summer. It is an explicit pathway into part-time city recreation jobs, which makes it one of the few local programs that leads to paid work.
• Beach cleanups. Heal the Bay’s Nothin’ But Sand runs the third Saturday of each month, all ages, and Adopt-a-Beach issues a certificate after three cleanups. Surfrider’s South Bay chapter runs monthly cleanups. Coastal Cleanup Day is the third Saturday in September across sixty-plus county sites, and under-eighteens need a parent-signed waiver.
• LA Regional Food Bank takes fourteen and up, but has no South Bay facility. The nearest are Los Angeles, City of Industry and Long Beach.

Key Club and Interact chapters operate inside individual high schools rather than centrally, so the school activities office is the place to ask.

What costs nothing?

More than people expect. Every beach and all three piers. Cabrillo Marine Aquarium on a donation, the Roundhouse, the Torrance Art Museum, the Marine Mammal Care Center, Madrona Marsh, White Point, Deane Dana and Point Vicente. Polliwog, Live Oak, Columbia, Ernie Howlett, Angels Gate and the Korean Friendship Bell, Ken Malloy and Del Rey Lagoon. Every skate park. Every library branch and teen space, plus online homework help through the library card. Dockweiler’s fire pits. And allcove, which is a free mental health service for twelve to twenty-five year olds and probably the most valuable free thing on this page.

Continue exploring

Programs, ages, fees and reservation rules verified against city, county and organization sources in September 2026. Junior Lifeguard registration and cost rechecked October 3, 2026. Scouting and youth sports added October 18, 2026. Some details in the sports section come from long-standing local accounts rather than a source we could link: AYSO’s founding in Torrance in 1964, the list of youth beach volleyball clubs, Campsurf as the official surf school of Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, and the PV Youth Recreational Lacrosse League. Camp dates and registration windows move every year and fees change. Confirm with the city or organization before you plan around any of it.

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