Public lap swimming in the South Bay is thinner and more concentrated than most guides suggest. Four of the cities people assume have a pool do not have one, and neither does the entire Palos Verdes Peninsula. That is worth knowing before you plan a routine around one.
Every schedule here moves. Aquatics hours are set by season and several of these facilities publish a new schedule two or three times a year. We have deliberately not reproduced hour-by-hour timetables, because a timetable on a web page is wrong within months. Call the facility before you drive.
Where you can actually swim laps
| Pool | City | Indoor or outdoor | Run by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victor E. Benstead Plunge | Torrance | Outdoor, heated year round, fifty meters, eight lanes | City of Torrance |
| Urho Saari Swim Stadium, known locally as The Plunge | El Segundo | Indoor, twenty five yards | City of El Segundo |
| El Segundo and Wiseburn Aquatics Center | El Segundo, 2240 East Grand Avenue | Twenty five yard competition pool | City and Wiseburn Unified jointly |
| Redondo Union High School Aquatic Center | Redondo Beach | Outdoor, fifteen lanes, twenty five yards | Redondo Beach Unified, not the city |
| Begg Pool | Manhattan Beach | Twenty five yards | City of Manhattan Beach |
| Gardena Aquatic Center | Gardena | Outdoor | City of Gardena |
| Carson Pool | Carson | City aquatics facility | City of Carson |
| Banning Pool | Wilmington | Outdoor, heated | City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks |
The Torrance Plunge is the one most people mean when they say they swim in the South Bay. It is outdoor, heated to around eighty degrees all year, fifty meters long, and it is open. Entry is by card rather than cash.
El Segundo is the exception to almost everything on this page. It is the only South Bay city with an indoor public pool, and it has two public swimming facilities for a city of its size. The Urho Saari Plunge came back from a long renovation and is in active programming again.
The school pool question
People often assume a district pool is a public pool. Mostly it is not.
Redondo Beach is the clear exception. The Redondo Union High School Aquatic Center runs public lap swim on weekends, and it matters because the City of Redondo Beach operates no pool of its own. If you live in Redondo and swim, this is your pool, and it belongs to the school district rather than the city.
Manhattan Beach is the counterexample. The Mira Costa High School pool is a rental facility, not a public lap swim venue. El Segundo sits in between, where the Aquatics Center is genuinely shared between the city and Wiseburn Unified.
On the Palos Verdes Peninsula the district pools are for school athletics and permitted group rentals under the Civic Center Act. There is no public lap swim.
Where there is no public pool at all
This is the part worth knowing before you buy.
The entire Palos Verdes Peninsula. Rancho Palos Verdes states it plainly in its own published FAQ: there is no year round public pool on the peninsula. Peninsula swimmers drive down the hill, most often to Torrance, or they join a private club.
Hermosa Beach. No pool, no aquatics program. The city amenity list has no swimming entry of any kind.
Lomita. No pool and no aquatics program.
Lawndale. A wading pool only, and it is closed.
Redondo Beach, as a city. Seaside Lagoon is a seasonal saltwater lagoon open roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day. It is a recreational swim, not a lap pool.
Los Angeles County runs no year round pool in the South Bay either. The nearest County year round facility is Jesse Owens, just north of Gardena.
Currently closed
Two San Pedro pools are down. Peck Park Pool is closed until further notice, and Hey Rookie Pool went into scheduled maintenance in September 2026. In Gardena, Primm Pool at Rowley Park is not a pool at the moment at all, it is the construction site for the new Gardena Community Aquatic and Senior Center.
The YMCA option
Four South Bay YMCA branches have indoor heated pools: Torrance South Bay, the Ann and Steve Hinchliffe branch serving San Pedro and the Peninsula, Gardena Carson Family, and Wilmington.
None of them publishes a drop in price or a lap swim schedule, so we are not going to print one. What is published is a free three day guest pass, which is the honest way to find out whether a branch suits you. For water that belongs to neither a city nor the Y, the swimming section of our guide to fitness studios by discipline covers the club and studio pools.
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