Q. What is it supposed to be on the show?

A. A bus stop / parking lot where Summer is boarding a bus.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Right next to the beach, probably in Newport Beach.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In the final episode (of season 4), "The End Isn't Near, It's Here", in which Seth and Summer say their bittersweet farewells (along with Ryan & Taylor) as Summer boards a bus to leave for a long road trip with the environmental protest group, GEORGE (The Global Environmental Organization Regarding Greenhouse Emissions).

She tells Seth: "You're my destiny, Cohen."

To which Seth replies: "Go save the world, Summer Roberts."

(If you haven't seen the final episode yet, don't worry - there's a happy ending in sight for Seth & Summer.)




This same beach parking lot was seen earlier on the show, in Episode 1 (of Season 3), "The Aftermath", in a scene where Marissa is sitting on a log at the end of the parking lot, not far from one of the lifeguard towers. (She had shot Trey in the previous episode.) Ryan arrives in his car to tell her that Trey is now awake at the hospital.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A beach parking lot.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. It is in the Malibu, at Westward Beach (Pt. Dume State Beach)

To be specific, that goodbye scene was shot in the beach parking lot, on Westward Beach at the far southeast end of Wayward Beach Road, on the west side of the Point Dume peninsula, southeast of Zuma Beach.

To reach it from Pacific Coast Highway (if you're heading west past Point Dume), once you pass Kanan Dume Road and Dume Drive, make a left turn onto Westward Beach Road. This road will head down to the beach, then will make a sharp left turn as it narrows, and will head almost back east right along the beach.

On your left, you'll pass "The Sunset" Restaurant (where Westward Beach Road meets Birdview Ave), but keep going, the parking lot next to Sunset restaurant is not the lot where they filmed the scene... it's farther ahead.

The road narrows even more once it passes the restaurant and at its far east (southeast) end, Westward Beach Road becomes a narrow parking lot, between the beach and the grassy slopes. This is where they shot the farewell scene.

(On the map, the lot is just below where Sea Lion Place meets Birdview Ave.)

That is about three miles southeast of the Cohen home in Malibu, and about ten miles east of Caleb & Julie's mansion.

(By the way, the address of the Sunset restaurant is 6800 Westward Beach Road, and it has its own website. I haven't been there yet, but it looks like a nice place to have brunch if you're visiting the area. It's kind of a quintessential OC beach view...)

Here is a map link, with both the camera location and the nearby restaurant marked.

Here is a birds-eye view a aerial photo from Live Local.

And here's a great wide-angle shot from the final episode (as Summer's bus pulls away):

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. This one wasn't that difficult. As the bus pulls away, the camera pulls back to show a wide view of the beach and the background (as seen above). I knew I was looking for a parking lot that was right on the beach itself, with a grassy bluff right behind it. Hills rose above the beach, topped with nice homes. Plus, the parking lot was narrow, its white lines were straight (not diagonal), and there was a red-roofed building at the end of the lot.

I didn't think there would be many beach parking lots that would match those specifications, and I was right. As I "flew" down the coastline from Palos Verdes to Malibu (via Live Local's aerial photos), looking for the lot, I noticed that there were quite a few parking lots right on the beach, but that most of them had Pacific Coast Highway running behind them, rather than a grassy hillside. The few that didn't were either too wide, had diagonal parking spaces, or both. I almost sped right past the right lot, since it's quite narrow and almost hidden behind the east side of the Point Dume cliffs. But once I spotted it, it was easy to match it up. Even small details, such as the street lamps and the patches of beach grass growing in the sand matched perfectly.