With your budget and the only apparent requirement being “california weather” you can cast a much wider net than you are currently. Have you considered Santa Barbara? Same weather, and being a university town it has a lot more in the way of restaurants/bars/shops. It’s the quintessential CA beach town, at least in my mind. With all the young college kids the “zest for life” you mention is almost tangible there. Of course with youth comes more general grunginess than Del Mar and the others, so it’s a trade-off.
