Pool Review: 5 Perfect Pools For A Summer Swim

In many parts of the United States, August signals the end of summer, but in the Bay Area, it can feel like just the beginning, with our warmest weather yet to come. As a lifelong runner, it used to take temperatures rising into the 80s for me to swap out my sneakers for a swimsuit. Some Bay Area Current readers may remember me from the Loo Review, where I rated public restrooms that I found while running. But this spring, a foot injury flipped the script: my doctor forbade running and encouraged me to swim instead. Luckily, the East Bay has many wonderful outdoor pools, and all you need to try a few laps is a swimsuit and goggles (which you could also ask to borrow from any pool’s lost & found).

In just Alameda and Contra Costa counties, I’ve counted 36 outdoor pools with public lap swim hours. Unfortunately, swimming at each of these pools was not possible for me, so here I will present to you some, but certainly not all, nice outdoor pools with lap swim in the Bay Area. I have also heard great things about pools designed more for family swim than lap swim, such the Roberts Pool, which is nestled among the trees in Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park, and the Strawberry Canyon Pool, which sits high up in the Berkeley hills and looks out over the Bay. But for this guide, I have focused on pools with robust lap swim hours. Because each pool has its own charms and challenges, I decided to forgo a point system and instead focus on the features that are important to me: how it feels to be in the water, how the interpersonal dynamics play out, whether the locker room is functional, the overall beauty of the pool, and any bonus features, like outdoor showers or hot tubs.

Temescal Pool

For seven dollars a swim, you can experience my neighborhood’s finest luxury: the Temescal Pool, owned and operated by the City of Oakland. Even on a warm summer day, Oakland can be chilly when the pool opens at 6:30 a.m., so as I take my pre-swim shower, I’m always grateful for the warm embrace of the locker room’s giant overhead heater, the HOT DAWG, whose logo features an overheating bulldog. The locker room is large, with plenty of lockers and benches. The showers themselves are exactly how I remember pool showers from my childhood: a few faucets clustered together in a tile corner with no curtains or doors. When the pool first opens, the showers take a while to heat up and the water pressure isn’t great, but they always have soap.

The pool has six lanes, two each for “fast, medium, and slow” swimmers, and is an adorable 33 ⅓ yards long. There’s also a grass lawn next to a large concrete slab, where people sometimes spread out beach towels and sunbathe as if they were at a much fancier pool. The water is the perfect temperature: warm enough that I can hop in without bracing myself, but never hot enough to overheat, even when swimming hard. The staff are universally friendly, and there’s a real sense of community here. Once, I watched an undergraduate lifeguard pace the length of the pool deck while chatting with two older women who treaded water alongside her for at least half an hour.

It’s open year round and has lap swim three times per day during the week: morning, lunch and evening, and a single longer lunchtime session on weekends. No matter what time of day you swim, you’ll need to share a lane with several other swimmers. In the mornings and evenings, the vibe is mellow and occasionally you see something sweet, like people in their seventies flirting or long embraces between regulars who haven’t seen each other in a while. But if you go during the lunch swim, it is buck wild in the water. I have seen multiple arguments about passing among septuagenarian swimmers that have required lifeguard intervention and resulted in a swimmer storming off.

Piedmont Community Pool

My partner grew up in suburban Maryland and was introduced to California’s iconography by early aughts Nickelodeon and Disney Channel Original Movies. When I brought him to the Piedmont Pool, he announced, “this is exactly how I pictured California after I watched “Zoey 101.” The pool is surrounded by enormous palm trees and manicured lawns with rows of lounge chairs shaded by blue and white striped umbrellas. From the water, you can gaze out past Piedmont onto the San Francisco Bay.

The Piedmont Community Pool, owned and operated by the City of Piedmont, is actually two pools: one 12-lane, 25-yard long lap pool with two competition-size diving boards, and one smaller, shallower warm water activity pool for learning to swim, family play, and people who don’t feel comfortable in a deeper lap pool. On an especially chilly morning, my friend Lucia and I were lured into the warm water activity pool by a lifeguard who told us that it was “a few degrees warmer than usual”. Indeed, it was bathwater warm, and unfortunately also full of hairballs and band-aids, like a giant communal bath. We decided we’d rather contend with the colder temperatures of the lap pool, which is chilly when you get in or rest between laps, but also consistently clean.

From the water, you can gaze out past Piedmont onto the San Francisco Bay.

I had never realized how essential locker-room benches are until, at the Piedmont Pool with my newly fractured foot and its attendant boot, I had to balance on my uninjured leg while peeling off a wet swimsuit and holding onto my dry clothes for dear life. There are only two short benches, one directly beside the door, where changing risks displaying your whole ass to the pool deck. The showers are single stall and warm up faster and stay hotter than any other pool showers I’ve encountered. But for the best shower experience, I suggest forgoing the locker room entirely and using the gleaming stainless steel outdoor showers to rinse off before hopping in the pool. 

I did all of my swimming here in April, when the pool had just reopened after a multi-year rebuilding and was charging $5 per swim. Now, the summer drop-in price is an astronomical $24 per swim for adults who don’t live in Piedmont. The cost isn’t the only reminder that you’re in Piedmont: on my way out, I passed a teenage front desk employee and was momentarily surprised to see her get into her white Tesla.

Simpkins Family Swim Center 

My favorite weekend trip from the Bay Area is to Santa Cruz, full of tidepools and cliffs where you can look out onto the ocean and watch the surfers and eat delicious food. If you find yourself there and looking to swim without donning a wetsuit, there is no better place than the Simpkins Family Swim Center, owned and operated by Santa Cruz County. Like Piedmont and El Cerrito, the Simpkins Family Swim Center has two pools: one giant lap pool with 17-lanes, each 25 yards long, kept at a comfortable 78 degrees, and a smaller, shallower warm water pool, kept at 88 degrees.

The first thing I noticed after I jumped into the lap pool was how salty it tasted. Apparently, the chlorine used to keep the pool clean is made on site by using electricity to transform sodium chloride — ordinary salt dissolved in water — into sodium hypochlorite, a liquid chlorine compound that forms germ-killing hypochlorous acid when pumped into the pool. 

The second thing I noticed was a warmth and friendliness among the pool patrons that felt distinct from the Bay Area, which technically does not include Santa Cruz County. I paid $9 to attend their “aquatics fitness class”, a workout coached by a gregarious gentleman who instructed us through swim drills, including “social kickboard,” which is apparently kickboarding while chatting. I enjoyed getting to know my fellow swimmers and appreciated the coach’s gentle suggestions for improving my wildly inefficient forward crawl stroke. If you prefer an uncoached swim, it costs $8 for adults or $5 for youth and seniors. Everyone I interacted with was friendly, from the half-awake teen working the front desk, to the other swimmers, one of whom shouted to me across the parking lot, “looks like we go to the same hairdresser!” as we left with towels piled on top of our heads.

Trefethen Pool at Northeastern University 

Unlike all the other pools on this list, the Trefethen Aquatic Center at Northeastern University is not owned or operated by a public entity. It was first built in 1998, when the campus was still Mills College, before Mills declared a financial emergency in 2017 and was absorbed by Northeastern University in 2022. Thankfully, Northeastern has kept the pool open to the public, although the public lap swim hours are more limited than at most publicly owned pools. In the summer, they’re generally open in the mornings during the week and occasional weekend afternoons. But if you can make their hours work, you can swim at the nicest pool I’ve been to in the East Bay.

To get in, you go through the Northeastern security gate, where the guards will want to see your ID and will ask you what you are doing on campus. Do not let this intimidate or dissuade you. Say “I’m going to the pool” or “I’m relaxing on the grass with some friends,” (which I would also recommend; the campus grounds are lovely) and they will let you in without issue. Adult lap swim costs $8, or if you’re feeling adventurous, you can try their water aerobics or stand up paddle board yoga class for $10.  

The pool is about 79 to 80 degrees, which feels like the perfect temperature for a slow swimmer like me. It has ten deep-water lanes, which are 25 yards long, and five shallow lanes, which are 20 yards long. Like all the pools I visited, there are kickboards and pull buoys available, but this pool also has a giant box full of fins of all sizes. The area around the pool seems designed for relaxing. There are four round picnic tables, each with its own umbrella, a small lawn with a few lounge chairs, and wonderfully, an outdoor hot tub. Several signs throughout the pool remind you that you are on a college campus. Text engraved into both sides of the lifeguard’s chair implore you to please not chat with or distract the lifeguard. In the women’s locker room, there is a floor length mirror with a bright red engraved sign at the top reminding you that despite the mirror, “this is a no-selfie zone.”

The pool deck was unusually slippery, perhaps from runoff of the two outdoor showers, which heated up instantly and felt great after a swim. Apparently this is a common indulgence: 

The locker rooms themselves were notable for their absence of mildew smell, perhaps because of their high ceilings with many small open windows, letting in some lovely summer evening sunlight and fresh air.

El Cerrito Swim Center

After returning to the Piedmont Pool on a summer evening and finding even the lap pool was overrun with summer camps, I was desperate to find a peaceful pool for a Sunday afternoon lap swim. The El Cerrito Swim Center really delivered. It has an activity pool, which has three lap lanes, a fountain, and a water slide, and is kept at 84 degrees, and The Emery G. Weed III Lap Pool (named after a former lifeguard who was incidentally also from Weed, California), which is 8 lanes, each 25 yards long and kept at 79 degrees. As I approached the lap pool, an older woman from the medium lane shouted out to me, “yoohoo! I’m just cooling down and then this lane is all yours, hun!” I thanked her and went to rinse off in one of the four outdoor showers, which heated up mercifully fast on a windy afternoon. 

The water felt a little chilly at first, but once I started swimming, it was perfect. The water was clear and free of debris and the pool deck had enough grassy lawns, picnic tables, and sun umbrellas to rival Piedmont. I also noticed several signs describing in great detail how to share a lane with other swimmers. Another sign listed the number of laps a swimmer would need to complete to swim a mile. I forgot that number halfway through my swim and asked the teenage lifeguard who was walking around the pool if she could remind me. “32 laps!” she said cheerfully. After I finished my last lap, she saw me resting at the wall and asked if I had finished my mile. I confirmed that I had and she said, “great work!” 

In the locker room after my swim, I found ample benches, showers that heated up quickly and a charming yellow and red tile pattern adorning the walls, undulating in the shape of the El Cerrito logo. Like the Mills pool, the locker room was so well ventilated by its high ceilings that I didn’t smell even a whiff of mildew. 

Accessing the pools 

You don’t need to know how to swim to enjoy these pools: most offer learn-to-swim classes for children and adults, including complete beginners. Four group lessons typically cost around $50–$60, and many programs offer financial aid. Or, if, like me, you know how to swim but still find yourself gasping for air after each lap, you can improve your technique and endurance at “masters swim” practice, available at many East Bay pools. “Masters swim” sounds like you need to be either very old or an expert, but in swimming, masters simply means over 18. The U.S. Masters Swimming Club Finder lists all the local swim clubs and their contact info. Email the club before showing up; most will let you try at least one practice for free, and many offer two or three, where you’ll get some tips from a trained swim coach. After that, drop-in practices generally cost $10–$15, including pool admission. Even beyond the summer months, these outdoor pools are a great resource for affordable exercise (except for Piedmont) and a reminder of how lucky we are to be on the sunny side of the Bay. Respectfully, I counted two outdoor pools, Mission Pool and UCSF Mission Bay, with public lap swim in San Francisco.