A fox found nowhere else on Earth lives on this island just off the Los Angeles coast

What’s waiting just off the Southern California coast

You can board a ferry in Long Beach and reach a different world in about an hour.

Santa Catalina Island sits 22 miles off the Southern California coast, and it has almost nothing in common with the city you left behind. Bison roam the hills.

A fox the size of a house cat lives nowhere else on Earth. And 88 percent of the island stays wild.

The crowds mostly stay in one small town, which means the rest of it belongs to whoever shows up ready to walk into it.

Avalon, the tiny town that runs on golf carts

Avalon packs about 4,000 year-round residents into the island’s east end, and it runs at a pace that LA couldn’t manage on its best day.

Golf carts handle most of the traffic, the speed limit tops out at 25 miles per hour, and the main drag is a walkable strip called Crescent Avenue along the harbor.

On the west end, the village of Two Harbors is home to about 150 people, one restaurant, and enough silence to actually hear the water. The island itself runs 22 miles long and eight miles across at its widest point.

The chewing gum king who built a playground in the Pacific

The Tongva people lived on this island for thousands of years before anyone else showed up.

But the version of Catalina most visitors see today started with William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum magnate who bought the island in 1919 and poured millions into what he described as “a playground for all.”

He built hotels, brought in a baseball team for spring training, and laid out the town.

Then in 1975, his family handed about 42,000 acres to the Catalina Island Conservancy, locking away 88 percent of the island from development.

The Casino that’s never seen a card table

The building that defines Avalon’s skyline was never a gambling hall.

Despite its name, the word “casino” comes from the Italian for “gathering place,” and that’s exactly what it was built to be.

The Catalina Casino went up in 1929, designed in Art Deco and Mediterranean Revival style, and it rises 12 stories above the bay.

The ballroom covers 20,000 square feet with no supporting pillars and holds up to 1,500 dancers. Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman played there in the 1930s and ’40s.

Below it, a theater seating about 1,150 people was one of the first designed specifically for sound films.

The bison that a film crew forgot to take home

In 1924, a film crew shipped 14 bison to the island for a movie production. Then they left without them.

The herd grew over the following decades to as many as 500 animals, which was far more than the land could support.

The Catalina Island Conservancy stepped in and now keeps the population between 120 and 150 using a contraceptive program.

You can still spot them on guided tours through the island’s interior, and occasionally near Two Harbors. They’re not behind fences.

They just roam.

The fox that nearly vanished and came all the way back

The Catalina Island fox weighs between four and six pounds. It’s been living here for more than 6,000 years.

In 1999, canine distemper virus, most likely carried by a raccoon that arrived on a boat, killed more than 90 percent of the population. The count dropped below 100 animals.

Wildlife biologists and the Conservancy spent years on a recovery program, and the population has climbed back above 2,000, one of the fastest recoveries of an endangered species in American history.

The fox is still listed as threatened because one bad outbreak could do it again.

Snorkel through a kelp forest, no boat required

The water around Catalina runs clear, with visibility between 40 and 100 feet depending on the day. Two spots stand out.

Lover’s Cove Marine Preserve has calm water and plenty of marine life, including the bright orange garibaldi, California’s state fish.

Casino Point Dive Park, right next to the Catalina Casino, was one of the state’s first protected underwater parks. You can walk in from shore at both.

Kelp forests, bat rays, and giant sea bass are all in the mix.

If you’d rather stay dry, glass-bottom boat tours and semi-submersible rides cover the same territory.

165 miles of trails through the island’s wild interior

A free hiking permit from the Conservancy gets you access to more than 165 miles of roads and trails.

The Trans-Catalina Trail runs 38.5 miles from Avalon all the way to Parsons Landing and typically takes three to four days end to end.

If you have half a day, the Garden to Sky Trail covers about 2.9 miles and climbs from the Wrigley Memorial and Botanic Garden to a ridge where you can see both sides of the island at once.

Bald eagles, island foxes, bison, and native plants found nowhere else fill in the gaps between the views.

Beaches tucked into coves along the harbor and beyond

Descanso Beach sits just past the Catalina Casino and is one of the last beaches in Southern California where you can buy food and drinks right on the sand.

It’s also the launch point for a zipline tour that runs 600 feet above the canyon through eucalyptus groves. Avalon’s harbor has three public beaches: South Beach, Middle Beach, and Step Beach.

The more remote options, like Little Harbor and Parsons Landing on the island’s interior coast, require a hike or a kayak to reach, and most days you’ll have them nearly to yourself.

The airport that sits on top of a mountain

Catalina’s Airport in the Sky sits 1,602 feet above sea level on a mountaintop in the island’s interior. Some visitors fly in by private plane or helicopter and land on that ridge.

Everyone else reaches it by guided tour, and the restaurant up there has become a destination in its own right. A nature center nearby covers the island’s ecology and the history of the Tongva people.

The views from up there stretch across the island’s ridgelines and drop down toward both coastlines.

Kayaking, flying fish, and a zipline over the canyon

Catalina’s 52 miles of coastline open up by kayak, with hidden coves you won’t reach any other way. Stand-up paddleboarding runs out of both Avalon and Two Harbors.

After dark, seasonal flying fish tours use spotlights to catch the fish mid-air as they glide across the water surface. During the day, parasailing above Avalon Bay puts the whole harbor and coastline under your feet.

If you want something more grounded, a falconry experience lets you handle trained birds of prey on the island.

Two Harbors, where the island quiets all the way down

Two Harbors sits on a narrow strip of land with water on both sides, about as far from Avalon in atmosphere as it is in miles. One restaurant.

One hotel. A general store.

The permanent population is about 150 people. It’s the western end of the Trans-Catalina Trail, a base for camping, kayaking, and scuba diving, and the kind of place where the loudest thing at night is the water.

You can reach it by ferry from San Pedro or by a seasonal boat shuttle from Avalon. Either way, plan to stay.

It earns the time.

Plan your trip to Catalina Island, California

Pick up your free hiking permit at the Catalina Island Conservancy Trailhead at 708 Crescent Ave in Avalon, open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ferries to Avalon run from Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point, and Newport Beach, with the trip taking about an hour each way.

The Visitor Center at 1 Green Pleasure Pier handles tours, water activities, and trip planning.

Check the official websites for current ferry fares and seasonal tour schedules before you go, as pricing and availability shift by season.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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