This island 22 miles from LA has wild bison, no cars, and 30-foot visibility water

Avalon’s wild side is closer than you’d think

Santa Catalina Island sits just 22 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, but once the ferry pulls away from the dock, the city disappears fast.

By the time you arrive in Avalon an hour later, you’re in a place with almost no cars, bison on the hillsides, and water so clear you can see 30 feet down.

The Los Angeles skyline is still visible from the right angle. That contrast is the whole point.

How a chewing gum fortune built this island town

The Tongva people lived on this island for thousands of years before Spanish explorer Sebastian Viscaino gave it the name Santa Catalina in 1602.

Development as a resort started in 1887 under George Shatto, and the Banning brothers carried it forward until a 1915 fire destroyed half of Avalon and forced their hand.

William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum magnate, bought a controlling interest in 1919 and poured millions into what he called a playground for all.

In 1972, his family deeded 88 percent of the island to the Catalina Island Conservancy, which still protects it today.

The Art Deco Casino that was never used for gambling

The Catalina Casino sits at the edge of the bay and stops you cold the first time you see it.

Completed in 1929, the building takes its name from the Italian word for gathering place, and not a single chip was ever bet inside it.

The circular ballroom on the upper floor measures 180 feet across with no pillars anywhere in the room.

Below it, the Avalon Theatre became the first movie house in the country designed from the ground up for sound films. You can tour the building, catch a movie, or rent out the ballroom floor for roller skating.

Golf carts, bikes, and almost no cars anywhere

Most of the cars you see in Avalon belong to residents who waited years for a permit.

Visitors get around by golf cart, bike, or on foot, and the main drag, Crescent Avenue, runs along the waterfront with palm trees, fountains and shops on both sides.

You can rent a golf cart and wind up into the hillside streets above town, where the views open up over the harbor.

The pace slows way down here in a way that’s hard to explain until you’ve spent half a day without a traffic light in sight.

Snorkel with orange fish the size of dinner plates

The waters around Catalina are among the clearest in California, and Lover’s Cove Marine Preserve puts you right in the middle of it all. The cove is calm and shallow, and the marine life comes right up to you.

Garibaldi, California’s state marine fish, burn orange against the kelp and grow large enough to surprise you up close. You’ll also find kelp bass, sheephead, bat rays and leopard sharks working through the water.

Casino Point Dive Park, one of the state’s first protected underwater parks, sits just off the seawall and includes sunken boats you can swim through.

See the kelp forest without getting your hair wet

Glass-bottom boat tours have been running at Catalina for close to a century, and they’re still one of the better ways to see the underwater world if swimming isn’t your thing.

The semi-submersible vessels drop five feet below the surface in climate-controlled cabins and cruise through Lover’s Cove.

Kelp sways overhead, fish move through the light in slow arcs, and sea life passes just beyond the glass. Boats leave from the Green Pleasure Pier in Avalon Harbor, and the whole tour wraps up in about 40 minutes.

Bison on a California island? There’s a story there

A small herd of American bison has grazed the hills of Catalina since the 1920s, when a film crew brought them over for a production and left them behind. They’ve been roaming the interior ever since.

The Catalina Island Conservancy manages the herd to keep the population from overrunning the landscape.

Open-air Hummer tours take you into the backcountry where the bison feed on the hillsides, and the two-hour Bison Expedition is one of the island’s most popular guided trips.

There’s nothing quite like watching a 1,500-pound animal graze against a Pacific backdrop.

The island fox almost vanished. It came all the way back.

At four to six pounds, the Catalina Island fox is about 25 percent smaller than its mainland cousin, the gray fox, and it lives nowhere else on Earth.

In 1999, a canine distemper outbreak cut the population from roughly 1,300 animals down to about 100.

A recovery program built around vaccination, captive breeding and close monitoring brought those numbers back to around 2,300 by 2019.

Today, you’ll spot them along trails and near the edges of town, moving through the brush without much concern for the people watching them.

A hilltop memorial built from the island itself

The Wrigley Memorial rises 80 feet above Avalon Canyon, built between 1933 and 1934 using stone quarried directly from the island and handmade Catalina tile.

It honors William Wrigley Jr. and anchors the lower end of the Botanic Garden, which his wife Ada started in 1935.

The garden covers about 38 acres and grows plants native to the Channel Islands, including several species found only on Catalina.

You can walk up from downtown in about 30 minutes through the canyon, or take a golf cart if the hill sounds like work.

Zip lines, long trails and 70 square miles of terrain

The Catalina Zip Line Eco Tour sends you across five consecutive runs from a ridge 600 feet above Descanso Beach, looking out over the Pacific between each one.

On the ground, the island holds more than 70 square miles of hiking terrain, and the Trans-Catalina Trail covers 38.5 miles coast to coast, with most hikers taking four days to finish it.

The Garden to Sky Trail starts at the Wrigley Memorial and climbs to views of both sides of the island. Permits for the interior are available at the Conservancy’s Trailhead center in Avalon.

More than 60 species here and nowhere else on Earth

Catalina is home to more than 60 endemic species of plants and animals, meaning they exist on this island and nowhere else.

The Conservancy protects 88 percent of the island’s roughly 48,000 acres and has run programs that brought bald eagles back and pulled the island fox from the edge of extinction.

The coastline runs 62 miles without significant development, the longest publicly accessible stretch of undeveloped coast in the region.

The Trailhead visitor center on Crescent Avenue is where eco-tours start and where you pick up permits before heading into the backcountry.

History, flying fish and a runway on a mountaintop

The Catalina Museum for Art and History sits in the center of Avalon and covers the island’s story from the Tongva era to the Wrigley years and beyond.

On the other side of the island, the Airport in the Sky perches on a 1,602-foot summit with views in every direction.

At night, seasonal flying fish boat tours use spotlights to catch fish gliding across the surface of the water. The island also runs community events throughout the year, including a tamale festival and a full marathon.

For a place 22 miles from one of the largest cities in America, it holds an enormous amount of ground.

Visit Avalon on Santa Catalina Island, California

You can reach Avalon by ferry from four Southern California ports: San Pedro, Long Beach, Newport Beach and Dana Point. The ride takes about an hour, and ferries run daily.

Helicopter service is also available from several mainland locations. Once you’re in town, Avalon is compact and easy to walk.

Golf cart rentals give you access to the hillside streets.

For hiking or biking in the island’s interior, stop at the Conservancy’s Trailhead visitor center on Crescent Avenue to pick up permits. The island runs mild year-round, with comfortable temperatures in every season.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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