Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island's recorded history stretches back thousands of years to the Tongva people, who called it Pimu and thrived on its abundant waters long before Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo arrived in 1542. The island's modern chapter began in 1919, when chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. purchased a controlling interest and transformed the rugged outpost into a glamorous resort destination, commissioning the iconic Casino building — not a gambling hall, but an Art Deco masterpiece housing the first theatre in America purpose-built for talking pictures. That legacy of refined leisure still permeates every sun-warmed tile and terracotta rooftop in Avalon, the island's only incorporated city.

Arriving by tender into Avalon Harbor is an exercise in compression — the vast Pacific gives way to a crescent of pastel storefronts, swaying palms, and the unmistakable round silhouette of the Casino anchoring the northern point. The pace here is deliberately unhurried; golf carts outnumber automobiles, which have been restricted since the 1930s, lending the town an almost Mediterranean languor. Bison roam the island's interior hills, descendants of a small herd brought over for a 1924 silent film production, and their unlikely presence adds a touch of the surreal to hikes along the Trans-Catalina Trail. At dusk, the harbor fills with the amber glow of yacht lanterns, and the scent of wild sage drifts down from the chaparral above.

Catalina's culinary identity draws from both its island isolation and its proximity to the rich Southern California larder. At the waterfront, Lobster Trap serves the island's signature spiny lobster — pulled from local waters during season and grilled simply with drawn butter and charred lemon — while Bluewater Avalon elevates freshly caught yellowtail and white seabass into refined plates with citrus mojo and avocado crema. For something more casual, the legendary Buffalo Burger at the Airport in the Sky restaurant rewards those who make the winding drive to the island's modest hilltop airstrip with a patty sourced from those very bison roaming below. A glass of wine from Rusack Vineyards, whose Santa Barbara County bottles pair beautifully with the salt air, completes the tableau.

Beyond the island itself, the broader region offers striking contrasts for travelers extending their journey along the American West. The surreal landscape of Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park in southern Utah presents towering salmon-hued dunes sculpted by wind against a backdrop of Navajo sandstone cliffs — a visual worlds away from Catalina's blue horizons. Salt Lake City, increasingly a destination in its own right, pairs world-class skiing access with a burgeoning culinary scene and the architectural splendor of its namesake temple district. Closer to the California coast, the gateway town of Bishop sits at the foot of the Eastern Sierra, where the ancient bristlecone pines of the White Mountains offer humbling perspective, and the port area of Wilmington serves as a practical launchpad for Southern California explorations. Together, these destinations sketch a journey from ocean to desert to alpine grandeur.

Catalina Island occupies a cherished place on Pacific coastal cruise itineraries, serving as a quintessential California port of call. Carnival Cruise Line frequently includes Catalina on its short Mexican Riviera sailings departing from Long Beach, offering passengers a day of snorkeling at Lover's Cove or zip-lining through Descanso Canyon. Disney Cruise Line brings families to the island's sheltered waters, where the company's polished shore excursion program pairs seamlessly with Avalon's gentle, walkable charm. Royal Caribbean rounds out the offerings with longer repositioning voyages and coastal itineraries that treat Catalina as a jewel-like counterpoint to the grandeur of their larger ships — passengers tendering ashore into a harbor that feels refreshingly intimate against the scale of the open ocean.

What makes Catalina endure is precisely what Wrigley understood a century ago: an island close enough to civilization to reach in an afternoon, yet remote enough to feel like genuine escape. The Casino still stands, its hand-painted ceiling tiles as vivid as the day they were laid. The water still runs clear over the kelp forests of Casino Point. And the particular quality of late-afternoon light — honeyed, unhurried, distinctly Californian — continues to make the case that some destinations need not reinvent themselves to remain utterly compelling.