Catalina Island lies twenty two miles off the coast of Los Angeles, close enough that you can see the mainland from it on a clear day and far enough that it works nothing like the mainland. There is one town, Avalon, with about 3,400 residents, a much smaller settlement at Two Harbors, and in between seventy five square miles of dry hills, canyons and coast with almost nothing on them. Visitors do not bring cars. A conservancy owns most of the island. There are bison. It is the strangest day trip available from a major American city and it rewards knowing how it works before you go.
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What Is Here
A CONSERVANCY OWNS ABOUT EIGHTY EIGHT PER CENT OF THE ISLAND AND YOU NEED A PERMIT TO WALK IT. The Catalina Island Conservancy holds the interior, and hiking into it requires a permit, which is free and is obtained in advance or at their office; mountain biking requires a separate paid one. This is the operative fact for anybody planning to do more than sit in Avalon, it is easy to comply with, and arriving at a trailhead without it is the avoidable mistake. The Conservancy is also why the island looks the way it does, running the restoration work, the roads into the interior and the wildlife management.
THERE ARE NO VISITOR CARS, AND THIS CHANGES THE WHOLE TRIP. Vehicle permits on Catalina are famously restricted and residents wait years for one, so the island runs on GOLF CARTS, bicycles, a shuttle bus into the interior and walking. You cannot bring a car on the passenger ferry. Avalon is small enough to walk end to end, carts are hired by the hour and are the standard way to do the hill roads above town, and the practical consequence for packing is that you are carrying what you brought, on foot, up a gradient, from a boat.
THE CASINO HAS NEVER BEEN A GAMBLING CASINO, which is the island's most repeated misunderstanding. The circular art deco landmark in the first image, finished in 1929, takes its name from the Italian word for a gathering place. The ground floor is a cinema, built for sound films and still showing them, with one of the great theatre interiors in California, and above it is a circular ballroom that held thousands of dancers in the big band era. Tours go inside and are the best indoor hour on the island.
THERE IS A HERD OF BISON AND THEY ARE NOT AN ATTRACTION TO APPROACH. Bison were brought to the island in the 1920s, by most accounts for a film, left behind, and have been here since; the Conservancy now manages a herd of roughly a hundred animals in the interior. They are wild, they weigh what bison weigh, they are faster than they look, and people are injured in American parks every year walking toward them for photographs. Watch them from the shuttle or from a long way off.
THE WATER IS THE OTHER REASON TO COME AND IT IS COLD. Catalina sits in giant kelp forest, the clarity is exceptional by Californian standards, and the dive park at Casino Point is a protected reserve entered straight from the shore, with Lover's Cove the equivalent for snorkelling. The bright orange fish everywhere is the garibaldi, California's state marine fish and protected. THE OCEAN HERE IS AROUND SIXTEEN TO TWENTY DEGREES even in late summer, so a wetsuit is the difference between twenty minutes and two hours.
FRESH WATER IS GENUINELY SCARCE AND THE ISLAND HAS RATIONED IT. Avalon's supply comes from a small reservoir and a desalination plant, and in drought years the island has imposed real restrictions on residents and businesses. Visitors are asked to be careful with it, which is an unusual request in a Californian resort and is a legitimate one here.
When to Go
September and October are the best months. The sea is at its warmest after a summer of heating, the air is still warm, the summer crowds and the cruise ships have thinned, and the mainland marine layer that greys out June mornings has gone.
June gloom is a real thing and it catches people out, with a low marine layer that can keep late spring and early summer mornings grey and cool well into the day. The photographs you have seen are not lying, they were taken in the afternoon.
July and August are hot, dry and at capacity, with the interior genuinely arid and shadeless. This is peak season and the crossing books out.
Winter is mild, quiet and cheap, in the mid teens, with some services reduced and the crossing more likely to be rough or cancelled in a storm.
Getting There
By ferry, which is how essentially everybody arrives: services run from Long Beach, San Pedro and Dana Point to Avalon in about an hour to an hour and a half, and from San Pedro to Two Harbors. Book ahead in season, and note the LAST BOAT, because missing it means paying for an unplanned night on an island where rooms are expensive.
By helicopter from Long Beach or San Pedro in about fifteen minutes, which is a genuine option rather than a novelty and is useful if the sea is bad.
THE CROSSING CAN BE ROUGH AND THAT IS WORTH PREPARING FOR. This is open ocean across the channel, afternoon crossings are usually choppier than morning ones as the wind builds, and a significant number of first-time visitors are seasick. If you are prone to it, take something before boarding rather than after, sit low and central, and look at the horizon.
On the island you walk, hire a cart, or take the interior shuttle. There is no car hire for visitors and no need for one in Avalon.
The Catalina Island Packing List
Strong unshaded sun, a dry arid interior, cold water, a boat crossing, and everything carried on foot up a hill.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the sensible single top for an island day: a morning crossing on an open deck is cold and windy, the interior at midday is hot, the evening on the harbour cools fast, and wool covers that range in one garment, which matters when you are carrying your own bag off a boat.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece for the crossing and the evening, which are the two cold parts of a warm day.
Sun protection is the real packing priority here. A long sleeve sun hoodie and a wide brim sun hat do the work, because the interior has effectively no shade, the trails are exposed from end to end, and the reflection off the water adds to it.
Walking shoes with grip for the Conservancy trails, which are dry, loose and steep rather than groomed, with merino hiking socks for the same reason. A insulated water bottle is close to mandatory: the interior is arid, there is nothing to buy out there, and the island asks you not to waste water, so a bottle you refill in town is both the practical and the decent answer.
Not linked and worth packing: SOMETHING FOR SEASICKNESS, taken before you board; A RASH TOP OR WETSUIT IF YOU PLAN TO BE IN THE WATER FOR LONG, since sixteen to twenty degrees is colder than a Californian beach suggests and the registry holds no wetsuit, so that advice comes with no link; A SMALL DAYPACK, because you will carry everything; CASH FOR CART HIRE AND SMALL PLACES; AND YOUR CONSERVANCY HIKING PERMIT, which is free and is sorted before you reach the trailhead.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Catalina Island
Emergency numbers: 911 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile. Calls are answered locally and dispatchers will stay on the line. For non-urgent police matters many cities also run a 311 information line.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States and no country-level warning. Its guidance concentrates on the practical differences a British visitor meets: entry requirements and ESTA, the cost of healthcare without insurance, extreme weather including hurricanes on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts between June and November, and wildfire and heat risk in the west and south-west. THE FCDO NAMES CALIFORNIA AMONG THE HIGHER EARTHQUAKE RISK STATES, and an island twenty two miles offshore adds its own complication to that: a serious regional quake would affect the ferry service and the mainland hospitals at the same time. THE REAL AND ORDINARY RISKS HERE ARE HEAT, WATER AND ISOLATION. THE INTERIOR IS ARID AND SHADELESS and the commonest trouble visitors get into is walking out of Avalon on a hot afternoon with one small bottle of water; carry more than you think, start early, and tell somebody your route, because mobile coverage in the canyons is patchy. THE SEA IS COLD AND THE KELP IS THICK, so snorkelling and diving here want the right exposure protection and respect for the kelp rather than panic in it. THE BISON ARE WILD ANIMALS and the only sensible distance is a long one. THE CROSSING is weather dependent and can be cancelled or rough, which is a planning risk rather than a danger: build slack into any onward travel and do not book a same-evening flight from Los Angeles off a late ferry. The Catalina Island Conservancy issues the hiking and biking permits and publishes trail conditions and closures, including for fire risk, which in a dry Californian summer is a live consideration. CRIME IS VERY LOW in a small island town that essentially everybody has to arrive at by boat, and the FCDO's note that gun crime rarely affects visitors applies.
US State Department travel advisory: there is none, and this is not an omission. The State Department issues travel advisories for other countries, not for the United States itself, so no US advisory for this destination exists to link. In its place, the Government of Canada advice for the United States gives an equivalent third-country assessment.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits. The FCDO names no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States. The same advice also covers Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Main hospital: THIS IS THE ONE THING TO UNDERSTAND BEFORE A SOLO TRIP HERE. Catalina Island Medical Center in Avalon is a very small hospital, a dozen or so beds with an emergency room, and it is the only one on the island; anything it cannot handle means being transferred to the mainland by boat or by air ambulance, which takes time and money. That is an argument for travel insurance with a high medical limit and evacuation cover rather than a reason not to come. This is the single biggest practical difference for a visitor: there is no public health system, an emergency room visit without insurance can run into thousands of dollars, and an ambulance is billed separately and is not free. Comprehensive travel insurance with a high medical limit is not optional in the United States, and you should carry your policy number and the insurer's 24 hour number somewhere you can reach them. Urgent care clinics handle anything short of an emergency far more cheaply and quickly than an emergency room, and are the right choice for a sprain, an infection or stitches.
Official health authority: the CDC travellers' health pages, the US federal health authority for visitors. covers vaccination and health advice for visitors to the United States
Embassy contact: the United States is the host country, so there is no US embassy to contact. Your own country's embassy is in Washington DC, with consulates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Boston. Find yours before you travel and save the number.
Official tourism authority: Brand USA, the national tourism marketing body. covers California, and the island's own chamber and the Conservancy publish the ferry timetables, the Casino tour times and the trail permits and closures
Takeaways
Get the free hiking permit before you reach the trailhead.
No visitor cars. Golf carts, bikes and your own legs.
The Casino is a cinema and a ballroom. It never held a card table.
Know the time of the last ferry. The island is expensive to be stuck on.
Solo women safety assessment: Catalina is a reassuring place to travel alone. Avalon is tiny, affluent and essentially car-free, everybody arrives by boat, the waterfront is busy and well lit in the evening, eating alone is normal, and crime in a town of 3,400 reachable only by ferry is close to nonexistent. There is no area in town to avoid. THE CONSIDERATIONS HERE ARE ABOUT BEING ON AN ISLAND RATHER THAN ABOUT PEOPLE. THE HOSPITAL IS SMALL, a dozen beds with an emergency room, and anything serious means an air or sea transfer to the mainland, which makes insurance with a high limit and evacuation cover a genuine rather than nominal requirement. THE INTERIOR IS THE PLACE TO BE CAREFUL: it is arid, shadeless, steep and has patchy mobile coverage, so hiking alone there means a permit, far more water than feels necessary, an early start, and telling somebody where you are going. Bison are wild and are to be watched from a distance. THE CROSSING is the other planning matter: it can be rough, which affects a lot of people, and it can be cancelled in weather, so leave slack before any onward flight and know the last departure. In the water, the cold rather than anything else is what shortens a swim. 911 REACHES EVERYTHING, and the Conservancy is the authority for trail permits, conditions and fire closures.
Reading On
Catalina is the island Los Angeles looks at, and the Los Angeles packing list covers the city the ferries leave from and most visitors fly into. Down the coast, the San Diego packing list covers the other southern Californian coastal city, and north the Big Sur packing list covers the stretch of coast where the same cold Pacific meets much bigger country. Inland, the Joshua Tree packing list covers the desert that asks the same things of a packing list as this island's interior does, which is shade you have to carry and water you have to plan. For the country, the United States travel guide for women carries the regions, the driving and the seasons in full. For why one wool layer covers a cold crossing, a hot interior and a cool harbour evening, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection. North up the same current, the Cannon Beach packing list covers the Oregon coast where that cold Pacific meets a four mile beach and a 235 foot sea stack, and where the water is no warmer than it is here.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
