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We were walking up a steep dirt road that wound around the rugged hills behind Avalon. It was mid-morning and a misty fog bank separated Catalina from the mainland, masking our view of the sea. But as we climbed, the hazy clouds lifted and the sun broke through, warming the air and glittering on the…

You know that bright greenish-blue color that jumps out at you when you look at the Avalon Pleasure Pier? I’m told that some people like it so well that they have the hardware store mix up batches of it for their do-it-yourself projects. They call it Pier Green. I think it looks pretty cool from the…

One of the easiest ways for a visitor to fall in love with a place is by exploring its restaurants and trying local food. In Avalon, that means spending an afternoon with Taste of Catalina Food Tours, which offers a couple of delicious ways to get to know the island. We recently took the Food…

Quick now: What do these people have in common? Taylor Swift, Ronald Reagan, the Chicago Cubs, Katy Perry, George Harrison, Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood. You guessed it. Catalina. Except for Swift and Perry, who visited the Island recently, all of these celebs — and many more — were an important part of the Island’s…

It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. And it might as well be me and my friends. Our task: To turn a lump of brownish-red clay into the colorful ceramic tiles that Catalina has been famous for since the 1930s. If you’ve ever visited the Island, you’ve probably noticed the splashy-looking Catalina tiles….

Winter or summer, Catalina Island is jam-packed with fun activities to keep kids excited and busy — for a day, a weekend or a week. If it happens to be the off-season, so much the better: hotel prices are down, the crowds have thinned out and your odds of seeing whales on the trip from…

Some of us are so addicted to caffeine that we’d be happy to take our lattes intravenously. But you don’t need to do that in Avalon, which is filled to the brim with coffee joints that will help you kick-start your day. Whether you’re seeking café au lait, Americanos, blended drinks or drip coffee, you’ll…

Aboard the Jet Cat Express — Lazy clouds floated overhead as crew members cast off and the giant catamaran Jet Cat Express slid out of its dock at Catalina Landing in Long Beach. We were headed for the island on a spectacular fall day. Capt. Michael Jackson was at the helm. I was lucky to be…

A fat lemon-colored sun was shining overhead when the Cat Express ferry left the dock in Long Beach, but by the time we reached Avalon, clouds had started to move in. The sun was playing hide and seek as I stepped off the boat, and before I’d rounded the corner onto Crescent avenue, big drops…

You don’t need to go on safari to see wild creatures up close—just head to Catalina’s back country, where bison and deer roam free and you might catch a glimpse of an animal seen nowhere else in the world. Although more than a million people visit Catalina annually, few visit the most interesting part of…

We left the dock in Avalon mid-day, expecting adventure and high-seas thrills. We weren’t disappointed. Dolphin Quest, an open-top inflatable boat, offers an electrifying way to tour the coastline off Catalina. Racing at speeds up to 40 mph, the boat cruises the waters east of the island looking for sea life, especially dolphins. Although the…

You know what you’ll never see in Catalina? A stop light. That’s because the island has so few cars that it doesn’t need them. Vehicles are severely restricted here; it takes 14 years on a waiting list to get permission to have a car. But you don’t have to walk everywhere to see the sights….