Things to do in Long Beach — that’s the question I get from friends who assume the city is just a place you drive through on the way to somewhere else. It isn’t. Long Beach has a proper working waterfront, a retired ocean liner you can sleep on, canals you can paddle through, and one of the best aquariums on the West Coast, all within a few miles of each other. The trick is knowing what’s worth your money and what’s mostly there to hoover up tourist cash. I’ll be honest about both. For a broader list, see Things to do in Long Beach.
Start at the Aquarium of the Pacific
If you do one paid attraction in Long Beach, make it this one. The Aquarium of the Pacific is the largest aquarium in Southern California, home to sea otters, Magellanic penguins, sharks, sea turtles, and a 350,000-gallon tropical reef habitat that stops most people in their tracks. The whole place is organised around Pacific Ocean ecosystems, which sounds dry on paper but plays out brilliantly in person — you move from Southern California coastal waters to the tropics to the northern Pacific, and the change is genuinely striking.
The touch pools are the highlight for kids. Rays and small sharks glide past your fingers, and there are penguin encounters and behind-the-scenes tours if you want to spend a bit more. The exhibits on climate change and coral reefs are done well rather than preachy.
Two practical notes.
Weekends get rammed, particularly late morning, so go early or aim for a weekday if you can. And it sits right on Rainbow Harbor, next to the boat tour operators and a short walk from Shoreline Village, so it slots naturally into a full waterfront day. Check their calendar for evening programmes too — the place has a different feel after dark.
The Queen Mary — Worth It, With Caveats
The Queen Mary is Long Beach’s most famous landmark, and rightly so. She’s a retired British ocean liner from the 1930s, permanently moored across the harbour, now operating as a floating museum and hotel. The Art Deco interiors alone justify the visit. Walk the promenade deck, poke around the historic staterooms, and read up on her trans-Atlantic glory days and her stint as a troopship in the Second World War.
The historical tours are the safest bet — they cover the engineering, the design, and what life was like on board, and the guides tend to know their stuff. There’s also a Paranormal Ship Walk if ghost stories are your thing. The ship has decades of haunting lore attached to it, and even sceptics tend to enjoy the atmosphere below decks. The brunches and dining experiences with harbour views are lovely for a special occasion, though you’ll pay for the setting.
Here’s where I’ll be honest:
parts of the ship show their age, and sections are periodically under renovation. Reviews of the overnight hotel stays are genuinely mixed — some people love the creaky historic charm, others expected a modern hotel and got a 90-year-old ship. Visit for the day. Decide about staying overnight only if you actively want the old-liner experience, quirks included.
Shoreline Village, The Pike, and the Harbour Promenade
The area around Rainbow Harbor is where most visitors end up whether they plan to or not, and it works well as a home base. Three connected spots:
- Shoreline Village — a waterfront cluster of casual restaurants and shops overlooking the harbour. It’s touristy, yes, but the sunset dining is legitimately good, and it’s an easy win for families and couples alike.
- The Pike Outlets — an open-air outlet shopping district between the Convention Center and the Aquarium, with retail, restaurants, and a Ferris wheel. Handy for budget shopping or killing an hour; don’t build your day around it.
- The Rainbow Harbor promenade — the esplanade connecting everything. This is the bit I’d actually prioritise. Walk it or cycle it, watch the street performers on weekends, grab something casual, and enjoy the skyline.
Of the three, the promenade costs nothing and delivers the most. The Pike is the most skippable unless you want the outlets specifically.
Getting Out on the Water
Long Beach looks best from the water, full stop. The cheapest way to see it is a short narrated harbour cruise — most depart right next to the Aquarium and give you the skyline, the port operations (more interesting than you’d expect), and the coastline in under an hour.
The seasonal whale-watching trips are the bigger commitment and the bigger payoff. Harbor Breeze and other operators run trips to see grey whales and blue whales depending on the season, plus dolphins in enormous pods, usually with naturalist commentary on board. I did one on a grey, overcast Tuesday in March a couple of years back, mostly because it was cheaper midweek — around $45 at the time, if memory serves. I spent the first forty minutes convinced I’d wasted the money, staring at flat pewter-coloured water and regretting not bringing a proper jacket. Then a pod of common dolphins, hundreds of them, decided to ride our bow wake for a solid ten minutes. No whales that day. Didn’t matter.
For something more romantic, there are Venetian-style gondola rides through the Naples canals — genuinely charming, especially at dusk — and dinner or brunch cruises for celebrations. Locals also swear by the high-speed water taxis, which connect different points around the harbour and make for a cheap, breezy way to hop between restaurants or breweries.
The Beaches — Calm Water, Long Paths, Managed Expectations
Long Beach’s beachfront is long, sandy, and continuous, with a dedicated path for walking and cycling running along it. Bluff Park sits above the sand near downtown, and on weekend mornings you’ll find free yoga classes up there with ocean views — one of the better free things in the city.
Alamitos Beach and Marine Park are the family picks. The water is calm, the sand is wide, and you’re close to downtown amenities. Further east, Belmont Shore is the livelier neighbourhood beach — lots of swimmers, beach sports, and a stretch locals cheekily call “Horny Corner” where the regulars congregate. It’s noticeably less touristy than the downtown beaches and better for it.
Now, the honest bit. An offshore breakwater keeps the water calm, which is great for swimming and families and terrible for surfing — there’s essentially no surf culture here compared with Huntington or Seal Beach. And your ocean view includes port cranes and the oil islands (decorated to look like resort islands, which is either charming or odd depending on your mood). If you want wild, dramatic coastline, this isn’t it. What you get instead is:
- Genuinely swimmable, calm water
- A 5½-mile beach path with separated lanes for cyclists and walkers
- Space — the beach is wide enough that it rarely feels crowded
Paddleboards, Kayaks, and the Odd Hydrobike
The calm water that kills the surf makes Long Beach one of the easiest places in Southern California to try water sports as a complete beginner. Alamitos Bay and Rainbow Marina both have rental operations for stand-up paddleboards and kayaks, and the bay is flat enough that first-timers can actually enjoy themselves rather than just falling in repeatedly.
Belmont Shore is also regarded as one of the best beginner kitesurfing beaches in the region — reliable wind, broad sand, and lessons available seasonally. If you want something sillier, there are hydrobikes (pedal-powered water bikes) for pottering around the harbour, and electric Duffy boats you can rent for a self-guided cruise with friends. A Duffy loaded with snacks, drifting through the Naples canals in the late afternoon, is about as pleasant as Long Beach gets.
Rosie’s Dog Beach
If you’re travelling with a dog, this matters: Rosie’s Dog Beach is a four-acre stretch of sand that stands as the only legal off-leash dog beach in Los Angeles County. Locals treat it as an institution. There’s parking nearby, walking paths connect it to the rest of the beachfront, and plenty of the cafes and shops in Belmont Shore will happily accommodate a leashed dog afterwards. Go in the morning before the sand heats up.
The Catalina Day Trip
Long Beach is one of the main departure points for Santa Catalina Island, and if you’ve got a spare day, it’s an excellent one to spend this way. Catalina Express runs high-speed catamarans from the Long Beach terminal to Avalon daily, and the crossing takes roughly an hour. You leave a working port city and step off into a small island town with no real car traffic, clear water, and a completely different pace.
Once you’re there: wander Avalon’s historic waterfront, snorkel at Lovers Cove, hike into the interior, or try the zipline if you want your heart rate up. It suits couples and families equally well.
A few planning notes. Book ahead during summer and holiday weekends, because boats do sell out. The channel can be choppy — if you’re prone to seasickness, take something before boarding rather than gambling. And closer to home, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and tide pools over in San Pedro make a good smaller nature outing if a full island day is more than you’ve got time for.
MOLAA and the Art Museums
Long Beach punches above its weight on museums, and the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) is the headline act — it’s the only museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino art. The galleries are strong, the sculpture garden is a calm spot to linger, and admission is free on Sundays, which makes it one of the best-value cultural outings in the city.
The Long Beach Museum of Art takes a different approach: rotating exhibitions in a bluff-top setting, with a sculpture garden and Claire’s, the on-site restaurant known for its “Breakfast on the Bluffs” overlooking the ocean. Plenty of people come for the breakfast and stay for the art, and honestly that’s a perfectly good order of operations.
There’s also the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach, which shows more experimental contemporary work and is often free or nearly so — worth pairing with a stroll around campus, particularly if you’re already heading that way for the Japanese garden.
For more options and an alternate list, check out best things to do in Long Beach.
The Smaller Cultural Museums and the Ranchos
Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum
The Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum is a small, focused place with sculptures, carvings, paintings, and cultural artefacts from Pacific Island communities — the kind of museum you can do properly in an hour and come away having actually learned something about a part of the world most American museums ignore entirely.
Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos
Then there are the ranchos, which surprise most first-time visitors. Rancho Los Cerritos is an 1844 adobe home and grounds, now a public museum with tours and programmes covering the region’s Spanish, Mexican, and American eras — the whole arc from cattle ranching to sprawling city. Rancho Los Alamitos is arguably even better value: historic gardens, restored barns, animals, interpretive exhibits, and it’s free, open Wednesday through Sunday. If you’ve done the waterfront and want a completely different texture to your afternoon, either rancho delivers it.
Neighbourhoods Worth Walking: East Village, Retro Row, Cambodia Town
East Village Arts District
Long Beach’s best cultural experiences are arguably at street level, not behind museum doors. The East Village Arts District downtown is walkable and dense with murals, galleries, indie shops, and good restaurants — you can do a self-guided street art wander and café crawl without any planning at all.
Retro Row
Retro Row, along 4th Street, is my personal favourite stretch of the city. Vintage clothing, mid-century furniture, records, books, skate gear, and a cluster of coffee shops and wine bars, anchored by the Art Theater, an independent cinema showing classics and arthouse films. I once went in for a lamp and came out ninety minutes later with a stack of paperbacks, no lamp, and a strong opinion about which of the two coffee shops on that block pulls the better espresso. That’s roughly how Retro Row works on everyone.
Cambodia Town
Cambodia Town is the third stop, and it’s genuinely significant — Long Beach is home to the largest Cambodian population outside Phnom Penh. Come hungry. The Cambodian restaurants and grocers here offer food you simply won’t find elsewhere in Southern California, and it’s a far more interesting lunch than anything at the outlets.
Gardens and Parks
Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden
The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden, on the Cal State Long Beach campus, is the quiet highlight of the city’s green spaces — koi pond, waterfalls, a tea house, and a bonsai collection, all beautifully maintained. It’s small, contemplative, and free of charge on most days, and it pairs naturally with the University Art Museum nearby.
Shoreline Aquatic Park, back by the harbour, is the grassy hill with the lighthouse on top that you’ll have already spotted from the promenade. Climb it at sunset for the best skyline photo in the city. El Dorado Park, further inland, is where locals actually go — lakes, disc golf, birdwatching, and enough space for a proper picnic. And Bluff Park earns a second mention for those free weekend yoga classes; if you’re jet-lagged and awake early on a Saturday anyway, join in.
Eating and Drinking
A few names worth writing down. The Attic does Southern-inspired comfort food with creative twists. Open Sesame is the beloved Mediterranean spot — the hummus and pita have a local following bordering on religious. Seabirds handles the plant-based end brilliantly, with vegan tacos that convert sceptics. For scenery, Claire’s at the museum wins breakfast, while Fuego at Hotel Maya, The Reef, and the Queen Mary brunch cover special occasions with harbour views. Retro Row adds Little Coyote, Lola’s, and Social List for more casual independent eating, and the Bixby Knolls farmer’s market is the community-food option if your timing lines up.
Nightlife runs the full range downtown, from Irish pubs and piano bars to proper dance clubs. The Sky Room does cocktails with skyline views. Wicked Wolf hosts original live music upstairs on Fridays at “Live at the Wolf,” and the Blind Donkey handles craft cocktails and karaoke. My favourite local move, though, is the water taxi to a harbour-side brewery — Ballast Point is the one locals suggest — which turns a pint into a small boat trip. It’s the most Long Beach evening available.
Belmont Shore and Naples
Second Street in Belmont Shore is the classic neighbourhood stroll: boutiques, casual restaurants, bars, all a few minutes from the sand. Next door, Naples Island is the postcard — canals lined with attractive homes, little bridges, walkways made for an evening wander. This is where the gondola rides operate, and it’s also lovely on foot at dusk, entirely free, and quietly romantic in a way the downtown waterfront can’t quite manage.
Events, Races, and Games
If your dates are flexible, aim for the Grand Prix of Long Beach in spring — the longest-running major street race in North America, which turns downtown into a racing circuit for a weekend, complete with support races, concerts, and fan zones. It’s loud, chaotic, and brilliant. The Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival is the other big one, the largest dragon boat competition in the state, with races and cultural performances around the bay.
Year-round, the Convention & Entertainment Center hosts concerts and events downtown, the Art Theater screens something worth seeing most nights, and — a proper local tip — Long Beach State “Dirtbags” baseball at Bohl Diamond is cheap, fun, and full of people who actually live here.
If you take one thing from this list of things to do in Long Beach, make it this: don’t treat the city as a single waterfront strip. Do the Aquarium and the Queen Mary, absolutely, but give yourself one afternoon away from the harbour — Retro Row and Cambodia Town, or the Japanese garden and a rancho — and you’ll leave with a far better sense of the place than most visitors ever get. Book the whale-watching midweek if you can. It’s cheaper, and the dolphins don’t check the calendar.
Further reading and local guides
Related local pages: Best Time to Visit Long Beach in June, Planning a Trip to Long Beach in July, Top Attractions in Long Beach, Exploring Long Beach, California, Fun Things to Do in Long Beach, California.
Suggested itineraries and trip ideas: 36 hours in Long Beach California.
