Interesting Things To Do In Ventura

An Overview of Ventura

Ventura is a small coastal city in California, best known for it’s popular beaches, long, wooden Ventura Pier, several windsurfing zones and great surfing waves. The town itself has many interesting things to do in Ventura, including main street shops, shoreside venues and small cafés. Ventura is an excellent launching point for the nearby islands, most famously Channel Islands National Park, a habitat for rare island foxes and scrub jays

Interesting Things To Do In Ventura

Camarillo Ranch

Otherwise known as Rancho Calleguas or Adolfo Camarillo House, this is a large Victorian-styled estate with peaceful, park-like grounds and a historic red barn. The site is known to host community events.

Marina Park

This is a small, quaint oceanfront greenspace sprinkled with palm-trees and sunset views.

Ventura Botanical Gardens

A nice little garden space on a rise overlooking the city. The gardens are free to enter of Fridays.

Ventura Harbor Village

Wrapped around the harbor and marina, this waterfront complex specializes in retail options and specialty boutiques. The Ventura Harbor Wave Mound is visable from this area, as are beautiful sunsets.

San Buenaventura State Beach

This is a two-miles sandy beach popular with swimmers and sunbathers. The beach has access to the Ventura Pier, a wooden structure for fishing, views of the surrounding area and a few snack-and-eating venues.

Emma Wood State Beach

A narrow, oceanside beach area used for surfing and fishing. There are several fire pits in the area and spots available to RV campers with advance reservations.

Channel Islands National Park

This nationals park contains 5 ecologically rich and diverse islands which can be reached by boat from Ventura. The islands have numerous unique attractions, including a lighthouse, several sea caves, rare Torrey pines, huge colonies of seals and wheeling flocks of nesting seabirds.

Anacapa Island Lighthouse

This lighthouse overlooks a beautiful cliff, watching the churning seas below. Anacapa Island is also home to several hiking trails and some unique wildlife, including bright wildflowers, thousands of birds and California sea lions. The island also offers a great viewing point for whales and dolphins, including the world’s largest congregation of blue whales.

Winfield Scott Wreck

Under the shallow waters near Anacapa Island, this mail steamship has remained a part of the island’s aquatic scenery since it sunk in 1853. Despite the vessel sinking, all aboard were saved.

Inspiration Point

One of the most rugged and impressive views around the island area, with Santa Cruz and the Pacific ocean dominating the horizon.

Santa Cruz Island

The largest of the Channel Islands and California, the 24-mile long patch of beautiful land is a popular day trip from Ventura. Sights around the island include the stony beaches of Smuggler’s Cove, the quarter-mile-deep sea cave for kayak explorations known as Painted Cave, the Scorpion Ranch camping areas, the Scorpion Ranch canyon hiking trails and Cavern Point, which offers seasonal whale sightings.

Santa Rosa Island

As the second larges of the Channel Islands, Santa Rosa Island has beautiful white sand beaches and stunning views from Skunk Point.

Caliche Forest

Found in the center of San Miguel Island of the Channel Islands is a great, fragile caliche forest. A caliche forest is made of prehistoric vegetation which calcified, forming a “fossilized” landscape. The forest is an extremely unique visual and worthy hiking goal.

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