Channel Islands National Park (Ferry)

Channel Islands National Park — five rugged islands off the Ventura County coast — is Oxnard's most important attraction, and the harbor is the primary ferry gateway to the park. The islands offer hiking, sea kayaking, snorkeling, and wildlife watching in a landscape that feels genuinely remote despite being less than an hour by boat from the mainland.

Anacapa Island is the closest, a 45-minute ferry ride, with dramatic sea arch formations and nesting grounds for western gulls. Santa Cruz is the largest island, with a backcountry cave system, kelp forest kayaking, and excellent hiking. The ferry operator (Island Packers, based at the harbor) runs scheduled crossings to multiple islands with varying crossing times. Camping is available on most islands with advance reservation through the National Park Service.

things to do sight nature
A story
The Channel Islands were so isolated and undeveloped that distinct subspecies of plants and animals evolved on individual islands — including the island fox, a separate subspecies on each of the five main islands, and the island scrub-jay found nowhere else on earth. The islands were declared a national park in 1980 precisely because this isolation had preserved ecosystems that had vanished from the California mainland.

Other places in Things to Do