Looking for the best things to do in Long Beach? This diverse coastal city south of LA offers a walkable waterfront, a top aquarium, and charming beach neighborhoods. Locals point to the Aquarium of the Pacific, the historic Queen Mary, the shops and dining of Belmont Shore’s 2nd Street, and the canals of Naples Island.

Things to do in Long Beach

The Waterfront

The Aquarium of the Pacific, Rainbow Harbor, Shoreline Village, and the permanently docked Queen Mary ocean liner.

Belmont Shore & 2nd Street

Long Beach’s beloved shopping-and-dining strip, steps from the beach and the pier.

Naples Island

Canals, waterfront homes, and gondola rides — a surprising slice of Venice in Southern California.

Arts & Nature

The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), the East Village Arts District, and the El Dorado Nature Center.

Things to do in Long Beach at night

Downtown’s Pine Avenue and the East Village lead for bars and dining, with 2nd Street in Belmont Shore and waterfront spots rounding out the evening.

Free things to do in Long Beach

• The beach and the waterfront bike path
• Strolling Belmont Shore and Naples
• Shoreline Village and the harbor

What Long Beach locals actually recommend

The best 2nd Street spots, the quiet beach corners, what’s on downtown — that comes from people who live here. On Neighborhood Nurturers’ Long Beach community, real neighbors answer “what should I actually do this weekend?” Join your Long Beach neighbors free →

Fitting it into a day in Long Beach

The best days here mix the well-known spots with the places only locals frequent. What sets Long Beach apart is how close everything sits together. Start near Belmont Shore, work in one of the spots from this guide, and you are minutes from Bluff Park if you want to keep going. Locals often round out a full day out with a detour to the El Dorado Nature Center or a quieter stop at the Naples canals. Because the distances are short, you can improvise as you go rather than lock the whole day down in advance.

One more thing worth knowing

The single best filter for a Long Beach day out is whether you want the waterfront version of the city or the neighbourhood version. The waterfront gives you the big-ticket attractions and the crowds that come with them. The neighbourhood version gives you Retro Row on Fourth Street, the Cambodia Town corridor on Anaheim Street, and the Naples canals — all of which are free to walk and none of which appear on most visitor itineraries. Doing one of each in a weekend is the version most locals would actually recommend, and it costs a fraction of the ticketed route.

More Long Beach guides

Long Beach rewards people who dig a little deeper. These related guides map the same neighborhoods from different starting points: Free things to do in Long Beach, Best restaurants in Long Beach, undefined Long Beach — enough to plan a whole day or two.

Get a local’s take

Guides are a starting point; the current, on-the-ground details come from people who live in Long Beach. Hours shift, favorites change, and residents always know what is genuinely worth it now. Ask Long Beach neighbors directly or join your town community free to hear from real locals.

The Big Waterfront Attractions

Long Beach’s headline attractions are clustered along the downtown waterfront, close enough together that you can reasonably do two in a day.

Aquarium of the Pacific

At 100 Aquarium Way, this is the busiest paid attraction in the city, home to more than 11,000 animals across exhibits covering the Pacific’s major ecosystems, including sea otters, sharks, tropical fish and interactive touch pools. It is open daily from 9:00am to 6:00pm, with extended hours during school holidays. Combination tickets pairing it with the Queen Mary exist and are worth checking if you plan to do both.

The Queen Mary

The retired British transatlantic liner is permanently docked in the harbour and functions as a floating museum, hotel and event venue at once. The draw is the preserved Art Deco interiors and the ship’s history, plus the ghost tours built around its long-standing reputation for paranormal activity. It runs seasonal programming through the year, and it is visible from most of the waterfront, which makes it the city’s defining skyline object.

Shoreline Village and The Pike Outlets

Shoreline Village is the colourful waterfront boardwalk of shops and restaurants with harbour views, a carousel, an arcade, and rental operations for boats, jet skis, kayaks, sailboats and bikes. It is more about the setting than any single business. The Pike Outlets, next to the waterfront, adds retail, dining, a cinema and a Ferris wheel. Both are free to walk through, which matters if you are building a day around cost.

The Canals, the Districts and the Free Stuff

The most rewarding thing to do in Long Beach costs nothing. Out at the far southeastern edge of the city, Naples Island is built on three man-made islands in Alamitos Bay around the only Venetian canal system on the West Coast. A public walkway loops the main island along the Rivo Alto Canal for roughly one flat mile, with five Italianate bridges and no gate or ticket. Development began in 1905 under Arthur Parsons, and it remains a residential neighbourhood rather than an attraction, which is precisely why it is worth seeing.

One bridge west, Belmont Shore is the walkable main street: fifteen blocks of 2nd Street from Livingston Drive to Bay Shore Avenue with more than 150 businesses and the beach at the end. North of downtown, Bixby Knolls on Atlantic Avenue holds the highest concentration of breweries in the city, known locally as “Brewery Knolls”, with a monthly First Fridays evening event. And Retro Row, three blocks of 4th Street between Cherry and Junipero, is the vintage district, home to The Art Theatre, the oldest operating single-screen cinema in Long Beach, opened in 1924.

Cambodia Town runs along Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero and is culturally the most significant district in the city: Long Beach has the largest concentration of Cambodians of any city outside Southeast Asia. Restaurants, Khmer temples, jewellery shops and community centres line the corridor. See restaurants in Long Beach for where to eat there.

On and Around the Water

Long Beach is one of the better whale-watching departure points on the West Coast, with tours leaving the harbour year round; depending on season you may see blue whales, grey whales or dolphins. For self-powered options, Kayaks on the Water at 5411 East Ocean Boulevard rents kayaks and paddleboards daily 9:00am to 5:00pm directly opposite Naples Island, and Alamitos Bay is sheltered by a sand spit and the breakwater so the water suits beginners. The Gondola Getaway, running since 1982 and the oldest and largest gondola fleet in America, offers hour-long private canal cruises from 5437 East Ocean Boulevard between 11:00am and 4:00pm, reservations required with no walk-ups.

Parks and Green Space Worth the Drive

El Dorado Regional Park spans over 800 acres with duck ponds, playgrounds, a skate park, miles of bike path, a golf course, archery and barbecue areas, plus a 105-acre wildlife sanctuary with two miles of walking trail. Shoreline Aquatic Park is 37.6 acres of waterfront with its landmark lighthouse and the best skyline-and-Queen-Mary view in the city. Bluff Park is 13 acres along Ocean Boulevard with ocean views and telescopes. More in our Long Beach parks guide.

Annual Events Worth Planning Around

The Belmont Shore Christmas Parade runs the first Saturday in December, drawing about 30,000 spectators as Southern California’s second-largest holiday parade; the 2026 edition is Saturday December 5, 6:00pm to 9:00pm, free, with streets closing at 4:00pm. Later the same month the Naples Island Christmas Boat Parade lights up the canals, free to watch, best seen from Bay Shore Avenue, the 2nd Street Bridge or the Appian Way Bridge. Long Beach Food Scene Week ran July 31 to August 9 in 2026 with more than 100 restaurants. See events in Long Beach and free things to do in Long Beach.

Planning a Day Around It

The practical challenge in Long Beach is that the attractions are not all in one place. The waterfront cluster downtown, the canal and beach districts in the southeast, the vintage and brewery corridors north and east: these are separated by real distance, and trying to do all of them in a single day means spending most of it in a car. The city rewards picking one zone per day and doing it properly.

A reasonable first-visit split looks like this. Day one is the waterfront: the aquarium in the morning when it opens, lunch on the boardwalk, the ship and the harbour park in the afternoon, and the skyline view at sunset. Day two is the southeast: the walkable main street, the canal loop, an hour on the water in a kayak, and dinner without moving the car again. If there is a third day, it belongs to the food and vintage districts inland, which is where the city feels least like a tourist destination and most like itself.

Seasonally, the summer months are busiest and the parking hardest, while the stretch from late September through November is arguably the best time to visit: the weather holds, the crowds thin, and prices soften. December is its own case, because the two parades and the canal lights turn the southeast of the city into a genuine December destination for a few weeks.

Frequently asked questions

What are the top things to do in Long Beach?

Visit the Aquarium of the Pacific, tour the Queen Mary, shop and dine on Belmont Shore’s 2nd Street, take a gondola ride through the Naples Island canals, and enjoy the beach and waterfront.

What is Long Beach known for?

Its waterfront and the Aquarium of the Pacific, the historic Queen Mary, the Naples Island canals, and diverse, walkable beach neighborhoods like Belmont Shore.

What are free things to do in Long Beach?

The beach and waterfront bike path, strolling Belmont Shore and Naples, and Shoreline Village are all free.

Is Long Beach worth visiting?

Yes — for the aquarium, the Queen Mary, the beach neighborhoods and the Naples canals, it’s one of the most enjoyable coastal cities in the LA area.