The Venice Canals are a pastoral residential retreat. Six interwoven water canals flow through this charming neighborhood with walking paths beside the canals. Based on the canals of Venice, Italy, Abbott Kinney's "Venice of America" was completed in 1905. Landscaped walkways and diverse architecture make this walk an enchanting visual experience. Fourteen bridges and well-maintained walkways allow flexibility to walk around all six canals for any distance, direction, or length of time. Canoes, paddle boats, and ducks frequent the waterways.

Venice Beach is a unique wedge of Los Angeles between Santa Monica and Marina del Rey Harbor. The famous Venice Beach Boardwalk is on Ocean Front Walk, an asphalt walkway that runs parallel to the back end of the wide, sandy beach. It extends south from Navy Street to the Venice Pier at the foot of Washington Boulevard. The 1.5-mile promenade, built in 1905, is lined with beachfront businesses, cafes, hawkers, vendors, bodybuilders, musicians, comedians, artists, jugglers, fortune-tellers, dancers, spectators, and a vast array of other unique characters. The calm of the ocean is only steps away from the endless parade of people.

Built around the largest manmade small-boat harbor in the world, Marina del Rey California is home to over 6,000 pleasure boats and yachts. Located adjacent to Venice Beach, Marina del Rey is Los Angeles County's "Gateway to the Pacific" and provides Los Angeles with an easily accessible port for amateur and professional sailors alike. Marina del Rey boasts its own Fisherman's Village, world-class shopping, gourmet restaurants, luxury accommodations, countless boating & fishing opportunities and a reputation as one of the fastest growing areas in Los Angeles county.

Built in 1908 for passenger and cargo ships, the Santa Monica Pier is now home to seafood restaurants and snack shacks. A small amusement area hearkens back to the granddaddy pier amusement park in California, Pacific Ocean Park; this updated version has a solar-powered Ferris wheel, a mild-mannered roller coaster, and 10 other rides, plus a high-tech arcade shoot-out. This is the last of the great pleasure piers, offering rides, romance, and perfect panoramic views of the bay and mountains.

The pier is about a mile up Ocean Front Walk from Venice; it's a great round-trip stroll.

Two blocks inland from Venice Beach and south of the Venice canals, this lagoon is more than just a body of water with a walking path alongside it. Perhaps not awe-inspiring at first glance, this 16.2 acre saltwater wetland is a popular haunt for hundreds of species of native plants, marine life, and birds, including an impressive list of rare species. Because the lagoon is an important waystation on the route flown by birds migrating from Alaska to winter in Latin America, it’s a birder’s paradise. Keep an eye out for snowy egrets, mockingbirds, terns, and a gaggle of other feathered friends on your visit..