From Ventura, and less frequently from Santa Barbara, there are boat trips to the Channel Islands National Park, comprising five of the nine volcanic islands that lie some 15 miles off the coast between Los Angeles and Morro Bay. The Chumash people once settled the larger islands, California’s first Spanish visitors landed on one of them, and 19thC fur trappers devastated their colonies of sea otters, seals and sea lions. Since becoming partly protected in 1938, the islands’ unique plant and birdlife have flourished. Rugged and uninhabited, the Channel Islands have no tourist facilities and can be explored only on the marked hiking trails (https://www.nps.gov/chis/planyourvisit/hiking.htm). Trips are run by Island Packers, (www.islandpackers.com; tel. +1 805 642 1393), Santa Barbara.