Balboa Island

Balboa Island sits in the middle of Newport Harbor, a small residential island connected to the mainland by a bridge at one end and the historic Balboa Island Ferry at the other. It is one of the most distinctly local experiences in Orange County — a place where residents live in close-packed cottages steps from the water, where Marine Avenue has been running the same mix of small shops and ice cream counters for decades, and where the pace is set by foot traffic and bicycles rather than cars. For a visitor who wants to see how Orange County actually lives rather than how it markets itself, Balboa Island is the right destination.

Marine Avenue is the commercial center — two blocks of shops, cafes, and restaurants with the density of a small Main Street and the layout of a neighborhood that hasn’t changed much since the mid-twentieth century. The frozen banana, dipped in chocolate and often rolled in nuts or coconut, is the island’s signature food item. The original Balboa Bar and its competitor across the street have been selling them since the 1940s, and the rivalry between the two is still taken seriously by regulars. It is not a sophisticated food experience. It is exactly the right thing to eat while walking around a harbor island on a warm afternoon.

The Balboa Island Ferry is one of the last remaining car ferries in Southern California. It operates between the island and the Balboa Peninsula, carrying three cars per crossing and running continuously during daylight hours and into the evening. The crossing takes about two minutes, which is almost the entire point — foot passengers pay a nominal fare and the transit time is just long enough to feel like you have left one place and arrived somewhere else. Taking the ferry to the peninsula, walking the boardwalk to the Ferris wheel and the funzone, and taking the ferry back is a reasonable half-day structure.

Bicycles can be rented near the bridge access. The island is flat and compact enough to circuit on foot in twenty minutes, but a bike allows exploration of the residential streets, which contain some of the most elaborate small-lot architecture in the county — beach cottages that have been renovated, expanded, and rebuilt over generations into structures that are dense with accumulated decisions about how to live at close quarters next to the water. A weekend morning before the Marine Avenue shops open, when the island is mostly residents walking dogs and picking up coffee, is the best time to appreciate this.