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Recently I had the opportunity to visit California on business.
Katie and I had never been to California, and you know how she’s such a big part of my blog, I got her a ticket to the Social Fabric conference and she came along with me.
We were in Long Beach, California for a couple of days and then spent two days visiting Hollywood, California. We didn’t have a ton of time in each place, but I wanted to share our experience and share a few things we were able to do while we were there.
Our first stop on our California trip was in Long Beach, where we spent two days. This is where we attended the Social Fabric influencer conference.
This was an educational conference for bloggers and social influencers like myself. Aside from the conference, we also had the opportunity to do a few touristy things too.
Aquarium of the Pacific
As the conference was within walking distance of the Aquarium of the Pacific, we couldn’t not go there!
The aquarium was a fun destination to explore with everything you’d expect at a world class aquarium. We especially liked the jellyfish exhibits!
Make sure you pick up a pamphlet/book when you walk in, there was a stand about 30 feet in, right in the middle of the main hallway.
This will have all the show times for the various shows, like the scuba divers which dive into the big tank and other fun shows. Wonder through the aquarium, go inside, outside and make sure you stamp all of the exhibit pages in your book! There’s a stamping station at each exhibit.
Rainbow Harbor Tour
As you walk the dock area by the harbor, you’ll see all sorts of different vendor stands. One of the stands was for the harbor tour and whale watching tours. We grabbed a couple of tickets and off we went…
The tour takes you around Rainbow Harbor.
The guide talks about all the points of interest including the Queen Mary, history of Long Beach, the oil islands, the shipping port and more. It was a fun, and educational trip around the harbor.
Plus, we got to see dolphins swimming next to the boat (watch the video – language warning).
As Katie said, the ladies next to us were a little confused… “It’s a whale!” 🙂
Long Beach Waterfront Walk
If you’re within walking distance of the aquarium, make sure you walk the waterfront. Walk the dock area and check out all the boats.
Besides the harbor tour, there are a lot of vendors with drink and food stands, places to snag a new pair of sunglasses, suntan lotion and souvenirs.
The harbor is full of awesome boats and a lot of fun stuff to see, so take a little walk.
Or if you prefer, you can find a bike rental stand and hop on a bicycle to ride around!
Hyatt Regency Long Beach
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency because the conference we were attending had a group rate, which was more affordable than the cheap-o chain hotels back home – so that was cool!
Between the Hyatt Regency Long Beach and the Convention Center next door (which by the way is NOT the aquarium – haha) is a little lagoon, I think they called it Rainbow lagoon – which makes sense because the harbor is Rainbow Harbor…
Rainbow Lagoon is a nice place to take your morning walks or just hang out and enjoy the California sunshine!
We were only in Long Beach for two days, then it was off to Hollywood!
Have you been to Long Beach?
Be Inspired!
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Being a native of Los Angeles, you did great for such a short trip! Hope you all enjoyed yourselves! When I travel and return to LA via LAX I always get culture shock – the airports everywhere else are much nicer than here in LA.
Thank you Naomie! This time flying into LAX we really didn’t seem to notice much of a difference between LAX and say, New Orleans or Boston. Maybe it was due to the fact that we had been travelling for 12 hours and were so happy to have arrived! I will say you all have A LOT of traffic out there in Los Angeles! lol