Channel Islands

The mainland fades behind the stern, and within an hour nothing remains but open Pacific and the silhouette of an island rising from the swell. No shops, no hotels, no fresh water waiting: everything you need rides over in your pack. The fox watching you from the scrub, cat-sized and fearless, exists on these islands and nowhere else.

Channel Islands National Park protects five islands off the Ventura coast, each cut off from the mainland long enough for evolution to go its own way. Isolation, the park service says plainly, has created animals and plants found nowhere else on the planet. The island fox, descended from mainland grey foxes, was rescued from near-extinction in one of the fastest recoveries in conservation history. There are no stores or restaurants on the islands and no fresh water for visitors; campers carry everything across on the ferry, and the Pacific, not the calendar, decides which landings happen. Santa Cruz Island hides Painted Cave, among the world's largest sea caves, running nearly a quarter of a mile into the cliff and entered by kayak, while the kelp forests around the shores hold seals, sea lions and passing grey whales.