Anaheim

Anaheim is inland, roughly 20km from the sea, but some of Southern California's best beaches are within about half an hour by car. Huntington Beach has a long, wide surf beach and a pier, Newport Beach adds the Balboa Peninsula and harbour, and Laguna Beach has small coves set between rocky headlands. The Pacific here reaches about 20°C to 21°C in late summer and is noticeably cooler the rest of the year, so most people wear a wetsuit outside July to September.

For most visitors the beach is a half-day break from the theme parks, not the centre of the trip. Without a car the coast is awkward to reach.

Around the resort district, eating is mostly theme-park counters, hotel restaurants and chains, and it is priced to match. Food gets more interesting once you leave the area. Brookhurst Street in western Anaheim is the heart of Little Arabia, with Lebanese, Palestinian and Yemeni bakeries, grills and sweet shops. Little Saigon in neighbouring Westminster and Garden Grove is one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside Vietnam, known for pho, banh mi and bakeries, and taquerias across the county serve good Mexican food.

The restored citrus packing district in central Anaheim has a food hall and some local restaurants. Fine dining is mostly found down at the coast.

Anaheim was founded by German settlers growing grapes and later became a citrus town, but little of that past survives beyond a few blocks of old buildings, the Mother Colony House and the packing houses in the centre. The city's real landmark is Disneyland, the first of the Disney parks and the only one Walt Disney saw completed, which is a genuine piece of American cultural history as well as an amusement park.

For museums you need to drive. The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana has good collections of world and Native American art, the Nixon Presidential Library is in Yorba Linda, and the glass Christ Cathedral stands in Garden Grove. A visitor who wants a lot of culture will be disappointed.

Most evenings here end with the parks' fireworks and a stroll back to the hotel. The shopping promenade between the parks and the resort plazas have bars that stay open after the parks close, and central Anaheim has a few brewpubs and cocktail bars. Crowds from hockey and baseball games fill the bars near the stadiums on game nights.

Neighbouring Fullerton has a cluster of student bars, but serious going out means driving to Long Beach or Los Angeles. Expect a quiet night.

Anaheim itself is flat suburbia, but within about 45 minutes by car there is more countryside than most visitors expect. The Santa Ana Mountains rise along the eastern edge of the county, with chaparral trails in Santiago Oaks and the Cleveland National Forest. On the coast, the Laguna Coast Wilderness and Crystal Cove have bluff-top walks and tide pools, and boats leave Newport and Dana Point to see grey whales in winter and blue whales in summer.

The climate is dry and mild all year, so cycling the Santa Ana River trail or paddleboarding in Newport harbour works in any season. All of it takes a car, and the landscape is pleasant rather than dramatic.

Anaheim sits in the middle of Southern California, which makes it a good base for day trips if you have a car and some patience with traffic. Los Angeles is about an hour away, with Hollywood, Griffith Observatory, the Getty and Downtown's museums. Long Beach, closer, has the Queen Mary and the Aquarium of the Pacific, and ferries from there or Newport cross to Catalina Island and its small town of Avalon.

To the south, Mission San Juan Capistrano is one of California's best-preserved Spanish missions. Laguna Beach makes a pleasant art-gallery town for an afternoon. The Temecula wine country is about an hour inland, and San Diego takes about two hours down the coast.

This is one of the world's great places for a family vacation. Disneyland and Disney California Adventure stand side by side, a short walk from hundreds of hotels designed for families, and Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement park dating back to the 1920s, is ten minutes away in Buena Park. Many families spend a week without going further than that.

The rest of the county adds variety: the Discovery Cube science centre in Santa Ana, calm stretches of beach at Newport and Huntington, and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The dry, mild weather means few days are lost to rain. Downsides are the long queues at peak times and the need for a car to go anywhere outside the resort area.

There are two different Anaheims for getting around. The resort district is compact: many hotels are within walking distance of the Disney gates, and a resort shuttle network links the rest to the parks and the convention centre. If all you plan to do is the parks, you can manage without a car.

Beyond that, Orange County is a grid of freeways and wide boulevards built for driving. Buses are slow and infrequent, and the beaches, restaurants and day-trip towns are spread far apart. The transit centre near the stadium has Metrolink and Amtrak trains to Los Angeles and San Diego, which is handy for those two cities. For everything else, hire a car or use ride-hailing.

Shopping here means malls rather than streets. In the resort district, the promenade between the parks and the park gift shops are all about Disney merchandise, which is a big draw for many families. The county's real attraction is about 20 minutes south in Costa Mesa: one of the largest luxury malls in the country, home to most major fashion houses. Outlet centres and open-air malls in Orange and Newport Beach cover the mid-range.

There is little in the way of independent boutiques, markets or local crafts. Shopping is done by car, from one large car park to the next.

Anaheim is an expensive place to visit, mainly because of the parks. Multi-day theme park tickets cost more than almost anything else on the trip, the hotels within walking distance of the gates charge a premium for their location, and food inside the parks is priced for a captive audience.

There are ways to spend less. Chain motels a short drive from the resort cost much less, and in the surrounding suburbs ordinary restaurants, the Vietnamese and Middle Eastern districts and supermarkets all charge normal Southern California prices. Car hire, fuel and parking add to the bill, since you will need a car to see much beyond the parks.

Most visitors' evening entertainment is inside the parks: night-time water shows, parades and stage musicals at Disney. These are well produced, but they are theme-park shows. For a formal night out, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, about 20 minutes away, is the county's cultural hub. It hosts the Pacific Symphony in a fine modern concert hall, along with touring Broadway productions, ballet and visiting orchestras.

The city's indoor arena books major pop and rock tours, and a few small clubs around the county put on bands. Opera, serious jazz and a theatre district mean driving to Los Angeles.

Anaheim has no bathing tradition, and a stay built around long days in the parks with early starts and crowds is rarely restful. Wellness here means the pools and spas of the larger resort hotels, plus a handful of Korean-style day spas with saunas and scrubs in the surrounding suburbs.

To genuinely slow down, people drive to the coast, where the clifftop resorts around Laguna Beach and Dana Point have proper spas and quieter grounds. A day by the hotel pool between park days is as close as most visits get.