Taking in a destination on foot, without a car, means getting to see things up close and in ways you couldn’t appreciate them through the windows of a whizzing car. Writer Rich Grant takes us on another pedestrian journey (see the links to his article on L.A. Without a Car at the end of this article) – this time to visit Anaheim and Disneyland.

Save this article to Pinterest to help you plan your visit to Anaheim and Disneyland without a car. Photo courtesy of Rich Grant. Graphic by RealFoodTraveler.com.

VISITING DISNEY’S LAND (INCLUDING DISNEYLAND) AND ANAHEIM WITHOUT A CAR

You Won’t Need One to Enjoy the Most Popular Theme Park in the World – Or the Surrounding Area

“Do you like to walk?” the woman at the information desk asked me.

“I do,” I told her, and she sent me off on one of the most delightful city walks in California. It came as a complete surprise. I hadn’t been to Anaheim in 30 years, so I did not have high expectations. I could remember the long awful strip of neon signs, motels and restaurants that surrounded Disneyland. Walt Disney and company had originally planned to buy all this land and develop it in classic Disney style, as they did later in Orlando. But in Anaheim when the park opened in 1955, Disney ran out of money and private developers moved in, creating an urban mess.

So I was amazed to discover what is now called the Anaheim Resort – a 1,078-acre pedestrian-oriented urban center of manicured gardens, fountains, and sidewalks lined with tall palm trees, all linking hotels, a convention center, stadium, two theme parks, and two gigantic entertainment districts: Downtown Disney and GardenWalk.

Lovely walkways of Palm Trees connect attractions in Anaheim.

Most amazing of all, everything was easily walkable. Of course, not everyone was walking. This is California, after all, and they also have a wonderful shuttle system to carry people anywhere they want to go in Anaheim. But for those of us who like to walk, Anaheim has become a walking destination.

Literally hundreds palm trees tower above gorgeous flower beds and line extra-wide sidewalks leading to Disneyland, Downtown Disney, California Adventure Park, and other places. There is absolutely no need for a car in Anaheim, where Uber and shuttles make it inexpensive to visit other slightly farther away attractions. such as their booming craft beer scene with 16 breweries, the revitalized downtown of shops and restaurants, and the up-and-coming $6 billion Platinum Triangle developments. It’s even easy to get to nearby Newport Beach and spend a day strolling past the historic cottages of Balboa Island on colorful walk of gardens and architecture.

Downtown Disney and the walks around Anaheim Resort are an explosion of color

Here are some ideas for Visiting Anaheim and Disneyland without a car:

DISNEYLAND

Some 726 million people have visited Disneyland – more than any other theme park in the world. What makes Disneyland so special is the concept Walt Disney talked about years before he opened the park in 1955. Walt had complained that there were often things about one of his movies that he didn’t like, but once the picture was done, he couldn’t fix them.

What he wanted, he said, was “Something that will never be finished, something I can keep developing, keep ‘plussing’ and adding to …. The park is that. Not only can I add things, but even the trees will keep growing. The thing will get more beautiful year after year.”

That is certainly what happened at Disneyland. Not only is there a brand new, 14-acre, $2 billion attraction called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, but even the oldest parts of the park have now taken on an incredible beauty of their own. Walt spent a fortune in 1955 planting the largest trees he could find. Those trees are now 64 years older. So is the Mark Twain, the pretty steamboat that circles around Tom Sawyer Island. It may never have been a real steamboat, but it certainly qualifies now as an historic ship that has carried far more passengers than any actual steamboat. So has the Disneyland Railroad. A walk around Frontierland makes you realize that today, the Old West buildings here really do feel like an historic town. Because it is, having been there for six decades.

The Mark Twain has been carrying passengers around Disneyland since 1955.

Of course, there’s no overstating the wonder of the new attractions, especially what’s called Star Wars land, which opened in June 2019. I did not get to experience the rides, several of which have yet to open, but the landscape can only be described as incredible. It creates the village of Black Spire Outpost on the frontier planet of Batuu, the type of backwater place that attracts rebels, smugglers and outlaws.

Hungry for more? Read about the 10 Best Disneyland Rides That Won’t Make You Too Dizzy.

You feel like you have literally walked into a Star Wars film – not a movie set, but an actual place. Along the horizon, there are huge, 140-foot-high rock outcroppings. You enter the walled city through towering gates, more like something from Game of Thrones, and walk down alleys and passageways dripping with the atmosphere of the bazaars of Istanbul or Morocco – except, of course, for the posters around town recruiting storm troopers for the First Order. There are incredible strange beasts you might see, for sale in stores or roasting over an open spit by cafes. In one plaza there is a full-size Millennium Falcon. In the background, you hear snatches of an hour-long soundtrack written just for the park. In shops, you can build your own droid robot or light saber. And then there’s Oga’s Cantina – the first place in Disneyland history to serve beer, alongside of Fried Endorian Tip-Yip (crispy chicken, roasted vegetable potato mash and herb gravy) and Braised Shaak Roast (beef pot roast, Cavatelli pasta, wilted kale and mushrooms). Disney has come a long way from hot dogs and soda.

The new Star Wars bar, Oga’s Cantina, will serve beer for the first time in the 65 year history of Disneyland.

The incredible new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland takes you to a new world.

So yes, Star Wars land is fantastic and worth a journey. But you may leave the park remembering the older parts just as fondly. There’s a quaintness and historic feeling to Disneyland that is missing in its bigger brothers in Orlando and around the world.

Anaheim and Disneyland Without a Car: California Adventure Park & Downtown Disney 

Long before Disneyland was even proposed, Walt Disney remarked to a friend, “You know, it’s a shame people come to Hollywood and find there’s nothing to see. They expect to see glamour and movie stars, and they go away disappointed….Wouldn’t it be nice if people could come to Hollywood and see something?”

Part of the odd illusions in the California Adventure Park is walking down the old streets of Hollywood.

t was in that spirit (and to keep people an extra day and no doubt keep them from going to Universal Studios) that in 2001 the Disney company opened a second, adjacent theme park celebrating all things California. Walt was long gone by this time, having died in 1966 at age 65. However, the park continues his ideas and memories with a long street that re-creates the Hollywood glamour of the 1920s, the period when Walt first arrived. Here too is the honky-tonk atmosphere of California seaside resorts (which Walt actually detested) and a road trip down a romanticized neon strip of Route 66 and early Anaheim. Walt never actually wanted to build his theme park on the sea, where he felt the ocean would limit 50 percent of the access to the park. So instead, future imaginers brought the ocean to the middle of an old orange grove, creating a very good illusion of a California seaside amusement park right in the center of Anaheim.

Attached to both parks is Downtown Disney, a hotel, shopping and entertainment complex. People either like, or hate, things like Downtown Disney (and another similar nearby walkable entertainment complex, GardenWalk). Put me in the “like” category. Yes, there are a lot of brand stores that are available everywhere. But for every well-known brand, there is something cool and different. The Ballast Brewery (new for a Disney product) has a second floor viewpoint over gardens and fountains. No one will ever fault Disney for skimping on landscaping. The gardens here equal those found at any Disney product – and they’re free, though you do have to go through an annoying, airport-like, security screening line to get into Downtown Disney. The key is to just have a pint or two of Ballast Sculptin IPA, watch the fountains and relax.

The Ballast Brewery in Downtown Disney offers views and a chance to relax with what many think is their best brew, a Sculptin IPA.

You can enter both parks from Downtown Disney – or perhaps better, escape from them for a brief visit here to full bars they offer before diving back into the madness of the theme parks. Also in Downtown Disney is the Grand Californian, a 1,000-room hotel that mimics the style of great national park lodges like Yosemite with a gigantic fireplace and a towering wood and stone lobby. It’s not the place for cynics, who will grumble “why build fake things when the real items are all here in California.”  But listen to the background music and you’ll often hear the Disney song from Frozen,  singing “Let it Go!”  That’s the best advice. Let it go and let the illusions take you over.

Anaheim and Disneyland Without a Car: Downtown Anaheim 

Before Disney came, Anaheim had a population of 15,000. Today there are 351,000 residents. More than 24 million people visited Anaheim last year, where there is now much more for visitors than Disney. Head to the Anaheim Packing District, centered around a renovated 1919 former Sunkist citrus packing house – the only one left in this one-time Mecca of orange groves. Built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, the packing house is next to two other historic buildings, that have been transformed into a giant food hall with more than 30 culinary stations and 20 shops that you won’t find elsewhere.

The Anaheim Packing House was a former 1919 structure built by Sunkist and today is a massive food hall with live music and 30 culinary stations.

Start at the Anaheim Brewing Company, which features German style beers and a gorgeous beer garden overlooking Farmer’s Park, site of a weekly farmer’s market on Fridays. Then head into the spacious packing house where dining choices range from the Black Sheep grilled cheese bar to Mangal with its Syrian treats to the Crepe Coop for Japanese crepes. There’s another brewery, Unsung Hero, with more to come in this town that has gone beer crazy with 15 breweries, nine of them along the La Palma Beer Trail.  Together, they serve more than 75 different beers. Don’t tell Mickey!    There’s quite a bit to see, sip and taste in what is called Center City Anaheim. And it’s easy to reach from Disneyland (about 3 miles away) on the Anaheim Resort Transportation (ART) or faster and about the same price for a group with Uber.

The Anaheim Brewing Company has a German theme with a wonderful outdoor beer garden and is one of 15 breweries in town.

ANOTHER NEARBY LOVELY CALIFORNIA WALK ON BALBOA ISLAND

Just 20 miles from Anaheim (and a reasonable Uber ride away) is the fun and very walkable Balboa Island. It’s one of the cutest towns in California, filled with small wood homes painted a rainbow of colors and decorated with brilliant gardens – sort of like a California version of Nantucket with palm trees.

You arrive to the island from Newport Beach by a tiny three-car ferry and then head off on foot toward Marine Ave., a long and very pleasant commercial strip lined with coffee shops, boutiques, clothing stores and two frozen banana stands (yes, Balboa Island is the setting for the Bluth family’s frozen banana stand in the cult classic “Arrested Development.”)  Duck into the free Balboa Island Museum to learn more about frozen bananas and the many other celebrities who have lived here, such as John Wayne and Shirley Temple. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall often docked their boat here, and Errol Flynn was known to visit the bars.

Balboa Island has two real frozen banana stands and is the location of the fictional one operated by the Bluth famiy on Arrested Development.

The one-time mud flat was formed into an island in 1905 when the bay was dredged to make the harbor of Newport Beach. In the 1920s, hundreds of small lots, 30 x 85 feet, were sold for as little as $25. Today, a scraped lot could sell for $2 million. In summer, 10,000 people live on the .2 square-mile island, making Balboa Island one of the most densely populated places in the nation —  more densely populated than San Francisco. But that’s a good thing. Because the lots are so small, all the gorgeously designed and painted wood houses are close together, meaning you’ll pass dozens and dozens of them as you stroll around the island. Admire a garden here, a wood shingle Cape Cod cottage there, a passing boat, and always overhead, squawking seagulls. The Village Inn is a pleasant tavern where everyone gathers for meals and drinks.

One beautiful cottage after another on Balboa Island.

The ferry leaves to and from the island every few minutes from an area of Newport Beach called the “Fun Zone.” It’s a dreadful penny arcade area, the type of place that Walt Disney despised. But a short walk in the other direction takes you to the Newport Beach pier, the ocean, and more expensive homes. There are also cruises around Newport Beach leaving from here to sail past the homes of millionaires and celebrities, or you can rent jet skis or miniature ferry boats and be your own captain touring the bay.  It’s just another car-free experience near what has been called, with good reason, “the happiest place on earth.”

— Story and photos by Rich Grant

If you go: 

For information on the new Anaheim:  https://visitanaheim.org/

For information on Disneyland:  https://disneyland.disney.go.com/

For info on California Adventure Park:  https://disneyland.disney.go.com/en-ca/destinations/disney-california-adventure/

For Balboa Island:  https://www.balboaisland.com/

Hungry for more? Rich also took us for a great walk around Los Angeles. See what you can see in L.A. without a car, here. Then head north to follow the Barbary Coast in San Francisco, another pedestrian-friendly destination.

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