Los Angeles Holiday Lights 2026: Zoo Lights, Descanso and the Best Night Walks

Light walks in Griffith Park, La Cañada and Exposition Park

L.A. Zoo Lights: Animals Aglow (Griffith Park) opens on 20 November 2026 and runs to 10 January 2027. Giant silk-and-LED lantern animals line the paths after dark, lit from inside and standing above head height. Tickets start at $19 and rise on peak nights.

Book a weeknight slot. Friday to Sunday sells out, and the car park backs up onto Zoo Drive. Of the light walks inside the city proper, this is the one to pick.

Enchanted at Descanso Gardens (La Cañada) has a new name for 2026: Enchanted Forest of Light is now plain Enchanted. The one-mile night path crosses a camellia forest, a lawn of thousands of colour-shifting tulip lights and ancient oaks under projection, then passes Tom Fruin's stained-glass house sculptures in the Oak Grove and giant illuminated koi in the Japanese garden.

It runs 22 November 2026 to 9 January 2027 and ends on a laser-and-snowfall finale new to this season. Non-member tickets are $25 to $45 depending on the date. Entry is by advance timed ticket only, and the gardens take no walk-ups. Of all the walks here, this is the one that photographs best.

NightTales at the Natural History Museum of L.A. County (Exposition Park) is new for the 2026 season and runs 12 November 2026 to 10 January 2027. Timed entries are 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The 1913 rotunda and the dinosaur halls are lit in saturated magenta and cyan, Maggie West's luminous large-scale prints of real museum specimens glow on the walls, and projections wash over the fighting T. rex skeletons.

Adults pay $30 and children $25. Members pay $20. The route is half art show and half light trail, and it runs indoors and out, so hold it back for a rainy night.

Waterfront lights in San Pedro, Marina del Rey and Long Beach

Harbor Glow at West Harbor (San Pedro) is new for 2026 and runs 20 November to 3 January 2027. It fills 80,000 sq ft of the waterfront with a crystal ice grove of white-lit arches that opens into a bioluminescent deep-sea world of glowing jellyfish and kelp. Harbour water, moored boats and the Vincent Thomas Bridge stay in view throughout.

Early-bird tickets start at $19, and standard tickets cost more. Entry is timed and the walk goes ahead rain or shine. Arrive 30 minutes early; premium parking is sold as an add-on at the gate. This is a first season, so expect the queue management to be rough. The West Harbor development has only just opened, and dinner on the water pairs with the walk.

Marina Lights and the Marina del Rey Holiday Boat Parade (Burton Chace Park) runs the whole of December and costs nothing. The park is a grassy spit between two yacht basins, its palms and railings threaded with thousands of lights.

The 64th boat parade is on 12 December 2026, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., themed 'Hollywood Under the Stars'. Decorated yachts and sailboats strung with coloured bulbs glide past the masts, and the evening ends in fireworks over the water. Food trucks and carollers start at 4 p.m., and the viewing areas are wheelchair-friendly. Charter operators sell spots on the water for parade night. Go on 12 December; the park on its own is fairly thin.

Naples Island Canals (Long Beach) can be walked free on any evening in December. The canals are narrow and Venetian in plan, every balcony, bridge and dock railing covered in lights that reflect off still black water. Gondolas pass beneath the little arched footbridges.

Parking is tight, so walk in from Second Street in Belmont Shore. Gondola operators on the canals take bookings. International readers rarely hear about this one. The 2026 Naples boat parade date was still unannounced at the start of November, so check it before you build a trip around it.

Free lights downtown and in the Fairfax district

Sparkle DTLA at The Bloc (7th and Flower, downtown) runs 15 November to 31 December 2026, with shows hourly from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Programmable light strands climb the highrise facades around the open-air plaza and shift through 18 million hues in time to the music, the office towers carrying them overhead.

It is free, needs no ticket, takes all ages and allows dogs. The plaza sits straight out of the 7th St/Metro Center station, and Grand Central Market is 10 minutes away. Make it the anchor of a car-free lights evening.

Christmas at The Grove (Fairfax district) is free and open to the public with no tickets at all. A 100-foot cut Christmas tree stands over the Italianate piazza, its dancing fountain, trolley tracks and art-deco-style streetscape. The tree carries 15,000 lights and 10,000 ornaments.

This is the 25th anniversary year. The tree lighting is on 16 November 2026, after which artificial snow drifts down on shoppers nightly at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. through 3 January. The Original Farmers Market is next door. For a visitor without a car, this is the easiest free holiday-lights stop in the city.

Residential streets in Altadena, El Segundo, Torrance and Woodland Hills

Christmas Tree Lane (Santa Rosa Avenue, Altadena) lights for its 106th year on 5 December 2026. Nearly a mile of 150-year-old deodar cedars, each strung with coloured bulbs, arches over a two-lane residential street and closes into a dark tunnel of lit conifers. Every cedar survived the January 2025 Eaton Fire that destroyed much of Altadena, so the lane is a recovery landmark as much as a display.

Treat the neighbourhood with respect. The street has no facilities. Park on the side streets and go on foot.

Candy Cane Lane (1200 block of East Acacia Avenue, El Segundo) runs 14 to 25 December 2026, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Modest single-storey bungalows cover every lawn, hedge and roofline in lights, giant candy canes line both kerbs, and residents hand out candy to walkers.

Street parking is hopeless. On peak nights the city runs free shuttles from Recreation Park and the library, and that is how a large party should arrive. Volunteers run the whole thing and the window is short, which is why the etiquette holds: keep the noise down and leave the driveways clear. The street inspired the Eddie Murphy film.

Sleepy Hollow Christmas Lights (Reese Road, Torrance) runs from the day after Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, dusk to 10 p.m. Winding South Bay streets of low ranch houses turn whole front yards into scenes on wide lots, with animated Disney figures, inflatable snow globes and Dodgers-blue tributes.

Residents ask for dimmed headlights and quiet after 10 p.m. Walk it. This is the biggest and most consistently decorated of the South Bay streets, and less mobbed than El Segundo.

Candy Cane Lane in Woodland Hills has run since 1952 and covers an eight-square-block grid around Lubao and Oxnard. Mid-century ranch houses are outlined in lights, hand-built nativity and cartoon tableaux fill the lawns, and cars creep along with their headlights dimmed.

It opens on the first Saturday of December and closes on the first Saturday after New Year, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., with carollers some nights. The street is designed to be driven slowly, though walking is easier on everyone. Residents ask you to clear out by 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. at weekends. Useful if you are staying north of the hills.

Ticketed lights for families and for coach parties

Tinker Bell's Neverland: An Illuminated Adventure (South Coast Botanic Garden, Palos Verdes peninsula) runs 13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 and closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The outdoor trail takes 60 to 90 minutes past a miniature twinkling London skyline, a lantern-strung Lost Boys hideout among the trees and a glowing Crocodile Creek lagoon with lit reeds.

Tickets are timed. Adult tickets start at $33 and children's at $18, varying by date. Children under 2 go free. The officially licensed Disney characters pitch it young, and it suits families with small children better than anything else this season.

Enchant Los Angeles (Santa Anita Park, Arcadia) fills the racetrack infield with a walk-through maze of towering illuminated arches and light sculptures, below the 1930s Art Deco grandstand and the San Gabriel Mountains. It runs 20 November to 27 December 2026. Tickets start at $29 with timed arrival windows, and Arcadia is 25 minutes east of downtown.

This is the commercial end of the season, with an ice rink and a market. It is also the only walk here built to take a coachload: parties up to 25 book online at group rates, and a group-sales team handles anything above that. The site hires out snow globes for 10 to 20 people, and private spaces for 100 to more than 400.

Grinchmas at Universal Studios Hollywood rebuilds Universal Plaza as Dr. Seuss's Who-ville, with a 65-foot crooked candy-striped tree, lopsided Whoville facades and fake snow falling on the crowd. The Hogwarts castle light projection show runs nearby. The tree lighting repeats every 45 minutes from dusk, 21 November 2026 to 3 January 2027.

It comes with park admission, from $109 per adult, and Universal sells group tickets and corporate packages. Do it if you were going to the park anyway. Nobody should buy a theme-park ticket purely for lights.

Dates and booking

Tinker Bell's Neverland is the only walk here that shuts for a holiday, on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Book the timed-entry walks before you plan an evening around them, and remember that Descanso turns away walk-ups altogether.

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