There’s the aquarium, a beautiful marina, the Queen Mary, galleries, bars and restaurants but let’s face it, the overwhelming attraction of Long Beach is the three days of testosterone, high-octane gas and alcohol that fuel the cars and the crowds during the Long Beach Grand Prix (www.gplb.com) in early April of each year, and if a long weekend of Champ Car World Series (similar to Formula 1) racing through sinuous curves along the waterfront and city streets weren’t enough, there are a few side events to capture your attention. Fans of The Fast and the Furious can watch people flinging their autos around curvy courses in the Formula Drift Championship, which has grown into one of the main events of the LBGP. Another draw is the Toyota Pro Celebrity Race. Among past drivers are Cameron Diaz, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood and Jay Leno. At night, crowds foam through the city, particularly along Pine Avenue, and pack the bars and restaurants to exchange tales of the day’s thundering events. The races drew 180,000 spectators in 2007.

If you visit Long Beach on any of the other 362 days of the year, don’t miss the Queen Mary. Launched in 1934, she is one of the last of the great pre-war luxury liners that plied the chilly Atlantic between Southampton and New York. During the second world war she served as a troop carrier and in 1942, on a voyage from New York to Great Britain with a passenger manifest of 16,000 troops, she encountered heavy seas 700 miles from Scotland. In Age of Cunard, maritime historian Daniel Allen Butler describes what happened next: ‘A rogue wave, measuring perhaps 92 feet, hit the ship broadside, breaking windows on the bridge, 90 feet above the waterline, and pushing her so far over (an estimated 52 degrees) that she paused just on the brink of capsizing – then righted herself’. The incident was long a wartime secret and the inspiration for Paul Gallico’s novel The Poseidon Adventure (made into a film, twice, although once was enough). Butler’s is just one of the many stories that thrill visitors to her Art Deco lounges and dining rooms. The ship is now a permanently moored floating hotel where guests bunk down in restored luxury suites and dine and drink at six on-board venues.
If you prefer the natural world to man-made marvels, visit the Aquarium of the Pacific (562 590 3100; www.aquariumofpacific.org), one of the world’s largest ocean aquariums, where you can pet a shark or sign up for a two-hour whale-watching cruise.

Also in Long Beach is the Museum of Latin American Art (562 437 1689; www.molaa.org), which showcases contemporary art by Latin American artists. Located in the trendy East Village Arts District, the museum has received incredible buzz for creating and exchanging break-out exhibits.