Digital Guide to 30 Local Hikes

30 Best Hikes in the South Bay and Peninsula

You like to hike? You like discovering trails you didn’t know about? Then you’ve gotta download this amazing new guide to 30 of the Bay Area’s best hiking trails in the South Bay and Peninsula. (It’s free.) Discover trails you didn’t know existed and learn more about your favorites. Ascend to incredible views of the coastline on the Spine Ridge Trail.

Go long—11.7-miles!—and savor second-growth redwoods on the Canyon Rim Route. Take the short and sweet Waterfall Hike in Coal Creek Open Space Preserve. Thank the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) for this complimentary digital hiking guide. Their conservation work protects some of the Bay Area’s most precious open space, farms, and parkland.

The guide is easy to read, visually beautiful, and contains all the beta you need for each of the 30 hikes, with short and easy descriptions, including mileage, highlights, and best season to do it, so you can decide which ones to do this weekend, and every weekend! Ready, set, hike!

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  1. Serene Las Gallinas

    A serene stroll alongside marshland, passing ponds and grasses frilled in seasonal wildflowers, with Mount Tam a beacon in the background … how nice. As part of the esteemed Bay Trail, San Rafael’s Las Gallinas Valley Birding Loop and Wildlife Ponds comprises about 3.5 miles of wide-open trail.

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  2. Paint Brushy

    This time of year you’ll have good reason to head for the hills—the electric-green rolling hills of Brushy Peak Regional Preserve in Livermore. This 4.5-mile loop hike is like stepping into a plein air painting.

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  3. Sponsored

    2025 POST Wildflower Walks

    Get flower empowered! POST’s complimentary 2025 Wildflower Walks guide blooms with the best places to see a variety of florals across the Peninsula and South Bay this spring.

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  4. All right, Almaden!

    Take a trip through time on this 5-mile loop in Almaden Quicksilver County Park. Explore the ruins of an old cinnabar mine and enjoy the first hints of wildflower season.

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    Weekend in Reno Tahoe

    Weekend plans? Reno Tahoe! Just a few hours by car or a short flight away, Reno Tahoe springs to the moment with great ways to combine adventure and relaxation in its beautiful mountains-meets-desert setting.

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  2. Hiker walking along the North Bluff Trail on Santa Cruz Island, Channel Islands National Park

    Purely Wild

    Channel Islands National Park lives up to its nickname as “North America’s Galapagos.” This less-traveled national park is an undeveloped and isolated series of five dramatic and distinct islands reached by boat. Hike the largest of the islands, Santa Cruz.

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  3. Woman hiking the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon

    Truly Grand Day Hike

    One of the best spring day hikes in the Grand Canyon? See layer upon layer of the park’s grandeur—including the river—on this 3-mile (one-way) journey to Skeleton Point via the South Kaibab Trail.

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  4. A woman stands amid an array of yellow and purple flowers at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles

    Petal Paradise

    Tulips, lilacs, and daffodils—flower power is in full bloom at Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge. Sprawling across 150 acres surrounded by mountains, the gardens are putting on their best show right now.

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