The best MTB trails around View Park-Windsor Hills

Has some bumps here and there nothing too crazy, fun ride

Scenic beach ride just watch for distracted walkers.

This beach extends for almost two miles along the shore, with a nice bike path, walkway, playground equipment, and volleyball courts. Do check the current restrictions, because as of now (June 2025), the beach is closed due to its proximity to the staging site for recovery from the Palisades fire.

There's a lot of history in this sunny stretch of sand: It was a gathering place and place of relative refuge for African-American beachgoers, who endured personal assaults meant to inhibit their freedom to use public beaches around Santa Monica. In 2008, the city erected a landmark monument at Bay Street and Oceanfront Walk to recognize the historical and cultural significance of this stretch of beach, and in 2019 the Bay Street Beach Historic District was nominated for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

San Vicente Mountain Park, located 2.7 miles west of the 405 freeway on an unpaved section of Mulholland Drive, has awesome 360-degree views and access to extensive hiking, mountain biking, and equestrian trails. The 10.2-acre park has public picnic areas, bathrooms, and is a gateway to Westridge Canyonback Park and the 20,000-acre “Big Wild” wilderness area. A short walk along a wide dirt road leads visitors to this historic site, which once housed a Nike-Ajax missile radar station during the Cold War (1956–1968). The original radar tower now provides panoramic views of the Santa Monica Mountains, Encino Reservoir, San Fernando Valley, and Los Angeles Basin, making it one of the best spots in the region to watch a sunset.

This is a shortcut to get between Adelaide Drive and Ocean Avenue. It is steep and there are a lot of steps, so it will get your heart racing as you jog up it.

One of L.A’s most misidentified buildings - The Villa Leon has been a Southern California landmark ever since construction started in 1926, and it is frequently confused for the nearby Getty Villa Museum, built in 1972, which lies directly to its north. Named after its original builder, Austrian native Leon Kauffman, the Villa Leon was the result of a longstanding promise Kauffman had made to his wife Clemence that, if he ever had the money, he would build for her a dream castle by the sea. A fortune made in the wool processing business in California during the First World War allowed Kauffman to make good on his promise and, after purchasing an impressive six-lot parcel above the famous Castle and Haystack Rock formations, Kauffman began construction of his $1,000,000 dream house in 1926. In his design of the Villa Leon, prominent Los Angeles architect Kenneth A. MacDonald, Jr., made the most of the site’s awe-inspiring vistas, orienting the home so that nearly all of its thirty-five rooms had a stunning view of the ocean, the surrounding mountains or a combination of both. The Kauffmans only enjoyed their fabulous seaside villa for a few short years. Clemence died in 1933, followed by her husband just two years later. For nearly twenty years, the grand villa and its numerous art treasures sat unoccupied, except for a solitary caretaker. During this period, several attempts to sell the house were made, most notably in 1949 when the Aly Kahn considered it as a honeymoon home for himself and his new bride Rita Hayworth; however this, like the others, did not come to pass. When it was finally put up for auction in 1952, the Villa Leon, which cost a reputed million dollars to build, sold, exclusive of furnishings, for a mere $71,000. Fortunately for the Villa Leon, its new owners, as well as those who followed, treasured it as much as Leon Kauffman had. In the mid-2000s, it sold for $14 million. Access to Villa Leon is actually a cicuitous road leading around the back, not here. At the foot of the cliffs the Villa Leon stands on, is the entance to the Getty Villa Museum. The museum road then climbs up into the canyon and higher into the coastal cliffs. Bikers and pedestrians get free entry, and a shuttle bus brings them up to the Villa. Cars have to pay a hefty parking fee.

The beach bike trail passes by the Annenberg Community Beach House, preserving the swimming pool originally built for Newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst in the 1920s, with its beautifully restored Marion Davies Guest House, both built by famous architect Julia Morgan, the first woman to be admitted to the architecture program at l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first woman architect licensed in California. She is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. She quickly became famous and built more than 700 buildings over her 50-year career. The tours here are free Fridays to Mondays 12-2pm. https://smconservancy.org/tours-programs/tours/annenberg-beach-house