Whittier offers several ways to experience the city: the Whittier Greenway Trail combines exercise with themes of local development, while the Whittier Hills offer trails and views. There is also art, a historic shopping district, and several places to explore the city’s history. When planning your visit, you can choose a focus: time outdoors, exhibitions, or historic buildings.
Trails and Views in Whittier
The Whittier Greenway Trail is a 4.5-mile recreational and commuter bike and walking path. Its stations highlight various aspects of Whittier’s history, growth, and development. This brings exercise and local history together in a distinctive way: the themes are part of the trail and complement biking or walking with insights into the city’s development.
More than 1,700 acres in the Whittier Hills are protected. The hills offer biking and hiking trails with views of Downtown Los Angeles, Catalina Island, the Pacific Ocean, and the Hollywood Sign. The Greenway and the hills have different focuses: the Greenway centers on a specified trail length and stations about the city’s history, while the protected land and the views listed above shape the experience in the hills. You can choose based on whether you would rather focus on a particular route or on the landscape and its viewpoints.
Art and City Life
Uptown Whittier is a historic shopping district with boutiques, dining options, and a restored multi-screen movie theater. This mix makes the district a destination for a range of interests: shopping, dining, and going to the movies are all part of what it offers, alongside the area’s historic character.
The Whittier Art Gallery has offered free monthly art exhibitions to the public for more than 80 years. The regular schedule and free admission give art visits a place of their own in your travel plans, whether you are especially interested in Whittier’s history or contemporary culture.
Discover Buildings and History
PĂo Pico State Historic Park includes historic gardens and is registered as California Historic Landmark No. 127. The park includes a 15-room adobe house with interpretive exhibits. The house, exhibits, and gardens offer different points of interest: you can focus on the building itself or learn about its history through the exhibits.
The adobe house at El Ranchito has been fully restored to look as it did in the 1880s. The Whittier Museum and Jonathan Bailey House offer another way to explore the city’s history. The museum’s permanent exhibits cover agriculture, Quaker settlers, and Whittier College. The Bailey House is the oldest building in Whittier; visits are by guided tour and usually last about an hour.
The Earlham Historic District also tells the story of Whittier College: its seven properties represent an early college neighborhood dating from 1903 to 1940. The historic sites therefore have distinctly different focuses: the museum presents several topics side by side, the Bailey House can be explored on a guided tour, and Earlham illustrates the development of an entire neighborhood over a specific period.
Discover more destinations: Vernon, Paramount, Palmdale, Inglewood, Rolling Hills, Redondo Beach, Santa Monica, La Puente
For the broader travel overview: Los Angeles.
