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Out the front door

Explore the Hill

Residents of the Peninsula live inside one of Southern California's great outdoor rooms — a nature preserve bigger than Griffith Park's best corners, a coastline of coves and tide pools, four golf courses, and a bridle-trail web that predates the freeways. Here's the resident's tour.

Del Cerro Park overlook · DocFreeman24, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
On foot

The Preserve & the trail network

The Palos Verdes Nature Preserve protects about 1,500 acres across eleven reserves in Rancho Palos Verdes, managed with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy — the largest coastal-sage habitat left in the South Bay, home to the threatened California gnatcatcher and the endemic PV blue butterfly, once thought extinct.

  • Del Cerro / Portuguese Bend Reserve — the classic: park at the top of Crenshaw and walk the rim into the slide-sculpted amphitheater. Sunset here is the Hill's daily ceremony.
  • Forrestal Reserve — quarry cliffs, fossil beds, and the Hill's best wildflower spring.
  • Ocean Trails Reserve — bluff loops between Trump National's fairways and the sea.
  • George F Canyon (RHE) — the east side's oak-and-sycamore canyon walk, with a nature center at the trailhead.
  • Palos Verdes Loop Trail — the ambitious link-up circling the entire Hill; ask the Conservancy for the current map.

Trail rules vary by reserve (dogs, bikes, horses); check pvplc.org before you go, and stay off closed slide-area trails.

Spring wildflowers in the Portuguese Bend Nature Preserve The endangered Palos Verdes blue butterfly, endemic to the Peninsula

Portuguese Bend Reserve in spring · Williamckenna, public domain — and the Palos Verdes blue itself · USFWS, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The water

Coves, tide pools, whales & waves

Fabio Achilli, CC BY 2.0
Tide pools

Abalone Cove & the reefs

The Hill's marine playground: an ecological reserve of tide pools at Abalone Cove and Portuguese Point, best at minus tides. Sea hares, octopus, anemones — look, don't take. Parking off PV Drive South; check for slide-related closures.

NOAA, public domain
December – April

Whale season at Point Vicente

The gray whale migration passes closer here than almost anywhere on the coast. The American Cetacean Society's volunteer census counts daily from the Interpretive Center bluff — the Hill's favorite excuse to stand outside with binoculars.

Abby Lanes, CC BY-SA 3.0
The lineups

Surf, the Hill's way

Haggerty's and Malaga Cove for winter rights, Bluff Cove's big-wall days, and Lunada Bay — one of California's most storied (and most guarded) big-wave reefs. Paddle out respectful; this is old surf country. RAT Beach below Malaga Cove is the family sand.

On the tee

Four courses, one hill

Palos Verdes Golf Club

The 1924 original, woven into PVE's parklands with canyon carries and bay views — a William P. Bell / George Thomas-era gem.

Los Verdes

The county's famous bargain: municipal golf with ocean-cliff holes that private clubs would charge ten times for. Book early; everyone knows.

Trump National

Public, oceanfront, and dramatic — every hole with Pacific views on the site of the old Ocean Trails, whose 18th famously slid seaward in 1999.

Rolling Hills CC

Private, rebuilt this decade by David McLay Kidd over the old Chandler quarry — the Hill's newest golf landscape.

In the saddle

The bridle-trail Peninsula

Before the Hill had pavement it had hoofprints, and the network survives: roughly 25 miles of bridle trails in Rolling Hills Estates alone, the entirety of Rolling Hills built around horse-keeping, and Dapplegray Lanes where corrals outnumber garages.

  • Empty Saddle Club — the 1930s riding club at the heart of east-Hill horse culture.
  • Ernie Howlett Park — public arenas, shows, and the Hill's equestrian events calendar.
  • Peter Weber Equestrian Center & local stables — boarding and lessons for families joining the tradition.
  • PV Stables (Valmonte) — the west side's historic barn beside the golf course.

Horse right-of-way is real law here: slow the car, give space, and wave. It's the Hill's oldest traffic rule.

Illustration of a horse and rider on a Peninsula bridle path
Culture & gardens

The Hill's institutions

South Coast Botanic Garden

87 acres of gardens, lake, and seasonal spectacles (the winter light walk sells out) grown over reclaimed land since 1961.

Norris Theatre & Pavilion

Broadway series, concerts, and a youth conservatory — the Peninsula's performing-arts home since 1983.

Palos Verdes Art Center

Galleries, studio classes, and the Hill's visual-arts community since 1931, on Crestridge in RPV.

Point Vicente Interpretive Center

The Hill's museum of itself — whales, geology, Marineland memories — on the bluff beside the lighthouse.

Eat, shop, linger

The villages of the Hill

Full directory: every restaurant & store →

Malaga Cove Plaza

The 1925 arcaded plaza: morning coffee under the arches, the Neptune Fountain, and the Hill's most photogenic errand-running.

Lunada Bay village

PVE's little main street on PV Drive West — markets, cafés, and after-school pizza runs since the 1950s.

Peninsula Center & the Promenade

The Hill's practical downtown in RHE: groceries to date nights, plus the library and theater.

Golden Cove

RPV's coastal corner center by the lighthouse — the closest espresso to the whale census and sunset dinners on PV Drive West.

Miraleste Plaza

The east side's 1920s fountain plaza — small, quiet, and perfectly preserved.

Terranea

Resort dining, spa days, and the nine-hole Links — locals use it like a second club, especially at sunset.