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Berkeley

Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2025

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Beautiful view of Berkeley Skyline, including Sather Tower, or Campanile, and International House, with San Francisco Bay in the background.

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Overview

Berkeley is synonymous with protest, activism and left wing politics. Beyond those tropes is a busy, attractive city, a blend of yuppie and hippie and student, all existing side by side with great Asia-Pacific regional restaurants, twee toy stores, Latin American groceries, high-end organic food halls and the misty green campus of the University of California, Berkeley (aka 'Cal'). It’s easy to stereotype ‘Beserkeley’ for some of its recycle-or-else PC crankiness and occasional overbearing self-righteousness. But some of that attitude is justified: at the end of the day Berkeley has, more often than not, been on the right side of environmental and political issues that have defined the rest of the nation.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

  • Itchy goat scratching itself

    Tilden Regional Park

    Berkeley

    This 2079-acre park, up in the hills east of town, is Berkeley’s best. It has nearly 40 miles of hiking and multiuse trails of varying difficulty, from…

  • Tower near a university, Sather Tower, University Of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    Bancroft Library

    Berkeley

    The Bancroft houses, among other gems, the papers of Mark Twain, a copy of Shakespeare’s folios and a diary from the Donner Party. Its small public…

  • Bells in Sather Tower: University of California

    Campanile

    Berkeley

    Officially called Sather Tower, the Campanile was modeled on St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The 307ft spire offers fine views of the Bay Area, and at the…

  • University of California, Berkeley

    Berkeley

    'Cal' is one of the country's top universities, California's oldest university (1866), and home to 40,000 diverse, politically conscious students. Next to…

  • UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley

    Berkeley

    With 34 acres and more than 10,000 types of plants, this garden in the hills above campus has one of the most varied collections in the USA. Flora from…

  • Lawrence Hall of Science

    Berkeley

    Near Grizzly Peak Blvd, this science hall is named after Ernest Lawrence, who won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the cyclotron particle accelerator…

  • People’s Park

    Berkeley

    This park, just east of Telegraph Ave, is a marker in local history as a political battleground between residents and the city and state government in the…

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

    Berkeley

    Despite the title, this isn't a museum, but rather a research facility that's closed to the public. With that said, the location within the Valley Life…

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