Calabasas, United States: Self-Guided Walking Tour

Looking for things to do in Calabasas? This city in California combines hillside landscapes, parks, schools, shopping, and places connected to local community life. Its setting in Los Angeles County makes it a useful stop for travellers interested in the landscapes and everyday character of the area. Neywo offers a free Calabasas audio guide with 10 narrated places, available in 11 languages.

What to See in Calabasas

Freedom Park

Freedom Park sits in a landscape that rises into hills towards the southwest, while flatter ground extends to the northeast. Its setting offers a straightforward way to appreciate the contrast between the hills and lower-lying parts of Los Angeles County.

Grape Arbor Park

Grape Arbor Park is set in a valley, with the surrounding landscape shaping its character. It is one of the city’s green spaces and a place to notice how Calabasas fits into the broader terrain of southwestern California.

The Commons at Calabasas

The Commons at Calabasas is a retail and entertainment complex known for upscale shopping and a lively atmosphere. It has also become a popular destination for visitors hoping to spot celebrities. The complex gives the city a more contemporary side, alongside its parks and valleys.

AmaWaterways

Calabasas is home to AmaWaterways, a luxury river cruise company founded in 2002 by Rudi Schreiner, Kristin Karst, and Jimmy Murphy. The company operates cruises on major waterways in Europe, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and Egypt.

AmaWaterways operates 29 ships, with a fleet known for spacious vessels, wellness amenities, and fine dining. Its European itineraries include the Danube, Rhine, Main, Moselle, Seine, and Rhône rivers. Although the cruises take place far beyond California, the company is part of Calabasas’s business landscape.

Gates Canyon

Gates Canyon is a valley in Los Angeles County. Its surrounding hills and open terrain reflect the southwestern California landscape that gives Calabasas much of its visual identity.

Dry Canyon

Dry Canyon offers another glimpse of the area’s valley landscape. Like Gates Canyon, it is less a conventional attraction than a place to observe the terrain around the city and its relationship with the surrounding hills.

Liberty Canyon

Liberty Canyon is another valley in Los Angeles County, with a landscape shaped by the hills and open spaces of the region. Including it in a tour of Calabasas helps reveal how much of the city’s character comes from its natural setting.

Calabasas High School

Calabasas High School is a four-year public high school serving the local community. During the 2014–15 school year, it had 1,824 students and the equivalent of 65.4 full-time classroom teachers, representing a student-to-teacher ratio of 27.9 to 1.

Viewpoint School

Viewpoint School is an independent, coeducational college preparatory school in Calabasas. It serves students from Transitional Kindergarten through twelfth grade, bringing together pupils from the earliest school years through high school.

The 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash

Calabasas is also associated with the helicopter crash of January 26, 2020, in which nine people died. The accident brought worldwide attention to a hillside in the city because those on board included basketball player Kobe Bryant and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Gianna.

The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76B, was travelling from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport when it crashed into a hillside in Calabasas, about 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The other victims were baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife Keri and their daughter Alyssa, Sarah Chester and her daughter Payton, basketball coach Christina Mauser, and pilot Ara Zobayan.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash and concluded that the helicopter continued visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions. After entering low cloud cover, the pilot lost his sense of orientation and then lost control of the aircraft. This is a site of remembrance rather than a conventional sightseeing stop, and it should be approached with respect.

Explore California with Neywo

Neywo has a free audio guide for Calabasas with 10 narrated places. There are no tours listed for this destination, but the app lets you explore the city independently: each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

If you are planning a wider trip through the state, you can continue with the California destination guide or discover other places in the United States.