Berkeley Walks: Revised and Updated Edition

The definitive guide for Berkeley wanderers, now fully updated.

This local bestseller, now updated for the first time since 2018, offers revealing rambles through one of America’s most fascinating cities. Visitors and locals will be surprised and charmed by the treasures that dot the paths of these 21 walks showcasing Berkeley’s neighborhoods, shopping districts, and academic areas.

Berkeley Walks celebrates the qualities that make Berkeley such a wonderful walking city: diverse architecture, panoramic views, tree-lined neighborhoods, unusual gardens, secret pathways, hidden parks, and vibrant street life. Historical surprises and architectural delights include the building from which Patty Hearst was kidnapped; Ted Kaczynski’s home before he became the Unabomber; and the residences of Nobel laureates and literary Berkeleyans such as Thornton Wilder, Anne Rice, and Philip K. Dick. With more than one hundred photographs, and detailed maps with hundreds of points of interest on the easy-to-follow, self-guided walking tours, Berkeley Walks is an indispensable guide to the wonderments and personalities associated with the city.

Robert E. Johnson has lived in Berkeley for close to forty years. Johnson has led group walking tours around the Bay Area for groups such as the Greenbelt Alliance, Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, the Berkeley Historical Society, and Bay Nature magazine, and he served on the board of Greenbelt Alliance for almost 30 years.

Janet L. Byron moved to California from New York in 1989 to attend the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The first walking guide she purchased was Heyday founder Malcolm Margolin’s East Bay Out, and it introduced her to the joys of exploring nature (and cities) by foot. She has subsequently led walks for numerous local groups and served on the boards of Greenbelt Alliance and Berkeley Path Wanderers Association.