Explore the San Fernando Valley

In the San Fernando Valley, the range of topics spans mission and ranch history, collections, gardens, and natural areas. Each place has a different focus: here you’ll find vehicle history, pop culture, and traces of multicultural history, as well as landscaped gardens and a restored natural habitat. This makes it easier to plan your trip if you want to focus on particular interests rather than grouping all the stops under a single theme.

Mission and history

Mission San Fernando Rey de España gave its name to the town that grew up around it and later to the entire San Fernando Valley. The region’s history also includes a winemaking tradition: the historic San Fernando Mission was known for its good wine. The mission offers self-guided tours daily from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Check the hours before planning your visit, as they may change.

The history of Rancho El Encino is the focus of the exhibits at Los Encinos State Historic Park. They cover the agricultural operations of the various owners and their backgrounds as Mission Indians, Mexican Californios, and members of French and French-Basque families. The park also preserves the original eight-room De La Ossa Adobe, the two-story stone Garnier Building, a blacksmith shop, a natural spring, and a pond. This lets you consider the exhibits, architecture, and landscape as different aspects of the area’s history.

From Wednesday through Sunday, the park offers free guided tours of the De La Ossa Adobe by appointment. Arrange your visit in advance. The Andres Pico Adobe offers another historical perspective: despite changes made for its successive owners, it retains its graceful architecture and the atmosphere of old California.

Collections with different focuses

To explore the multicultural history of the San Fernando Valley, visit the San Fernando Valley Heritage Center Museum, which houses an extensive collection of artifacts and relics. The Valley Relics Museum has a different focus: it displays rare pop culture artifacts and relics from the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles in two aircraft hangars at Van Nuys Airport. In Sylmar, the Nethercutt Collection showcases more than 200 renowned antique and exotic vehicles. Together, these collections cover regional history, pop culture, and vehicles—a clear distinction to consider when choosing a visit based on your interests.

Gardens and nature

The Japanese Garden is a 6.5-hectare garden in urban Van Nuys that uses only reclaimed water. It includes a dry Zen meditation garden, a Chisen, or “strolling pond,” garden, and a tea garden. The Chisen garden’s design is particularly striking, with waterfalls, ponds and streams, lush vegetation, and stone lanterns hand-carved by artisans in Japan. Dry meditation, a water-focused garden, and a tea garden thus sit alongside one another as distinct garden styles.

The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve is a 225-acre restored natural habitat and living laboratory. On the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society’s Sepulveda Basin Bird Outing, the group follows an approximately two-mile route on the first Sunday of each month. As the schedule may change, check the date before planning. The approximate route length also gives you an idea of how long the outing may take.

In the L.A. River Recreation Zone, public use of designated areas is permitted for walking, fishing, and non-motorized, steerable boats such as kayaks. Seasonal operations and weather restrictions may apply. These designated-use areas add practical ways to enjoy the river environment to the nature offerings; however, they are a separate place and should not be confused with the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve.

Discover more destinations: Studio City, Wilmington, San Pedro, Harbor City, Sun Valley, Brentwood, North Hills, Granada Hills.

For the main travel overview: Los Angeles.