Discover Sebastopol

Sebastopol offers several distinct starting points for planning a trip: paved trails, local history, arts offerings, and a compact downtown. If you’re looking for a hotel for your stay, first consider which of these interests you want to shape your days. The trails can be distinguished by their lengths; the museum, arts center, and downtown offer different focuses. There are also park paths with opportunities for wildlife viewing, as well as a festival held annually in August.

Paved Trails and Park Paths

The Joe Rodota Trail is an 8.47-mile paved trail between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. The West County Trail runs from Sebastopol to Forestville and parallels Highway 116. Together, the Joe Rodota Trail and the West County Regional Trail form a 14-mile paved route for walking, biking, and roller skating. For planning purposes, the figures refer to different things: 8.47 miles is the length of the Joe Rodota Trail, while 14 miles is the length of the combined route. This lets you weigh whether to include a single trail or the longer combined route in your trip plans.

Local History and Arts

The West County Museum is a small museum in downtown Sebastopol featuring local history and changing exhibitions. It is located in the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Electric Railway Depot. The building was constructed in 1917 and restored in the 1980s. The museum’s use of the depot thus connects with the building’s history; changing exhibitions complement its local-history focus with other topics.

The Sebastopol Center for the Arts offers a ceramics studio with classes and events. If a particular class or event is important to your trip, check the date in advance. The ceramics studio, classes, and events offer a different focus from the West County Museum, with its local history and changing exhibitions.

Downtown, Market, and Festival

Sebastopol’s compact downtown is easy to explore on foot. Along Main Street, Antique Row offers antiques, art galleries, independent bookstores, boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. The specific selection of businesses may change. The Barlow Market is a 12-acre open-air market site in Sebastopol, in the Bay Area. Antique Row represents shops and dining along Main Street; The Barlow Market is a market site with its own open-air character. You can consider these different types of places when deciding what kind of town offerings to include in your trip.

Ragle Ranch Regional Park has 3.56 miles of trails, opportunities for bird and wildlife viewing, and an accessible playground. At 3.56 miles, its trails are shorter than the 8.47-mile Joe Rodota Trail. This lets you distinguish park paths from a longer trail by scale; wildlife viewing offers a separate focus from route planning.

The Gravenstein Apple Fair is an agritourism festival held annually in August in Sebastopol. Specific dates and programming may vary. If you want to plan your trip around it, check the festival dates and program for your travel year.

Discover more destinations: Santa Rosa, Geyserville, Windsor, Forestville, Rohnert Park, Vineburg, Graton, Guerneville

For the regional travel overview: Sonoma.