cal poly self guided tour

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Explore our campus on your own time with our self-guided tour.

If you plan to visit on a weekend or during a time when our Welcome Center is closed, please request an electronic version of our self-guided tour brochure at least 10 business days in advance.

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We’re bringing the College of Engineering experience to you with our CENG Virtual Tour Video. Also, explore CENG through our series of Information Sessions. See the calendar below for schedule.

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Explore Cal Poly through a series of in-person and virtual tours for prospective students and visitors.

Check out the Visit Cal Poly website to register!

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Reminder of Authorized Access During Hard Closure

To ensure the safety of our campus community, Cal Poly Humboldt is currently under a hard closure. This means that access to campus is restricted, and individuals are not permitted to enter or be on campus without prior authorization. This measure is essential for safeguarding the wellbeing of the campus community.

The failure to follow this directive may lead to corrective or disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

Schedule a Visit

Cal Poly Humboldt offers in-person tours for individuals & families as well as group tours for schools and organizations.

Explore the various options below to find an experience that meets your needs.

Tours for individuals and families

Register for guided campus tour.

We offer two-hour guided campus tours Monday to Saturday, excluding campus holidays.

On our guided campus tours, a student ambassador will lead you through campus, making various stops along the way to point out and talk about many of the different programs and opportunities that are available to our students. In addition to covering our academic programs, and their hands-on learning opportunities, your guide will talk about student support services, clubs and athletics, student life, and housing.

Please come ready to enjoy our 'Humboldt Hike' that at times includes multiple sets of stairs and occasional hills.

*Hours may change during the summer.

Self-Guided Tour

Experience our beautiful campus on your own by downloading our myHumboldt app.

Please email  [email protected]  for Self-Guided Tour App instruction.

Preparing For Your Tour

How to get here.

Take a look at our campus map to find the parking lots (G11 recommended). Make sure you arrive early enough to pick up your free parking pass, find parking, and walk to the tour check-in location in the Student & Business Services Building.

What to Wear/Bring

The campus of Cal Poly Humboldt is amazingly beautiful and slightly rugged. For your comfort, we suggest that you be prepared for varied weather conditions from full sun to cool rain.

Are you a school or organization looking for a campus visit?

Submit a visit request form for a group campus tour.

We offer large group guided campus tours Monday to Thursday, excluding campus holidays. Group tours are required to register in advance.

Once you have submitted your request form, the visit experience coordinator or intern will follow up and confirm your request.

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Sustainability self-guided tour.

Cal Poly Humboldt is located within the unceded territory of the Wiyot people. Arcata specifically is known in Wiyot language as "Goudi'ni," meaning "over in the woods." Land acknowledgements must be matched by action and we therefore ask that all visitors engage with Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy's recorded lecture "What Good Is a Land Acknowledgment?" and consider donating directly to the Wiyot Tribe at http://www.honortax.org/ . We also stand in solidarity with those fighting for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination everywhere.

#1. Bike Share (north-east corner Harry Griffith Hall):  Cal Poly Humboldt partners with the City of Arcata to offer a quick, convenient, and low cost method for the community to rent and ride bicycles for transportation. Students, staff, and faculty can unlock bikes from docking stations (located outside Harry Griffith Hall and at the bottom of the Jolly Giant Commons on campus and in town in Arcata). Annual student memberships cost $20, with trips being free under an hour or $1.50 per 30 minutes after that.

#2. Compost Bins (north main entrance to Natural Resources Building):  Students voted forward fee money to fund some of the first compost collection bins at the campus in 2009. Items accepted in our compost stream include all food waste and organic materials, including veggie and fruit scraps, meat, bones, dairy, culinary oils, and food-soiled paper/cardboard. In 2022, Cal Poly Humboldt diverted 77.25 tons of food waste from landfills by composting it, (or 154,500 lbs), which prevents roughly 72.5 metric tons of carbon from being emitted to the atmosphere.

#3. Bioswales (north-west corner of G13 parking lot, southwestern perimeter of G14 parking lot across from game pens & fish hatchery):  In 2015, campus partnered on a $1.4 million grant with the City of Arcata and Northern Humboldt Unified School District to fit three parking lots with natural water filtration systems. These designs use low impact development (LID) standards to capture and filter out oils and particulates from parking lots as the water washes through wastewater drainage systems on it's way to the Humboldt Bay. The project implemented planter-like gardens bordering three parking lots and included planting nearly 3,000 plants, mostly from the rush and sedge families.

#4. Fisheries Pumps (north-west corner of 17th and Union Streets):  In 2022, campus replaced two old, single speed water pumps at the Fish Hatchery site with premium efficiency pumps that had variable frequency drives and a new control system that drives greater system automation. This project allows the flow of water to be cycled up and down based on need, thereby saving energy. It also expands the number and type of fish that can be grown and studied at the campus.

#5. Bicycle Learning Center (B.L.C.; located in covered breezeway between the Rec & Wellness Center and Forbes Gym, just south of the Redwood Bowl): The Bicycle Learning Center is a branch of the Waste Reduction & Resources Awareness Program (WRRAP), which is funded by Associated Students. Students can bring their bikes to the BLC shop to access no-cost bicycle maintenance help, including parts, tools, and instruction from fellow students. The BLC educates and advocates for the safe use of bicycles as an affordable, healthful andsustainable form of transportation and recreation and strives to empower a community of bicyclists to feel confident cycling.

#6: Water Bottle Filling Stations (outdoors on the Redwood Plaza, east wall of Rec & Wellness center near the track):  In 2011, Cal Poly Humboldt decided to ban the sale of single use plastic water bottles following a student campaign called Take Back the Tap. Prior to the ban, roughly 20,000 bottles were sold on campus annually. In alignment with the ban, students called for installation of bottle filling stations. Campus now has as many as 24 stations installed throughout campus. See map of bottle filling stations here . 

#7. Redwood Bowl Lighting (large, pole mounted exterior lights in the Redwood Bowl):  In 2009, the Humboldt Energy Independence Fund allocated approximately $80k to help Facilities Management fund a lighting retrofit in the Redwood Bowl. The project added a monitoring system, reduced the amount of energy used to light the field, and mitigated the impact of lighting pollution to nearby neighborhoods and the adjacent wildland interface by delamping and installing more efficient fixtures. The project was estimated to cut costs by one-third (or roughly $8,000/year) and save roughly 361 metric tons of carbon dioxide over a 25-year period.

#7b. (OPTIONAL) Views of the Humboldt Bay: If feeling up to taking some stairs and trekking to the top of campus, take a diversion toward the front of Van Metre Hall and Founders and look out to the south-west direction between trees to see some breathtaking views of the Humboldt Bay. This is one of the best spots to reliably see the water and on a clear day you can see all the way to Eureka and sometimes to the beach in Samoa! The Humboldt Bay was historically called "Wigi" by the Wiyot people. The Wiyot believe this  place was and still is, the center of their culture. From their website ( https://www.wiyot.us/; accessed on 7/31/2023): " Wiyot people lived in permanent villages along the waterways which also served as travel and trade routes. Seasonal camps were made on the tribal lands and prairies, and mountainous regions provided berries, acorns, pine nuts, wild game, and basketry materials.  Wiyot people actively managed their resources, burning for open grasslands, cultivating edible bulbs, and following strict hunting and fishing protocols."

#8: Reusable Office Supply Exchange (R.O.S.E.; located on the second floor of Nelson Hall West): R.O.S.E is an on-campus source for free office andschool supplies available to the campus community.Cal Poly Humboldt departments and studentsdonate these supplies. on average R.O.S.E savesDuring the Fall 2019 semester, students saved over$11,000 by getting materials from ROSE anddiverted approximately 1,528 pounds of waste from the landfill.

#9. Solar Array Music A (eastern part of Music A roof, view from stairs going into the SAC or from Art Quad):  In 2008, a team of students proposed the installation of a solar photovoltaic array on top of the Music A building. The final installation of the 11.4 kW (DC) grid-connected system consisting of 60 panels. A small group of students was hired to help the solar contractor install the array. It is the first on-site solar energy project at the campus.

#10. CCAT (Buck House, located just on the southern slope down from the BSS):  The Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (known as CCAT) was conceived in 1978 as a demonstration home and educational center for sustainable living. The goal of CCAT is to demonstrate appropriate tech in a residential setting, provide hands-on experiential learning, and examine the ethical and social consequences of technology.

#11 Food Sovereignty Lab (located directly south of the Behavior & Social Science Building and just atop the hill north of CCAT):  In 2019, students in Native American Studies 331 had a vision for a project that would re-indigenize the campus while bringing lasting benefits to thecommunity, building partnerships across campus, and reconnecting students with place. Their efforts brought forth the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Instituute which is dedicated to the learning, research, hands-on practice and preservation of food sovereignty, Traditional Ecological Knowledges,and Indigenous Science.

#12. LEED Gold (BSS, located on top of hill above Schatz, just south of Natural Resources Building):  The Behavioral & Social Sciences (BSS) Building was designed by a Portland architectural firm to meet LEED Gold standards. LEED elements of the building include: rainwater collection for toilets, increased number of windows for natural lighting, recycled steel girders and foundation materials, reduction of need for HVAC via use of natural occurring breezes, showers on first floor for bike commuters, avoidance of VOC's, formaldehyde, and ammonia in paints and building materials, specialized sun shades in south-facing rooms, and more.

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'Indigenous People Are Still Here.' Student-Led Campus Tour Highlights Native Connections

Like most public spaces in California, Cal Poly lies on land originally held by Indigenous people — in this case, the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini (ytt) Northern Chumash tribe. That connection — along with other campus ties to Native culture and history — is being explored in a new interactive campus tour developed by students.

The tour, which was developed by students participating in both BEACoN Research Scholars and Summer Undergraduate Research Project programs, is designed to shed light on aspects of Native American history that intersect with locations, names and objects around campus.

“Historically, we've done a really bad job in California of recognizing that Indigenous people are still here,” said ethnic studies professor Lydia Heberling, who coadvised the project. "This is a small step that we can take toward re-centering California Native peoples in the present.”

The tour begins, appropriately, at the yakʔitʸutʸu housing community on campus, a residential complex for first- and second-year students named for and designed to model the locations of the original ytt village sites of San Luis Obispo County. The complex is also home to the Native American and Indigenous Cultural Center (NAICC).

The tours include a discussion of the geography of the county’s original ytt settlements; an introduction to the student experience at NAICC; stops at Muir and Tenaya residence halls for lessons about key moments of Indigenous resistance to settlers; visiting a mural painted by an Aztec artist at the Baker Center that celebrates Indigenous knowledge ; and a discussion about cultural practices and land stewardship around a cluster of native white sage.

Visitors can experience the tour in one of three ways: a guided in-person tour with a member of the research team, a self-guided tour with a printed booklet, or a digitally guided tour using the team’s ArcGIS story map .

Ethnic studies student Amy Contreras and computer science and ethnic studies student Sophie Martyrossian initially began working on the tour in early 2023 along with ethnic studies professors Becca Lucas and Lydia Heberling, who brought the idea from the University of Washington, where a Native undergraduate student had developed a similar Indigenous walking tour.

As they developed the tour materials, the students conducted interviews with ytt tribal members, did their own archival research and learned human research standards critical to avoiding past mistakes in anthropological research. They also collaborated with members of the ytt tribe to ensure a respectful and accurate tour experience.

“One of the important goals in the research and development part of this project was to think through the stakes of how we approach conversations with tribal members, given the not-always-great history between researchers and Indigenous communities,” said Heberling. “We wanted the students to learn how to approach that aspect of this project in a relational way, in a respectful way, and in a way that centers the interests of the tribe, so that we’re not just taking their information without doing something with it that does some good for them.”

One thing that the tour notably does not include is any reference to sacred or cultural Indigenous sites that may or may not be on campus. That was an intentional omission, at the request of the ytt tribal members who worked with the group.

“Something really important I learned is the phrase ‘sacred is secret,’” said Contreras. "When it comes to doing research about Indigenous people, you have to really be okay with the information that they provide — that there might be things they don’t want to divulge. No matter where you step, no matter where you are, you always have to come with good intentions.”

As the tours become available to the general public, the students and professors that developed it hope it can lead to better cooperation and understanding in the future.

“Our deeper hope for this project is that it acts as a model of how to interact in a positive way with a tribe, whether it is here in San Luis Obispo or in any university setting,” said Lucas, who is a member of the ytt Northern Chumash tribe and helped facilitate connections with key tribal leaders. “There's a lot of interest on campus in working with the tribe, which is awesome, but to really ensure mutually beneficial conversations, and the ability of researchers to hear ‘no,’ and to stop and pivot if that happens, is really important in any working relationship, academic or otherwise.”

Many of the discussions on the tour touch on areas of history not often covered in history or social studies classes — for example, the story of the Ahwahnechee tribe who occupied the Yosemite Valley in the mid-1800s, holding out against attempts by the state of California to forcibly relocate them to reservations.

“Something that both of us hear consistently as we teach upper division ethnic studies courses is, ‘How have I never heard of any of this before?’” said Lucas. "If we can have those experiences with members of the community, I think that would be huge. It's not about trying to make anyone feel bad about the past — it’s about bringing everyone along so that collectively we can do better in the future.”

Header image above: Ethnic studies professor Becca Lucas, in the green Cal Poly sweatshirt, presents during a tour stop at the University Union. Contreras and Heberling stand near her. 

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