The mild-weathered Metropolis by the Bay is a compact place, ranked quantity seven within the US for parks, with tasty meals for even essentially the most finicky eaters and with a dedication to accessibility.
San Francisco is a straightforward and thrilling place for households to go to for a lot of causes – loads of inexperienced house, tons of tradition, by no means too scorching, and comparatively straightforward to get round, whether or not by public transportation, automotive or stroller.
Is San Francisco good for youths?
Brief reply: sure! SF’s public artwork makes for extra-colorful neighborhood parks and walks. It is also persistently ranked as a high meals metropolis with loads of reasonably priced decisions, from street-cart bacon-wrapped scorching canine to food-truck parks. Automotive-free weekends on the Nice Hwy and JFK Dr in Golden Gate Park (GGP) are perfect for toddler trikes and protected city exploration on foot. Public transportation infrastructure has improved and expanded previously few years, together with a brand new MUNI metro line extension to Chinatown and bus-only lanes alongside the busy Van Ness Ave – and remember about cable vehicles!
Practically each institution has wheel-friendly ramp entrances and household/accessible restrooms, most of which have altering tables. However relying on how hilly your itinerary is for the day, stashing a child provider is all the time a good suggestion.
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Whereas it has many reasonably priced and free actions, San Francisco can nonetheless get costly for a touring household. Metropolis attraction passes save on admission charges for museums and different well-liked points of interest. Test on-line totally free admission days to museums and gardens. A number of take part in reciprocal membership applications, so your hometown memberships could get you discounted or free admission to sister establishments in SF.
The place is greatest in SF for youths?
The 4000-plus acres of inexperienced and leisure house in San Francisco make a lot of the town kid-friendly – an apparent huge hitter being the sprawling Golden Gate Park, with lesser-known pockets that may make every go to really feel new. The previous army space of The Presidio within the north a part of the town has the buzziest new park in Presidio Tunnel Tops. Different enjoyable outside areas embrace the foggy Mt Davidson, walkable weekends on the Higher Nice Hwy, the celebratory Stern Grove Pageant, and Ocean Seashore campfires. Add to that quite a few vibrant farmers markets, scrumptious and historic Chinatown, storied and delightful Angel Island, and funky Beatnik historical past round North Seashore’s Metropolis Lights bookstore.
Greatest issues to do in San Francisco with little children, infants and toddlers
Benefit from the view and extra at SF’s Presidio Tunnel Tops park
With greater than 220 neighborhood parks, San Francisco welcomed a brand new one in 2022. From the identical design agency behind New York Metropolis’s Excessive Line, Tunnel Tops Park is to not be missed, resting on high of the Presidio Parkway Tunnels. Adults and kids alike can respect the beautiful, up-close views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the domed Palace of Tremendous Arts.
Completely different zones of Tunnel Tops embrace a communal campfire space, picnic tables, a playground created from repurposed supplies, an indoor discovery middle and loads of free programming all year long, together with Intertribal Dance Gatherings and academic ranger campfire talks. Meals vehicles abound every day, making low season visits simply as scrumptious. There are many loos, together with household and accessible restrooms.
In case you’re not completely pooped from exploring Tunnel Tops, the indoor Walt Disney Household Museum lies simply two blocks north, nonetheless on The Presidio grounds.
Get your fingers soiled within the Kids’s Backyard at SF Botanical Backyard
Whereas almost the whole lot of the 55-acre San Francisco Botanical Backyard in Golden Gate Park is mesmerizing and kid-friendly (try the Flower Piano days when there are real-life mermaids and fairies), The Kids’s Backyard calls itself a “sure house” – which means sure to little ones touching issues and digging round, offering sensory, hands-on exploration.
Only a quick stroller stroll from the primary gate, the backyard gives free Bean Sprouts Household Days a number of occasions every week, the place beekeepers, bug hunts, a planting space and insect-themed arts and crafts await. The Kids’s Backyard additionally has a sandbox, mud kitchen, bean tunnel, stump soar and extra. Generally, there are kids’s story occasions within the Nice Meadow by the primary backyard entrance.
Time and power allowing, discover different elements of the Botanical Gardens or stroll three minutes northeast of the primary gate to a GGP basic children’ favourite: the CalAcademy. For youngsters nonetheless in strollers, the museum’s Steinhart Aquarium is especially stimulating, with tropical-colored fish swimming by in floor-to-ceiling water worlds. And who may overlook to say hello to Claude, the large albino alligator on the primary flooring?
In case you skip the CalAcademy and its respectable (albeit museum-priced) pizzas and sandwiches, seize a basic scorching canine from one among Annie’s Sizzling Canine carts parked round Golden Gate Park. Higher but, stroll 5 minutes south to the food-dense space of ninth Ave and Irving St within the Interior Sundown. The spacious Tartine Manufactory gives artisanal pastries and sandwiches, or replenish on “Korean Seoul meals” like fried gochujang hen wings from the favored um.ma or enormous and filling burritos from the long-standing Gordo. Automotive-free weekends alongside JFK Dr restrict parking choices however enable extra space for little ones to discover safely. Additionally contemplate taking MUNI buses 28, 43 or 44.
Have a weekend stroll on the Nice Freeway
Bordering Ocean Seashore are the Nice Hwy and the parallel Higher Nice Hwy – making for incredible dawn and sundown drives towards an ocean backdrop. With a lot much less commuter visitors through the pandemic, the town shut down the Higher Nice Hwy to vehicles for pedestrian-only use as a coastal promenade. Residents rapidly grew to like strolling, operating, biking and stroller-ing on the large, clean freeway roads. Put up-pandemic, residents advocated for it to remain car-free, which led to a three-year pilot mission that retains the Higher Nice Hwy car-free from midday on Fridays to 6am on Mondays a minimum of by means of 2025.
Households can take to the freeway on scooters, bikes, strollers, wagons, tricycles and curler skates, having fun with the impromptu music performances and casual foods and drinks distributors that pop up alongside it. Public loos dot the three.5-mile freeway at Sloat, Taraval and Irving streets. You can begin your freeway stroll anyplace alongside the highway, so parking is possible. In any other case, take MUNI metro traces L or N, or MUNI buses 18 or 29.
For a snack, cease at Java Seashore Cafe at Judah (or sister location Java Seashore on the Zoo, close to Sloat) for espresso, sandwiches, salads and Irish soda bread. If you wish to go off-road to the seashore, these ocean waters are for superior surfers and swimmers solely, however the sand remains to be a superb place for lengthy walks, (windy) frisbee, enjoying with canine and people-watching. The San Francisco Zoo can also be close to the southern tip of the Nice Hwy at Sloat Blvd.
Freewheel (your strollers) at a farmers market
Stroller- and noise-friendly farmers markets are a blessing for households. With distributors promoting ready meals alongside produce purveyors from close by Salinas and different elements of Northern California, choosy toddlers can discover one thing they’d need to eat, starting from quesadillas to hummus. There’s typically dwell music and normally areas with tables and chairs to relaxation.
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Whereas the town has about 15 farmers markets throughout peak summer season season, a number of are particularly worthwhile for the household. The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market happens thrice every week, however the Saturday market is the crown jewel, with cooking demos, teaching programs, and over 100 distributors. It is simple to hyperlink a Ferry Plaza Farmers Market go to with a ferry journey – both a fast one to Treasure Island or a half-day affair to Angel Island.
The Sunday Outer Sundown Farmers Market & Mercantile is a pandemic-born mission that is grown to 100-plus distributors with an enormous children’ play space. Stonestown Farmers Market on Sundays is smaller however plentiful, with free parking and a decently spacious picnic/play space. Opened in the summertime of 2023, a farmers market based by the meals justice nonprofit Dragonspunk is open on Thursdays on the Bayview’s also-new Southeast Group Heart.
Have a household dance occasion on the Stern Grove Pageant
Apart from internationally well-known headlining acts just like the San Francisco Symphony and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, among the best issues concerning the 85-year-old Stern Grove Pageant is the sight of dancing toddlers towards a sea of smiling individuals and towering eucalyptus bushes – music lovers within the making. The pageant runs each Sunday for 10 weeks in the summertime. You’ll be able to reserve free tickets on-line starting a month earlier than every efficiency.
Youngsters won’t have the persistence to attend in line earlier than the 2pm live shows to get optimum first-come, first-served grassy viewing spots. The neighboring West Meadow, nevertheless, is the spillover space with an enormous display screen live-streaming the live shows, with proximity to the meals vehicles and row of transportable bogs.
Convey layers, water, solar safety and a blanket to unfold out. You additionally may want child headphones in case the live performance will get too loud. Picnics listed below are a should, with loads of meals distributors close to the primary entrance and meals vehicles within the meadow: suppose connoisseur corn canine from Batter Up or Argentinian-style empanadas crammed with beef or Swiss chard from El Sur.
Greatest issues to do with children
Eat and play your means by means of Chinatown
San Francisco’s Chinatown is a basic customer vacation spot – one of many greatest Chinatowns outdoors of Asia. To keep away from the battle of slender road parking, head straight for Portsmouth Sq. Storage on Kearny Road, the place you possibly can linger a bit in Portsmouth Sq. Park to observe individuals play chess or observe Tai Chi. Or take MUNI buses 1 California or 8X-Bayshore Specific to Clay and Kearny, or the brand new MUNI metro T line extension to Chinatown – Rose Pak Station.
Make your means a pair blocks northeast to the public-art-covered Ross Alley for the 60-plus-year-old Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Manufacturing unit. If there is a line, it should transfer rapidly into the open-plan manufacturing unit the place pleasant employees nonetheless fold and stuff the golden vanilla-scented cookies by hand. Workers members are open to picture ops and are beneficiant with free samples, typically throwing in bonus cookies when you make a purchase order. In case you’re with mature tweens or teenagers, try the 41 Ross artwork gallery throughout from the manufacturing unit for thought-provoking rotating reveals, like work from Chinatown LGBTQIA+ youth or picture essays of disappearing iconic Chinatown eating places.
Head a pair blocks south to the gift-shop-laden Grant Ave and pop within the Chinatown Kite Store for an reasonably priced fish-shaped kite or a extra critical and detailed dragon. Then head two blocks west to Pagoda Pl to go to America’s first dim sum home, the 103-year-old Grasp Ah Tea Room, providing an all-day dim sum menu with dumplings and noodles galore. To burn off extra power after the hearty meal, head throughout the alleyway to the Chinese language zodiac animal-themed Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Playground.
Velocity down the unique cement slides in Koret Kids’s Quarter
With a lot newness in San Francisco, discovering vestiges of the previous metropolis can really feel like putting cultural gold. The unique cement slides in Golden Gate Park’s Koret Kids’s Quarter (initially inbuilt 1888 as one among America’s earliest playgrounds) maintain further appeal and historic significance, the place signage states that each one adults have to be accompanied by minors. It is the proper excuse for any SF-bred grownup to alleviate childhood reminiscences and for the following technology to kind new reminiscences of a GGP basic. It is advisable to convey cardboard to slip on, although there are normally a number of items left by different sliders for communal use.
Youngsters may also love using on the neighboring 1914 Herschell-Spillman carousel – one other old-school GGP exercise itinerary. The east space of GGP the place Koret is situated is not close to as many meals choices because the Botanical Backyard, however there’s normally an Annie’s Sizzling Canine cart close to the playground. Kezar Pizzetta is a few seven-minute stroll south for connoisseur pizzas – and craft beer and wine for the adults.
See Sutro Tower from the highest of Mt Davidson
To take pleasure in extra of SF’s nice outdoor, look to Mt Davidson Park. Situated in a residential space on the central west aspect, it is the best pure peak in San Francisco at 983ft. There’s road parking by the seven entrances (important ones on Dalewood Method and Lansdale Ave, and one additional north on Dalewood). In any other case, take MUNI bus 43 Fort Mason to Portola Dr and Del Sur Ave.
Only a 1-mile loop path, the native-plant-filled hike to the highest is satisfying however not too strenuous for youths. On the peak, you possibly can spot the spindly red-and-white tri-leg construction of Sutro Tower, virtually as iconic (to locals) because the Golden Gate Bridge or Transamerica Pyramid. There’s additionally a towering 103ft-high cement cross memorializing the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Pop all the way down to the close by family-friendly West Portal neighborhood to get a picnic-suitable takeout for the hike or go to afterward. For meals, attempt a comforting toasted sub from neighborhood favourite Submarine Heart. The allergen-friendly Lazy Susan serves a curated tackle Cantonese American classics like broccoli beef, and pizza lovers might be proud of native joints Mozzarella di Bufala or Goat Hill Pizza. The West Portal Library and playground throughout the road additionally make a pleasant relaxation cease earlier than the following journey.
Go to the regionally beloved Randall Museum up within the hills
Up within the hills of Corona Heights Park sits the Randall Museum. Admission is free to this established however lesser-known kids’s museum run by SF Recs and Parks. Emphasizing pure historical past, science and the humanities, its discovery zones vary from a working mannequin prepare to dwell animals in reproduction native habitat areas.
Bonus: there is a secret cityscape view from the again of the museum. Paired with loads of grassy house and outside sculptures, it makes for a beautiful picnic ambiance. You’ll be able to seize focaccia sandwiches from the small Café Josephine on the grounds, which additionally gives regionally beloved Andytown espresso – attempt the signature (fizzy and creamy) Snowy Plover made with espresso, brown sugar syrup, glowing water and housemade vanilla whipped cream.
It is best to get to the Randall by way of automotive, however you may as well take the Ok, L or M MUNI metro traces to Castro Station or MUNI bus 24 Divisadero to sixteenth St and Castro, then do a little bit of uphill city mountain climbing (10–quarter-hour) to get to the museum. Seize some Marcello’s pizza close to the MUNI station earlier than the stroll if you wish to picnic on the Randall with takeout.
Electrify your senses on the Exploratorium
Whereas each main metropolis has kids’s museums, few are as cool and extensively interesting because the electrifying Exploratorium, with its 600-plus interactive reveals that allow you to expertise such wonders as touching a twister and capturing photos of your personal shadow.
Set by the waterfront alongside the Embarcadero, adjoining itineraries for post-museum exploration will lean basic vacationer – journey on the F Market (streetcars) a couple of minutes north to get to the ocean lions at Pier 39 in Fisherman’s Wharf. Or stroll/take the F 10 minutes south to hook up with the Ferry Constructing actions talked about above.
Greatest issues to do with tweens and youths
Soak in Beat Technology vibes at Metropolis Lights E book Sellers
Give your older children a Beatnik historical past lesson in North Seashore at Metropolis Lights bookstore, based by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Open till 10pm, its three flooring of progressive literature can simply entertain e book lovers for hours. A creaky set of stairs results in the poetry room, a serene house that homes one of many nation’s largest poetry collections, together with copies of Allen Ginsberg’s controversial “Howl.” There are additionally free readings in-store or in Jack Kerouac Alley proper subsequent door. Craving extra hipness? Cross Columbus Ave to the small, privately owned Beat Museum ($5–8 admission), with Beat ephemera reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg’s organ.
Whereas too younger to go to neighboring Beat bars, minors can sip on a scorching chocolate or perhaps a refined espresso on the close by Caffe Trieste, favored previously by the likes of Ferlinghetti.
Construct a campfire at Ocean Seashore
Ocean Seashore stretches for 3 miles alongside the westernmost fringe of the town. With a robust, chilly undertow, swimming right here is best left to superior surfers. Nevertheless, the flat grounds are excellent for lengthy walks and enjoying with canine, and provide numerous vantage factors to observe an epic sundown (it is cool even when it is foggy).
One other draw is the 16 public hearth rings that open throughout burn season (normally March by means of October) between Stairwells 15–20. There are two close by parking heaps and road parking, or you possibly can take the N Judah MUNI metro line to La Playa St (Ocean Seashore). Public loos are situated behind Seashore Chalet throughout the freeway and inside Safeway on La Playa St, a few seven-minute stroll north of the pits, the place you will get firewood and provisions. It’s also possible to seize takeout from close by eating places, like Hakka Restaurant or Seashore Chalet.
Experience the ferry to Angel Island for immigration historical past and mountain climbing
Only a 30-minute ferry journey from the town, Angel Island encompasses unbelievable pure magnificence whereas offering a historical past lesson concerning the USA’s immigration historical past – particularly for early Chinese language People in San Francisco. Whereas it is a hallmark area journey for native elementary college college students, the non-compulsory 1.5-mile hike as much as the barracks (there’s a shuttle with restricted run occasions) and the Immigration Museum are appropriate for tweens and youths.
The Immigration Station consists of two buildings. The established Barracks Museum is an immersive time capsule of immigration detention on the island within the early nineteenth century – stroll amongst triple-tiered bunk beds lined in clothes and mementos from migrants’ dwelling nations and see Chinese language poetry carved into the partitions lamenting the loneliness and anger of being detained. The Immigration Museum, opened in 2022 and housed within the island’s former hospital, additional hyperlinks Angel Island’s immigration historical past to at this time’s occasions, like migrant detention on the US border and first-person household immigration tales of Bay Space celebrities like information anchors and authors. Its content material is heavy but in addition hopeful.
The outside recreation out there on the island makes for a balanced expertise. You’ll be able to watch deer graze on the paths, gaze out on the water from waterside picnic areas and even lease bikes and e book the campgrounds upfront.
Angel Island Cafe has patio seating overlooking the harbor for an off-the-cuff al fresco lunch, maybe a hearty chili or bratwurst. It’s also possible to seize connoisseur takeout from the Ferry Constructing earlier than boarding the boat, like boiled, wood-fired bagel sandwiches from Every day Driver, Jamaican beef patties from Peaches Patties, or a Filipino-Mexican tofu sisig burrito from Señor Sisig.
