San Francisco is an urban paradise when it comes to family-friendly activities. Toddlers can take in the sights, enjoy the great outdoors and maybe learn something, too.
The spirit of family fun is contagious in San Francisco, “everyone’s favorite city.” Excitement sparks from the city’s rich history and in the colorful neighborhoods and lively waterfront, making this a great destination with pre-schoolers. Every season comes with a bounty of sights, sounds and things to do. Streets are alive with entertainment and calendars are filled with captivating shows and exhibits for all ages.
A visit to San Francisco would not be complete without crossing the world famous Golden Gate Bridge. Explore the bridge by foot, car, bicycle, tour bus, fire engine tour, or soar over it via a helicopter or seaplane. Get your cameras ready as you trek down Lombard Street, the “crookedest street in the world.” Ride all three of the hilly city’s cable car lines, the Powell-Hyde, Powell-Mason and the California Street line.
For a touch of magic, wonder and surprise in the kingdom of sweets, watch chocolate makers at work and sample their wares at Ghiradelli Square. Take a leisurely stroll through Chinatown and let the kids munch the goods at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory on Ross Alley. On Grant Avenue, browse the Chinese food stores and souvenir shops and introduce everyone to dim sum at lunch in a picturesque Chinatown restaurant.
Celebrated Attractions Especially for Families
Hang out at the San Francisco Zoo, home to over 250 species of animals, including koalas, tigers, and black rhinoceros. Other special habitats include the Jones Family Gorilla Reserve, Penguin Island, African wart hogs, and an Insect Zoo. A highlight of the zoo is the Doelger Primate Discovery Center with interactive exhibits.
There’s something for everyone at Pier 39. The Pier’s two levels boast numerous attractions including the frolicking California sea lions. For an adventure everyone will be sure to remember, visit the Aquarium of the Bay. Walk through 300 feet of crystal clear tunnels that focuses on the aquatic life and ecosystems of the Bay and its surrounding waters, and get to see an amazing variety of tide pool animals.
Golden Gate National Park encompasses 60 miles of coastline providing plenty of room to play, especially for the outdoor enthusiasts in the family. In Golden Gate Park, a large urban recreation area often compared to New York’s Central Park, there are basketball courts, lawn bowling, an archery field, baseball fields and seven miles of bicycle paths that lead past meadows, lakes, and rose gardens. Especially appealing to the adults, meandering paths lead to the Japanese Tea Garden with fishponds and quiet places to stroll.
San Francisco Museums for Little Ones
Newly located in Golden Gate Park, the California Academy of Sciences (415/379-8000) is the only museum in the world to house an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum, and 4-story rainforest under one roof.
Art lovers will appreciate the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum (415/750-3600)across from the Golden Gate park plaza. The city’s largest permanent art museum contains among its treasures an American art collection from colonial times to the present. Make sure to stroll the Gardens of Enchantment and take in the magnificent view from the top of the tower.
The Bay Area Discovery Museum (415/339-3900) is a one of a kind indoor and outdoor facility at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s the only children’s museum in the nation to be located in a national park. A new temporary exhibit entitled “Living in Space” allows kids to explore living, working, and playing in space through hands-on exhibits.
If you’re feeling playful, then the hands-on Exploratorium Museum (415/EX-PLORE) is the place to be. It’s like a mad scientist’s penny arcade, a scientific funhouse and an experimental lab, all rolled into one. With hundreds of hands-on exhibits, all you need is curiosity. The Mind Collection lets you hear like a deer does when you try on alternate ears, or listen like a snake, with your teeth and jawbones. While wandering through the rest of the museum you can touch a tornado and shape a glowing electrical current, as well as take a sensory journey in total darkness in the Tactile Dome.
For the budding performers and future Academy Award winners, Zeum (415/820-3320) a multi media museum, teaches kids how to use art and technology to be creative in animation, sound and video production, live performances and visual art.
Cartoon Art Museum (415/CAR-TOON) is a cool little place specializing in the art of comics and cartoons in all their forms. The museum houses over 6,000 original pieces that include animation, comic strips and comic books. Fun for all!
Wells Fargo History Museum (415/396-2619) offers educational exhibits on California Gold Rush history including an original stagecoach built in the 1860s, displays of real gold and sample mining tools. A wide range of interactive exhibits and activities for both adults and children include: trivia treasure hunts, working telegraphy, audio tour option and more.
Guided San Francisco Tours
The Red and White Fleet San Francisco Cruises (415/673-2900) committed to environmental sustainability, are legendary for their premiere sailings highlighting San Francisco’s landmarks and history. The new San Francisco Explorer Cruise focuses on architecture, natural history and Native American culture. There are 14 daily departure times starting at 10am. Boarding is from Pier 43 ½ on Fisherman’s Wharf .
Ride the Ducks (877/887-8225) the ever-popular amphibious tour, is new to San Francisco. The 90-minute sightseeing tour includes about 60 minutes on land and 30 minutes in the water. Sights along the route include: Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, Ghiradelli Square, Union Square, AT&T Ballpark and of course, spectaculars views of the City by the Bay. Everyone gets a complimentary yellow-billed duck whistle, the famous Wacky Quakers ™, to quack at pedestrians on this engaging tour. Ticketing and boarding is at Fisherman’s Wharf at the corner of Jefferson and Taylor streets, or at Union Square on Geary Street.
GoCarTours (800/91-GO-CAR) offers the first ever GPS-Guided Storytelling Cars for an incredible way to tour San Francisco. GoCars are easy to drive and fun. As you drive, it tells you where and when to turn, along with stories that bring the city to life. See the places tour buses are not allowed to go and only locals know about.
Discount Passes
CityPass is perfect for both first time and repeat visitors. The San Francisco booklet contains a Muni Passport valid for seven consecutive days on all Muni system vehicles, including historic streetcars and world-famous cable cars. In addition there are discount tickets to many of the city’s signature attractions. For information on cost and how to obtain CityPass phone 888/330-5008.
The Go San Francisco Card helps you enhance your visit to the “City by the Bay.” Your card includes admission to 50 included attractions, transportation around the city, and day tours for one low price that helps you save up to 40% off of regular admission prices.
For more information on San Francisco visit the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau or call them at 415/391-2000.
Photos by Mel Greenberg
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I poured my heart and soul into this!!! Hope you people enjoy! =)
Wow, this is wonderful! You are so lucky to have gotten this opportunity. You looked absolutely gorgeous at the show and the red carpet. Thanks for sharing this, it really made me smile. I used to have the biggest crush on Joe Jonas.. hahah!
Amazing trip!
I hope that my story will inspire and enrich your lives; even if it doesn’t touch you as much as it has touched me. I hope that this will be passed on and that people will take a few minutes just to read what I had to say and try to be in the mind of these children. Try to change your day and see your house, your possessions, your income, and those many great things that you possess and find a way to share them with others. We all need a wakeup call sometimes, a message to straighten us out and look at the life we were given. I hope to go back next year to repeat the experience all over again and try to change myself even more, I love those children and I love their compassion and selflessness. Words can’t fully express what I felt or what I witnessed but my words are clear, these people see the world much differently than us, they treat possessions differently and they know how to work as a community.
This is about when my family and I took a trip down to Central Florida for our Family Vacation.
Hope you enjoy!
This was a vacation that taught me a lot about how my religion is organzied and gave me more appreciation for it.
I will never forget the time I spent in Germany.
I hope you guys enjoyed my story!
Best luck.
South Africa is this amazing country that not only is beautiful for its animals and scenery but for its people and for its ability to overcome the greatest oppression: apartheid, the discrimination of the majority. I am so glad I was given the gift of traveling to South Africa. It is an experience I will never forget!
It was a great trip!
I hope everyone who takes the time to read The Awakening enjoys learning about my bus ride to reality.
My typed essay about my vacation in Vietnam. It seem poorly written or should I say typed :\
Bryan Gray Europe Tour.
My vacation to Panama became suprisingly meaningful, contrary to what I had initially expected.
Thank you
This was a fun and yet difficult project i truely have enjoyed sharing my vaction with you.
Mahalo,
Have you ever been to Maine? What did you like best?
This is such an amazing story and essay!!
Their were many more memories from this trip that impacted me as much as the ones that were included, but I just didnt have enough room. So, I shortened it and tried to write the best description of the trip without exceeding the word limit. But the trip was, indeed, as remarkable as I said it was.
Washington is a really nice place. It has many museums and historical places. it also has very delicious foods. Chinatown was my favorite place to eat.
Thank you for this scholarship opportunity!
IB York was a great experience, and a great opportunity to explore new ideas and innovations
So now I head to college without my classmates but i will always have this wonderful experience.
🙂
This is one of my many travel adventure stories from my trip to Europe in the beginning of the summer. Besides Prague, I traveled to Berlin, Munuch, and Nuremberg in Germany, Innsbruck in Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and France. My favorite place was Switzerland, but my favorite story was the one I shared. I hope you enoy reading it as much as i enjoyed experiencing it!
I want everyone to be able to expericence something like I did.:) Everyone desevers happines!
I hope you enjoyed my travel blog and I hope you plan to take your mom to the Peaks of Otter Lodge for the best brunch you will ever eat. For more information click on this link:
http://www.peaksofotter.com/
Finished product. I love PERU!
This eye-opening opportunity has shaped my conviction toward making change and developing the community. It is a great pleasure to meet all those Leadership Award Honorees and other49 ANNpower fellows from 24 states in the U.S. I will continue to make change and build a dynamic community, excursively to ethnic, social, political gender aspects of advantage, as my milestone to become a great leader!
This eye-opening opportunity marks the culmination of my junior year. I am so glad to meet all those wonderful women leaders from all around the world and 49 other ANNpower fellows from other 24 states. I will continue to explore the world and make change with eagerness and confident, and overcoming disadvantage exclusively toward the milestone of a great leader!
I hope everyone enjoys my trip to Catalina and Ensenada!
This trip was the best trip regarding family time. It is unforgettable.
To see more photography from the trip, check out my photojournal: http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Photojournal-of-My-Grecian-Travels/213497035367351.
What a testimony!! Thanks for posting. You don't know how impactful this is. Let Jesus keep using you for His glory. 😉
I was saved in August of 2009. I was in my parents's room and we all prayed for m, becuase I was tired of not having a desire for God. There I gave my life to Him and let Him be my Lord. I already excepted Him as Savior, but though it was a license to sin. Thatt day, though I wanted to repent of my sin and let God lead me. Lord and Savior go hand-in-hand. My life is changed. Now I have convictions and am learning so much about seeking God, because He is seeking me. It's awesome to live in the security and hope of knowing I will see Him one day in heaven. I am so glad He lives in me, because my goodness outside of Him is nothing. I don't know what I would do without Him.
Jesus used that park to bring you and your dad back together. How beautiful 🙂
Each place I go, I leave a peice of myself. And everyplace I go leaves a peice of itself in me. The people I have met along the way have changed me in the deepest way. Their lives have touched mine and I can never return to life as was usual. Likewise, my life has touched many along the way. It is my hope that nobody I meet along the way may return to life as was their usual. This is how each thead pulls coth and fabric together as we the people of the world cover it like a quilt. We must double stitch each peice so not to fall apart or leave holes. We need one another.
To whoever reading this, I am the person wearing blue shirt and white shorts, sligtly leaning on the panda bear statue.
My essay that talks about my experience traveling to Lima, Peru aims toward encouraging others who are not too familiar with it to visit and appreciate the fun life changing experience they're gauranteed to get.
What a great contest! Hope to see lots of terrific teen travel stories here!
It was difficult for me to type a 600 word blog about an amazing experience I had in the month of July. It was also difficult for me to choose certain pictures from the ones that I have chosen, so I uploaded the pictures of my time at NeiHu elementary school. I really wished that I could have used more sightseeing photos, but unfortunately, those were too big to upload.
This trip was amazing and it also tested who I am becoming as a person. Seeing the woman in Central Park living out her dream, to the woman selling fruit throughout the day; New York is made of dreamers and hardworking people. I loved it. Hope I get the chance to go back.
This was an amazing experience! I am so grateful for everything it taught me!!
From research, I believe the ice cream shop was called Eisdiele Eddy. More information about the exchange program can be found at http://www.aatg.org/study-trip-faq as well as at the bottom of the page at http://www.aatg.org/NGE-awards.
These Picutures are both of my own creation (one being an acrylic painting). When I took this picture at the western wall in Israel, the man in the photo was crying his heart out wearing a tattered down bath robe, I thought it would make for an intersting picture. So it did, it also inspired to me to create a painting in which I showed the world what I believe he really is. A man who is down on his luck but seems to still find peace in his life.
My sophomore year of high school I went to Donner Pass in California with a group called The Woods Project (www.thewoodsproject.org) . I had to apply to go , I was really anxious and scared that I wasn’t going to get. When I got my acceptance letter I was excited. I was also nervous because I had never been away from home for more than a week and The Woods project was going to last for two weeks. I had chosen to go to Donner Pass because I wanted to experience something new. I was going to go backpacking for one week and hiking the other. I had never gone backpacking before. When I told my friends that I was going backpacking they started to laugh because I am the smallest girl in my whole school and they didn’t think I was going to make it. Getting that response from my friends made me super scared of going to the trip. I thought I was going to die while backpacking!
My dad went to go drop me off at the airport and then he left. I was already scared and freaking out at the fact that he had just left me there and I did not know anybody! . I got in the plane to California and I was already regretting going on the trip. I was going to be with complete strangers for two weeks! When we got to California we all got split .There were three groups going to different places, one to Yosemite, another to Marine Headlines and then mine, to Donner Pass. I got in a van and that’s where I met the people who I was going to spend two weeks with. We were in that van for hours! When we finally got to our cabin we had to go up a hill to get to the door.
The first cabin we stayed in was named Clair Tappan Lodge. It was really nice . It was made out of wood, had a pool table, personal chef, jacuzzi and hot water in the showers. I loved it there! Too bad it only lasted for two days then it was time to go backpacking. They gave us our backpacking materials. I tried on the backpack and almost fell over. My backpacking week had started. We went up and down mountains, through rivers and lakes, and I thought we were never going to set up our tents. When it started to get dark we finally started cooking. The food we had was not good at all. We couldn’t bring a lot of food because of the bears and other animals. My second day of backpacking went better than the first. Everybody in my group started to know each other better and soon we became really close. We would sing while backpacking to make time pass faster and at night we didn’t want to sleep because we would play games. While backpacking I got to experience many things I hadn’t before. Even though I was the smallest girl going backpacking I was always the leader of the line because of my stamina.
When our backpacking week ended it was time to hike. I had gotten the hardest part of the trip over with so I knew hiking was going to be a piece of cake. We would hike in the morning and hanged out at night. It was the best experience I had ever had! When it was time to go back home I didn’t want to because I knew I would miss my friends.
To watch my video go to : http://youtu.be/FLd7W71EnyU
My experience as a first time camper.
i hope i win