A Day in San Francisco

Only a few short miles away from the hustle and bustle of one of biggest cities in California is a beautiful land with miles and miles of outdoor adventure - the Marin Headlands. The headlands is just one of the fantastic National Park sites in the greater San Francisco area and features a wide variety of activities to do. There are hiking trails, a  marine mammal center, beaches, scenic drives, birding, and tours of historic war forts. We easily could have spent days just exploring the park! Fortunately, we were lucky enough to reserve one of the few campsites, so we got to wake up in the park each morning.

Conzelman Road is a great place to get incredible views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a beautiful drive at both sunrise and sunset. In the morning, the sun rises behind the city and bridge. In the evening, the sun lit up the clouds and bridge and gave it an amazing golden color. Either way, you can't go wrong, but there were a lot fewer people out at sunrise! 

The top of the road is known as Hawk Hill, a well-known birding spot during raptor migration. It also features incredible views of the bridge, headlands, and San Francisco. 

We camped in the Bicentennial Campground, which only had three walk-in sites and a port-a-potty for a bathroom. It had no running water, no trash facilities, and no other people. We loved it.

Disclaimer: The campground is walk-in, meaning you don't drive your car right up to your site. The walk was only about three minutes, but it was up & down a large hill. Not a problem for us, but worth mentioning.

This was the view from our campsite. Worth the walk! 

There are giant banana slugs in the headlands! 

These ladies greeted us in the morning!

This is the view of the bridge and city in the morning. After exploring the headlands, we adventured into the city for the day! Our first stop was Fort Point NHS, and then we found free parking at the Marina Green. We had to walk about a mile into the city, but we considered it worth it to save $30+ on parking costs. 

Our first stop was the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. There is a small (but fantastic!) free museum and then you can pay to go on the pier and take tours of the different boats. If you have an annual NPS pass, admission is free!

The museum has a first-order Fresnel lens, previously used in lighthouses across the country. 

We arrived just in time to take a guided tour of the 1895 C.A. Thayer, a retired and restored schooner. 

Causally at the helm of the S.S. Eureka. The Eureka was a ferry used to transport train cars (later she carried passengers) across the bay before the Golden Gate Bridge was built. 

After finishing at the boats, we walked down to Pier 39 to see the famous San Francisco sea lions. 

We decided to do a very touristy activity and ride the famous cable cars. However, the lines were super long so we decided we'd just walk to the other end of the trolley line to get on. Big mistake. San Francisco is known for her hills.. and we walked up and down many of them before we found the end of the line! 

We eventually found the end of the line, hopped on and rode back to where we started. Then we enjoyed a lovely mile walk along the bay back to our free parking. We could have spent our entire trip in San Francisco, there is just so much to do in and around the city! We visited mostly national park sites to save money and we had a blast learning the history of San Fran.