48 Hours in San Francisco with Kids
San Francisco is one of those American cities you know about no matter where you grow up. With its Golden Gate Bridge, rich history and quirky things like cable cars and the “painted ladies” made famous in homes across the country, San Francisco is a bit of a fascination.
I visited San Francisco as a child. I have the pictures to prove it. Me at about 3 years old with a hooded sweatshirt, holding a balloon on a steep San Francisco block. If I’m being honest, I don’t remember that trip at all.
Our family visited San Francisco as part of our Portland to San Diego road trip. After visiting the Redwoods National Forest (so amazing!!) we drove south into the city.
Also Read: Family Road Trip from Portland to San Diego
For two days and three nights we explored the city of San Francisco with our almost eight year old twins. I hope they remember at least some of it, but if not I have lots of pictures.
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San Francisco with Kids
Our trip to San Francisco was busy but so much fun. Here were our favorite things to do in San Francisco with kids.
San Francisco: Day One
Twin Peaks was our first stop.
I’ve heard this can be super crowded but early in the morning (bonus of my kids being early risers) there were only a few other cars. There was only one other family on the peak with us who was super nice and offered to take pictures of our family. The view from the Twin Peaks is beautiful on a clear day. We could see downtown San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and beyond to the ocean.
In case you’re curious, the view from both peaks is pretty similar. The one closer to the Golden Gate Bridge is slightly better in my opinion.
Next, we drove to visit the “Painted Ladies”. It’s completely cheesy and touristy but it was on my list.
My kids humored me. They played shadow tag in the park while I took pictures.
Then, we drove to Golden Gate Park. If you’re looking for a comparison, the Golden Gate Park reminded me of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Golden Gate Park houses some of San Francisco’s museums like De Young Museum and Golden Gate Academy of Sciences much like Balboa Park in San Diego, but it has the green trees, rolling hills feel of Prospect Park.
There we started at the Japanese Tea Garden. We parked in the structure across from the De Young Museum which was a close walk. If you get lucky there is also some nearby street parking but it was already packed by 10 am.
The Japanese Tea Garden was beautiful. We admired the cherry blossom trees, my kids found something to climb – they seem to have radar for such things – and we had a little sweet snack.
They even had a vegan treat for my dairy-allergy kiddo. He had mixed feelings about it but I was happy he got to try something a little out of the ordinary rather than resorting to giving him the animal crackers in my bag. The green tea was delicious.
After our snack, we headed to a playground. It was a decent playground. Nothing new or fancy, but it kept my kids happy.
Then we went to see the Golden Gate Bridge.
There are a lot of places to view the Golden Gate Bridge from and we did them all. We viewed it from the beach, from several parks and walked part of the way across it. The Golden Gate National Recreational Area is incredible. History, beaches, hiking, views – it has it all.
If you have a National Park Passport for your kids you can get it stamped at the Visitor Center near the entrance to the bridge (there are bathrooms there too!)
My best advice is simply to make sure you see it up close. There isn’t a bad view. We loved them all.
San Francisco: Day Two
The following day we started with the Exploratorium.
If your kids like science experiments then this will be their jam. It’s a huge hall of hands on materials to explore. It was a bit pricey and I don’t know that I’d recommend it for kids under 5 but the kids and I had a lot of fun exploring and experimenting.
From there we walked down the street to the Ferry Market. It was full of all kinds of food options – including some Dairy Free options, although not as many as we have come to expect in Southern California.
After lunch we rode a cable car.
This was the highlight of the trip for my kids. You can get day pass on your phone with the ticketing app and show it to the driver.
We rode the cable car to the San Francisco Cable Car Museum. It is free and small, but it has some interesting information about this historic part of San Francisco. My kids love to know the whys and hows in life and this answered a lot of their questions about the cable cars.
Afterwards, we walked a couple blocks up hill – it felt like part of the San Francisco experience to me.
We stopped and played at a small, creative playground nook up the block from the Cable Car Museum. Working in 30 minutes to an hour of playground each day helps keep our kids happy. Even on a day with tons of walking, running around on a playground seems to break it up for them and they complain less about being tired – which is counter intuitive to me but it worked when we lived in New York City too. A friend of mine from Italy has an app called Playground Around the Corner that I often use to help me find a playground when I don’t know the area.
Then we hopped back on the Cable Cars. We rode it down to the sea front and Pier 39. Going downhill was somewhat terrifying….
or exhilarating depending on your point of view I guess. This was my kids’ favorite part of San Francisco. They would have happily stayed on the cable cars all day.
We got off at the end of the line where you can watch them turn around the cable cars. There was a huge line of people waiting to get on there to ride it back up the hill and I was so glad we did it the other way and ended our trip here instead.
Then we wandered along Pier 39 and ate at Boudin SF. It was one of the few places we could find something for my dairy free kiddo.
Pier 39 is highly touristy which isn’t my favorite way to spend time, but my kids enjoyed the carousel and the street performers. If you’re looking for a souvenir there are definitely a plethora of options in this area.
We loved our couple of days in San Francisco. It was a blast for all four of us and we can’t wait to return to explore more and hop back on the cable cars.
