Let us discover some of the best things to do in San Francisco with kids or family.
San Francisco is full of attractions, magnificent and wonderful places in which kids will surely enjoy and have fun in the different theaters, parks, beaches, museums, amusements, and many more that will leave them engaged, learning, and laughing.
Here are the best things to do in San Francisco with Kids:
Best Things to Do in San Francisco with Kids or Family
1. Bay Area Discovery Museum, San Francisco
Bay Area Discovery Museum – is one of the best things to do in San Francisco with kids or family. It is located on the other side of Golden Gate Bridge with 7.5 acres near Sausalito with indoor and outdoor playful learning experiences that will inspire the children to discover the exhibitions spaces and daily programs.
It includes a 2.5-acre area called the Lookout Cove, complete with tide pools, caves, fishing boats, gravel pits, spider web installation, whatnot, and a shipwreck playground. Exhibits contain a soft-floored “Tot Spot” for the little ones, “How Things Work”, an art studio, and a large outdoor climbing area.
The museum is normally closed at 5 pm and used your museum membership to get a discount.
2. Aquarium of the Bay, San Francisco
Aquarium of the Bay – is wonderful best things to do in San Francisco with kids or family. It is located in the heart and waterfront of Pier 39. You will see more than 20,000 marine sea creatures like rays, moon jellies, bat ray wings, jellyfish, sharks, octopuses, river otters, and many more.
You will be educated on how to feed the sea creatures.
The aquarium is open to all ages. You can watch the jellyfish float around, stroll to the large walk-through aquarium tunnels, and admire the large Pacific octopus.
You can even touch a starfish, a baby shark, or a stingray in their hands-on lab.
3. Children's Creativity Museum, San Francisco
Children’s Creativity Museum – is also one of the best things to do in San Francisco with kids or family. It is a hands-on adventure for children of all ages that allows them to imagine and create in a multimedia environment and it is located in downtown San Francisco.
It is a high-tech museum that is carefully designed to encourage inventions.
Children form clay into characters and create their own stop-motion movies in the Animation lab while in the Tech Lab, children will learn how to write code by programming robots to play music and solve puzzles as future Googlers, and in the Music Studio children can make their own music videos.
It is located in SOMA District at 221 Fourth Street. Take a spin on the
beautiful LeRoy King Carousel outside the museum.
4. The Butterfly Joints, San Francisco
The Butterfly Joints –offers fun things to do in San Francisco with kids or family. It is a woodworking shop and design studio for children who can get the clock in with punch cards, put on work aprons, and learn the classic joinery approach to create stunning pieces of art like name boards, keepsake boxes, tables, stools, wooden spoons and many more.
Danny Montoya owned it with credentials as an early-childhood educator who knows his way around a workbench. The Outer Richmond workshop provides classes and camps for children as young as 2 years old.
San Francisco Zoo – is one of the great zoos that is filled with different kinds of animals that your kids will surely enjoy and have fun seeing it. It is located in the southwestern corner of the city between Lake Merced and the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.
It is a place for stunning animals from rare species of frogs to 2,000 exotic, endangered, and rescued mammals. The zoo hosts exhibits that are interesting for children.
The zoo includes a three-acre grassland with giraffes, lions, chimpanzees, bears, tigers, penguins, black rhinoceros, two, polar bears, ostriches, zebras, snow leopards, a gorilla preserve with a family of six gorillas and an orchard of eucalyptus that protects some lovable koalas.
Around the zoo, there’s a dedicated children’s zoo, a miniature steam train, tropical rainforests, and an aviary. San Francisco Zoo is one of the most amazing things to do in San Francisco with kids or family.
6. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
California Academy of Sciences – is a cavernous facility with an aquarium, the largest natural history museums, a rainforest, and a state-of-the-art planetarium that displays animals in the environment that imitate their natural habitat.
It is located in the Golden Gate Park with a four- story rainforest dome home to flitting butterflies and birds with a living roof of some 1.7m native plant species and boasts animals in three definite ecosystems.
7. Stow Lake, San Francisco
Stow Lake – is in the heart of Golden Gate Park where you can rent different kinds of boats like American-made row boats, pedal boats, and electric boats.
Each boat consists of six people and can also spot birds and turtles. This lake is peaceful, quiet, and man-made that entertains families since 1893. After the adventure, you can stop by the café for a glass of wine or beer and order some delicious menus like hotdogs, hamburgers, salads, and more.
Stow Lake San Francisco California USA offers one f the best things to do in San Francisco with kids.
8. Dolores Park, San Francisco
Dolores Park – is one of the best and most incredible onsite playgrounds for kids and a haven for grown-ups in San Francisco since 1907. It is located between Castro Theater and the Mission.
The park has a 38-foot mega slide, a plethora of swings, boulder rocks, a climbing wall, a play mound, a footbridge, and wooden boats. It is also a place for you to have a picnic with the family. It boasts unparalleled views of the city, giant palm trees, and many green spaces to sprawl out.
9. Seward Street Slides, San Francisco
Seward Street Slides – is a mini park that was built near the Castro Theater in 1973 that boasts a community garden and loads of native plants. It has two steep concrete slides that thrill kids and older ones.
You have to wear sturdy pants and bring a piece of cardboard. The
slides are open and free every day except Mondays from 10 am to 5 pm.
10. Castro Theater, San Francisco
Castro Theater – is a movie palace that was built in the 1920s and also a historic landmark in 1976. It is very famous among locals and tourists for its up-to-date stylish shops, popular bars, and a few mouth-watering restaurants.
It is located in the heart of Castro which reserves Saturday
and Sunday each month to watch a movie like Moana and Mulan. You can have a movie musical sing-alongs and theater classics.
It starts with a costume contest in which children of all ages can parade across the stage then the lights dim and the movie rolls, complete with on-screen lyrics and a bouncy icon for young readers to follow along as their production.
