Our Favorite Kids-friendly Places in San Francisco
I came to San Francisco for the first time 20 years ago as a tourist. It was love at first sight! I came back the second time as a resident, and have since stayed for 10 years. We moved out of San Francisco 4 years ago when Apollo was still crawling, and out of the Bay Area 2 years ago when Orion was still a newborn. Now I'm back again, reintroducing our little ones to their hometown.
For the past week, we experienced many "firsts" - Children's Creative Museum, California Academy of Science, Carousel at Yerba Buena Garden, taking the Caltrain together etc. I'm reliving my tourist life in San Francisco, my second hometown, after 20 years, feeling a combination of freshness and nostalgia.
California Academy of Science
One of our very first stops, as it has an aquarium. Apollo is a big fan of fish.
We arrived less than 2 hours before closing. Given the ticket price, this was our most expensive visit in San Francisco. I was quite impressed by the size of the museum, and felt we had to hurry in order to make the most of it as it was our most expensive ticketed event of the trip.
Ghirardelli chocolate Square
Ghirardelli Chocolate Square was the first stop of my first trip to San Francisco 20 years ago. Of course I had to take my little ones there for this trip. Lots of memories!
We tried to walk to Pier 39 to see the seals but didn't make it that far. The kids burned most of their energy throwing bean bags on the chocolate square, and immediately gained all the calories back dipping their faces into a huge chocolate ice cream and milk shake. We only ordered the small cup and shake but oh boy! It's funny to do the typical tourist stuff in a city where I had lived in for so long. Luckily, I don't have to be a good tour guide to keep my two little ones well entertained.
San Francisco Exploratorium
San Francisco Exploratorium! Our boys' new love in San Francisco. Over the past 5 months, we've visited many children's museums. Mirador Interactive Museum in Santiago Chile was the first one and gave us a huge wow impression. Ever since then, we haven't had the similar feel until we visited SF Exploratorium this week.
It was literally a children's paradise - no matter for toddlers, teenagers or even adults. You have so much to experience and learn! I don't think our boys have necessarily learned or understood the science, technology or art from all the amazing facilities, but the exposure to all these in one place was already worth all the time we spent there.
Yerba Buena Gardens & Children’s Creative Museum
As a natural extrovert, Apollo enjoys introducing himself to anyone he meets. Usually it starts like this: “Hi, my name is Apollo, and I'm from the Moon.” We have to constantly remind him he's actually from the Earth. When I saw this statue on Yerba Buena Gardens last week, I insisted that we take a picture. I am glad he said yes and he even gave a smile.
Another new place to me was the Children's Creative Museum. It was always there in Yerba Buena Gardens, but I never visited it until this trip. We went on a weekday - there was no crowd.
In fact Apollo had the privilege to be the only one riding the carousel. How cool was that! I looked it up and found some fun facts about the carousel:
1906 Constructed in Rhode Island by renowned designer and craftsman Charles I.D. Looff. The carousel was intended to be installed in San Francisco, however due to the great 1906 earthquake and fire it could not be installed.
1907 Installed at Luna Park, Seattle
1913 Moved to San Francisco’s Playland-at-the-Beach
1972 Playland-at-the-Beach closes. Carousel purchased by private collector and put into storage in New Mexico
1983 Moved to Shoreline Village, Long Beach, CA
1998 Purchased by the City of San Francisco, fully restored, and opened in its current location at the Children’s Creativity Museum in Yerba Buena Gardens
2014 Restored and renamed in honor of former San Francisco Redevelopment Commissioner LeRoy King
I found this particularly interesting as we will soon be in Rhode Island. What a coincidence!
Painted Ladies
Painted Ladies from Alamo Square, probably one of the most photographed locations in San Francisco... for tourists!
In fact during my 10 years living in San Francisco, I had never photographed here. Now I'm a tourist with my two little ones, so I'm doing the tourist thing - getting them framed in the iconic background!
It was a good hometown visit for our little ones, and an all new and great experience for me!
If you are fellow traveler, and would like to photograph your kids out and about, here’s my latest online ebook.
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