The Presidio with Kids: A Complete Guide

The Presidio is a national park with a playground, a bowling alley and a bus system, all inside the city limits. It is the single best place in San Francisco to spend a whole day with kids without spending much money.

Start Here

Presidio Tunnel Tops and the Outpost

Built on the roof of the tunnels carrying Doyle Drive, with the Golden Gate Bridge straight ahead. The Outpost is a two-acre nature play area for roughly ages two to twelve, with a hollow fallen tree big enough to climb inside, a woodland climbing wall, and water channels modeled on the Presidio’s historic irrigation ditches. There are art and science stations Wednesday through Sunday and family restrooms nearby.

210 Lincoln Blvd · Free · Roughly 9:30am–6pm April–October, 9:30am–5pm November–March · presidio.gov

Presidio Visitor Center

Worth ten minutes at the start: a big 3D model of the park that kids like, maps, and rangers who will tell you what is happening that day. Restrooms at the adjoining Transit Center.

210 Lincoln Blvd · Free · Daily 10am–5pm

Outdoors

Crissy Field and the Marsh

A flat paved promenade for strollers and bikes, a tidal marsh with a boardwalk and over a hundred bird species, and East Beach for digging. Free parking at the East Beach lot.

Baker Beach

The postcard bridge view, two free parking lots, picnic tables, grills and accessible restrooms. Strong currents, so this is a sand-and-scenery beach rather than a swimming one, and the far north end is clothing-optional.

Andy Goldsworthy’s Sculptures

Three works hidden around the park make a good treasure hunt. Spire is a 90-foot tower of cypress trunks near the Arguello Gate. Wood Line is a long serpentine branch sculpture along Lovers’ Lane, and it is the one kids want to walk the length of. Tree Fall, inside the old Powder Magazine, has been closed to visitors, so check before building a day around it.

Free · Always open outdoors · for-site.org

Fort Point

A brick Civil War fort tucked directly under the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge, with cannons, spiral staircases and waves crashing outside. Free, and open Thursday through Monday, 10am to 5pm, with the grounds outside accessible every day.

Marine Dr · Free · Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays · nps.gov/fopo

Mountain Lake Park

On the park’s southern edge: a renovated playground, an accessible play area and a flat path around the lake. Quieter than the waterfront and a good afternoon wind-down.

Indoors

Walt Disney Family Museum

Best for ages six and up. Adults thirty dollars, kids six to seventeen fifteen, five and under free. Open Thursday through Sunday only, so check the day before you go.

104 Montgomery St · waltdisney.org

The Officers’ Club

Free history exhibits, including rotating shows on the Presidio’s role in twentieth-century history, open Friday through Sunday from 11am to 4pm, with a restaurant inside.

Presidio Bowl

A real bowling alley in a national park. Hours vary and private events can close lanes, so call ahead on a rainy Saturday.

93 Moraga Ave · presidiobowl.com

Getting Around, Parking and Food

The free PresidiGo shuttle is the park’s secret weapon. The South Hills route loops inside the park past Baker Beach and the overlooks and needs no pass. The Downtown route connects to the Salesforce Transit Center and Embarcadero BART, and only requires a pass during weekday commute hours. Both are wheelchair accessible with bike racks.

Parking runs roughly two to three dollars an hour or ten to fifteen dollars a day, paid by app or kiosk by license plate. Food trucks park at Tunnel Tops most days, there is a sit-down restaurant at the Transit Center, and picnic tables and grills throughout.

Shuttle routes and parking: presidio.gov

Local Legend: The Lady in Black and the Pet Cemetery, Presidio

What is actually true: SFGATE collects the ghost stories, and the Presidio Trust has hosted ghost-story evenings at the Officers’ Club itself. The Trust calls the club San Francisco’s oldest building (Mission Dolores makes a similar claim): Spanish colonists built the first adobe on the site in 1776, and adobe walls from the 1810s can still be seen in its Mesa Room. For the Pet Cemetery, the Park Service says there are no records of how it began, which is exactly why the horse and guard-dog legends grew; its oldest markers date only to the early 1950s.

Local Legend: The Golden Gate Bridge: Painted End to End, and Orange by Accident?

What is actually true: The Golden Gate Bridge District calls both painting stories misconceptions: the bridge is painted continuously, an ongoing job that protects the steel from the salty air, not one end-to-end coat after another. The color was a choice. NPR reports that consulting architect Irving Morrow noticed the reddish-orange primer on some of the steel and championed it as the bridge’s color, when most bridges were gray, silver or black. A paint superintendent told NPR the Navy had wanted it painted black and yellow so it would be easier to see.

Prices and hours were checked in September 2026 and can change, so confirm before you go.