Trip

Best place to take kids in the Bay Area? Planning family trips... ?

Public Comments

1. Pier 39 is always fun...
2. Santa Cruz Beach/Boardwalk. Marin Headlands to walk down to the lighthouse and climb on the gun emplacements, see the Nike missile silo. CA. Academy of Sciences in GG Park (wait until the crowds go down though). Monterey Bay Aquarium (a drive, but worth it!) Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Tidepools along the San Mateo Coast. Tilden Park (steam train, antique carousel). Zeum (near Metreon Center). Exploratorium in the Palace of Fine Arts. Steam train at Roaring Camp, near Felton in the S. Cruz mountains. Coyote Point museum (and they have a little sort of zoo there for animals rescued from the wild). The Tech Museum in San Jose. Oakland Museum. Fort Point, in the Presidio, just under the south end of the GG Bridge. If you like long walks, why not walk over the GG Bridge? Coit Tower (you can't park there, you have to park at the bottom and walk up about 8 flights of stairs. The kids will sleep well that night! 8^) ). Hiking in East Bay Regional Parks, Marin Headlands, or Big Basin Redwoods.
   
   
   
   I don't have kids but a few years ago I got to borrow a kid, grandson of a friend of mine, and take him places about once a month. He mostly liked just getting out of the house. He loved all these places, but also just walking and 'window shopping' on Haight Street, Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley (actually his favorite!), etc. If we went to see a movie in the daytime, at a shopping mall, he wanted to walk the entire mall. At the age of three or four, malls were like Disneyland for him.
3. Theres the Metreon, its a huge multi story plaza with an imax movie theatre and some fun arcade shops, aswell as a large food court. Theres also a lot of museums based around kids, including aquariums and science museums. Theres a lot of beaches and the San Francisco zoo is unbelievabley fun.