The Best Day Trips from San Francisco, With the Transport Told Honestly
The Bay Area's day-trip advice has quietly gone stale. The Sausalito and Angel Island ferries changed operator and pier, the Muir Woods shuttle moved to Larkspur and the Sausalito combination everyone describes no longer exists, the Point Reyes winter shuttle was scrapped years ago, and the wine train does not leave from San Francisco. Every fare and timetable below was read off the operators' own sites and PDFs in August 2026, and where a figure is not published, this page says so instead of guessing.
What are the best day trips from San Francisco?
Muir Woods for the redwoods, done properly: a 10 dollar parking reservation or the 4 dollar weekend shuttle from Larkspur, plus the separate 15 dollar entrance fee that never sells out. Sausalito is the easiest, a 30-minute Golden Gate Ferry crossing from the Ferry Building at 8.50 dollars on Clipper. Angel Island is the underrated one, with the state park fee bundled into the ferry ticket. For a city day without a car, Berkeley is 22 minutes and 5.30 dollars away on BART.
Which day trip fits your day
Pick by what you have: a car, a ferry appetite, a full day, or none of the above.
| If you are | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Without a car and short on planning energy | Berkeley, or Sausalito | BART needs no timetable and costs 5.30 dollars; the Sausalito ferry is two boats an hour of pure view for 8.50. |
| Set on the redwoods | Muir Woods via Larkspur | Ferry plus the 4 dollar weekend shuttle beats fighting for a 10 dollar parking slot that sells out, and the 15 dollar entry never does. |
| After wine country without driving | Napa via the Vallejo ferry | Ferry plus VINE Route 11 lands you at Oxbow Market for about 12 dollars each way; Sonoma's transit chain runs past three and a half hours. |
| Chasing the famous aquarium | Monterey, by car, as a full day | It is 2 hours each way and the transit alternative gives one fragile connection a day; with children, consider the overnight instead. |
| Dreaming of Yosemite | An overnight, not a day trip | The park service's own figure is 4 to 5 hours of driving each way, and on 2026 timetables a same-day transit return is mathematically impossible. |
The 11 best day trips, ranked
Ordered by how well they repay a full day - factoring travel time, what you can actually see, and how easy they are without a car.
Muir Woods
The one unmissable tripAbout 12 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge · ~45 min to 1 hour by car, ferry plus shuttle at weekends
Old-growth coast redwoods twenty minutes from a major city, with the flat boardwalk loops through Cathedral Grove doable with a stroller. The park runs 8am to around sunset all year. Download everything before you go, because there is no phone signal or wifi in the valley at all.
Getting there: Driving needs a parking reservation at 10 dollars per standard vehicle, booked at gomuirwoods.com with a 30-minute arrival window. Without a car, ride Golden Gate Ferry from the Ferry Building to Larkspur, 9.50 dollars on Clipper, and pick up the Muir Woods Shuttle there: 4 dollars round trip for anyone 16 and over, free under 16 but still needing a reservation, running Friday to Sunday and federal holidays from early spring through September, then October weekends. On top of either sits the park entrance fee, 15 dollars per person 16 and over, which never sells out.
Find Muir Woods toursGuided day trips and skip-the-line tickets- Instant confirmation
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Sausalito
The easiest half dayAcross the Golden Gate, 30 minutes by water · ~30 min by ferry
The Mediterranean-looking waterfront town on the far side of the bay: houseboats, ice cream, a flat promenade, and the city skyline over the water. It fills the gap between a half day and a full one perfectly, and the ferry crossing itself is the best cheap boat ride in the region.
Getting there: Golden Gate Ferry from the Ferry Building, Gates B and C, at 8.50 dollars one-way on Clipper or contactless, 14 dollars on a paper ticket, with youth 5 to 18 at 7 dollars and only children 4 and under free. About seven weekday sailings and five at weekends, with the last boat back at 6:55pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Do not go to Pier 41: Blue and Gold's Sausalito ferry has vanished from its own site, which now sells only cruises.
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Tiburon and Angel Island
History plus a bike rideAcross Raccoon Strait from each other · ~30 min by ferry to either
Angel Island is the Ellis Island of the west: the Immigration Museum is free, the Detention Barracks Museum is 5 dollars, and bikes rent from 16 dollars an hour for the perimeter road's bay views. Tiburon is the pretty lunch: Ark Row's shops and the ferry-dock restaurants facing the city.
Getting there: Golden Gate Ferry serves both from the Ferry Building. Angel Island is 10 dollars one-way on Clipper with the state park entrance fee included in the ticket, and the one rule that matters: buy the return before you board, because tickets are not sold on the island and the last weekend boat leaves at 4:50pm. Tiburon is 8.50 dollars on Clipper, with only three weekend sailings out and the last return at 5:15pm. The little Angel Island-Tiburon Ferry links the two for 18 dollars round trip.
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Napa Valley
Food and wine without drivingAbout 50 miles northeast · ~1 h 15 by car, ~2.5 to 3 h by ferry and bus
Downtown Napa works without a winery car crawl: Oxbow Public Market is free to enter and open 7:30am to 9pm daily, with walkable tasting rooms around it. The Wine Train, if the budget stretches, departs from McKinstry Street in Napa itself, not from San Francisco, and publishes its prices only in its booking flow.
Getting there: The car-free route that actually works: SF Bay Ferry from the Ferry Building's Gate E1 to Vallejo, 60 minutes at 9.90 dollars on Clipper, then VINE Route 11 from the Vallejo ferry terminal to downtown Napa for 2 dollars in exact change, timed to the boats. Guides citing Route 10 from Vallejo are using pre-2021 numbering; Route 10 is now the up-valley bus to Yountville, St Helena and Calistoga. The last ferry back from Vallejo is 7:05pm on weekdays.
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Sonoma
Drivers who want wine country slowerAbout 45 miles north · ~1 h by car, 3.5 h plus by transit
The plaza is the best town square in northern California, ringed by tasting rooms and anchored by Sonoma State Historic Park, where 3 dollars covers the mission, the barracks and General Vallejo's home on one ticket. It is the low-key, historic counterweight to Napa's polish.
Getting there: Honestly a car trip. The only weekend-verified transit chain is a Golden Gate Transit bus to Santa Rosa at 12 dollars on Clipper, then Sonoma County Transit's Route 30 back down to Sonoma Plaza, roughly hourly and about 90 minutes, which puts the one-way journey past three and a half hours. Drive it, or pick Napa for the transit version of wine country.
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Half Moon Bay
The coast without the drive to MontereyAbout 28 miles south on the coast · ~45 min by car, 1.5 to 2 h by transit
Four state beaches at 10 dollars per car with Francis Beach the hub, Pillar Point Harbor's fish-off-the-boat lunches, and in October the famous pumpkin festival: 17 to 18 October in 2026, with the champion weigh-off on the Monday before.
Getting there: Two verified car-free routes, both hourly and seven days a week: Caltrain to Hillsdale at 6.25 dollars then SamTrans Route 294 over the hill in 44 minutes, or BART to Daly City then Routes 110 and 117 down the coast through Montara and Moss Beach. SamTrans is 2.05 dollars a ride on Clipper with free two-hour transfers, so the coastal legs cost almost nothing.
Point Reyes
Wildlife and weather drama, with a carAbout 35 to 40 miles northwest · ~1 h 15 by car to Bear Valley, 45 min more to the lighthouse
The lighthouse at the end of the continent, down 313 steps by the park service's own count rather than the 308 everyone prints, plus the elephant seal colonies from December to March with docents and scopes at the overlooks on winter weekends. The wild, foggy antidote to the wine country.
Getting there: Free to enter, with no entrance pass required. Transit reaches the villages but not the sights: Golden Gate Transit to San Rafael at 7.20 dollars on Clipper, then the West Marin Stagecoach Route 68 to Point Reyes Station for 2 dollars, about ten round trips at weekends. No bus reaches the lighthouse, Drakes Beach or Chimney Rock, and the winter shuttle guides still describe was suspended indefinitely after 2020.
Monterey and Carmel
A long day that earns itAbout 115 miles south · ~2 h by car each way, more in summer
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is the best in the country at 65 dollars for adults and 50 for ages 5 to 17, booked ahead. Carmel adds the mission at 15 dollars, closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and Point Lobos at 10 dollars a car is the most beautiful state reserve on this coast. Whales run essentially year-round here: grays December to May, humpbacks March to November, by the marine sanctuary's own calendar.
Getting there: Drive, and treat it as a very full day. The transit version barely exists: one Amtrak Thruway chain a day via Salinas delivers about three and a half hours on the ground for a nine-to-twelve-hour day, and no direct scheduled bus could be verified. If the aquarium is the point and nobody drives, it is an overnight, not a day trip.
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Santa Cruz
A classic seaside amusement dayAbout 75 miles south · ~1 h 30 by car over Highway 17, ~2 to 2.5 h by transit
The Beach Boardwalk is free to walk into, always, with rides paid per ride: the 1924 Giant Dipper, a National Historic Landmark and one of the oldest coasters in America, costs 8 dollars a ride. The all-day wristband is priced dynamically by date, so check the site rather than trusting any printed number. Rides run limited days from November to early February.
Getting there: Caltrain to San Jose Diridon at 10.75 dollars, then the Highway 17 Express bus over the mountains to Santa Cruz for 7 dollars, with a 14 dollar day pass covering the return. Driving means Highway 17 itself, a crash-prone mountain road that beach-weekend traffic turns into a car park.
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Berkeley
A no-car, no-plan city dayAcross the bay, 22 minutes by BART · ~22 min from Embarcadero
The Campanile's elevator is 6 dollars for the best view of the bay's geography, BAMPFA's film-and-art complex is 18 dollars with under-14s free and everyone free on first Thursdays, and Telegraph Avenue remains the bookshops-and-record-crates time capsule. Skip Monday and Tuesday, when BAMPFA is shut and the hill-top Botanical Garden closes Tuesdays.
Getting there: BART from any downtown SF station to Downtown Berkeley, 5.30 dollars one-way on Clipper for adults and 2.65 for youth, every few minutes all day. No planning required, which after the ferry timetables above is a form of luxury.
Filoli
Gardens, with a carAbout 27 miles south at Woodside · ~40 min by car, no transit exists
A 1917 country house with sixteen acres of formal gardens, the filming stand-in for half of Hollywood's old-money estates, at its best in spring bloom and during the December light displays. One pricing warning: the 45 dollar figure that circulates online is the summer evening event, not general admission, which the estate publishes only inside its booking engine.
Getting there: Car or rideshare only, and the estate says so itself: its visit page lists driving and drop-off, no bus serves Cañada Road, and parking is free with a ticket. Entry is by timed one-hour windows that genuinely sell out at weekends and in the holiday season.
Muir Woods, done correctly: three separate charges and a shuttle that moved
Muir Woods is the most-searched day trip from San Francisco and the one the internet gets most wrong, because the access system changed and most articles did not. There are three separate charges, and conflating them is how families end up turned away at a full car park.
- Charge one: the vehicle parking reservation, 10 dollars per standard car at gomuirwoods.com, with a 30-minute arrival window. Summer weekends sell out inside the 90-day booking window.
- Charge two, the alternative to one: the shuttle, 4 dollars round trip for anyone 16 and over, free under 16 with a reservation still required. It departs from Larkspur Ferry Terminal only, Friday to Sunday and federal holidays, early spring through September plus October weekends. The Sausalito ferry-plus-shuttle combination described by most guides ended years ago.
- Charge three, always: the park entrance fee, 15 dollars per person 16 and over, free below that, covered by the America the Beautiful pass. It never sells out and is the one part you cannot be locked out of.
- The car-free weekday version: Marin Transit's Route 61 stops at Panoramic and Bayview, a mile's downhill walk above the visitor centre, for 2 dollars. Real, but a hike with children.
- No phone signal exists in the valley, so download reservations, tickets and maps before crossing the bridge.
Day trips from San Francisco: FAQ
The questions travelers ask most when planning day trips from here.
Staying in San Francisco?
Most of these trips leave from the Ferry Building or a downtown station, so where you sleep decides how early the day starts. The family hotel guide ranks the wharf, the Marina motor inns and downtown by what they actually charge once the amenity fees surface.
- Free cancellation on most rooms
- No booking fee
- Prices on Trip.com
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Photo credits (11)
Photos via Wikimedia Commons, used under their respective licences.
- Muir Woods: Mike McBey - CC BY 2.0 · source
- Sausalito: TheTokl - CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
- Tiburon and Angel Island: Taras Bobrovytsky - CC0 · source
- Napa Valley: Frank Schulenburg - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
- Sonoma: Cory Maylett - CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
- Half Moon Bay: Yelderberry - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
- Point Reyes: Tobias Kleinlercher / Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
- Monterey and Carmel: Laurens R. Krol - CC BY 4.0 · source
- Santa Cruz: dconvertini - CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
- Berkeley: 4300streetcar - CC BY 4.0 · source
- Filoli: GualdimG - CC BY-SA 4.0 · source