Golden Gate Park Tours and Tickets

There are plenty of ways to experience Golden Gate Park. Looking at ratings and reviews previously given by customers, these are the best tours available right now: 

• San Francisco Love Tour

• Painted Ladies San Francisco City Tour

• GoCar San Francisco Tour

• Skip The Bus: San Francisco By Luxury Van Tour

• Vantigo–The Original San Francisco VW Bus Tour

While it’s free to visit the Golden Gate Park, many travelers choose to explore as part of a guided tour of San Francisco. Walking tours of Golden Gate Park start at US$35, you can rent a bike for around US$25, or go it alone with a self-guided audio tour from US$4.

Yes, Golden Gate Park is one of San Francisco's most popular parks—an urban oasis where locals and travelers gather to walk, bike, run, or stroll the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Learn about the park's many monuments on a guided walking or cycling tour, admire the floral displays at the Conservatory of Flowers and the Japanese Tea Garden, and keep a lookout for the resident bison and other wildlife.

Per one customer who booked the San Francisco Golden Gate Park Tour, "Ryan was a terrific guide. He was both a historian and a horticulturist. From the view at the top of the De Young Museum to the AIDS Memorial Garden to the Dahlia Gardens in full bloom, we covered many of the highlights of the beautiful park. Highly recommend a tour with him."

A half day is enough time to walk around Golden Gate Park. But, if you plan to also have lunch and visit gardens or museums—such as the California Academy of Sciences—it’s worth dedicating a day to this sizable park.

Start in de Young Café for a grab-and-go breakfast, and then stroll east through the Japanese Tea Garden to reach the Conservatory of Flowers. The California Academy of Sciences has sit-down lunch options that let you catch a breather before an afternoon at the Bison Paddock and Stow Lake.

No, visitors don’t need tickets to go to Golden Gate Park, although some attractions within the park are ticketed. If you visit in the busy periods (May–October and Thanksgiving–New Year), it’s best to buy tickets to the park’s popular California Academy of Sciences museum in advance.

If big means popular, then the California Academy of Sciences and the Conservatory of Flowers are the key attractions in Golden Gate Park. Other big attractions in terms of popularity and sheer size include the de Young Museum, filled with some of the city’s most interesting fine art.

Golden Gate Park covers more than 1,000 acres (412 hectares), but most people won’t plan to cover that during a visit. To make things easy on your legs, there are walking trails that link the key sites and bike trails for those who want to cover more ground.

There are tons of fun things to do when you're done visiting Golden Gate Park. According to travelers, these are some of the top attractions in San Francisco: 

• Alcatraz

• Golden Gate Bridge

• San Francisco Bay

• Bay Bridge

• Muir Woods

View Viator's guide to all the best attractions in San Francisco.