10 Best Hiking & Trails in San Francisco (Costs & Tips, 2026)

Shipwreck remains are still visible at low tide from parts of this coastal bluff trail, and the ruined Sutro Baths at the trailhead once housed the largest indoor swimming pool complex in the world before burning down in 1966. Completely free, and the Golden Gate Bridge view from the Eagle's Point overlook rivals anything you'd pay to see elsewhere in the city.

Locals just call it 'Mount Tam,' and on a clear day the 2,571-foot summit shows the entire Bay Area at once — San Francisco's skyline, the Farallon Islands out in the Pacific, and the Sierra Nevada on the eastern horizon. Around $8 for parking at the East Peak lot, about 45 minutes north across the Golden Gate Bridge.

The famous 'Dipsea steps' at the start in Mill Valley will test your legs before you've gone half a mile, and they've been humbling runners since 1905, when this became the oldest trail race in America — nearly 7 miles and nearly 700 stairs before the trail drops you onto Stinson Beach. Free to hike anytime outside race day.

A suspension bridge — the only one of its kind on the West Coast — leads out to a working 1855 lighthouse perched on a narrow finger of rock, with the Golden Gate Bridge visible behind you the entire walk out. Free, though the lighthouse itself only opens to visitors a few hours a week, so check the schedule before making the trip a lighthouse-specific one.

A ferry ride is required just to reach the trailhead, which already sets this apart from every other hike on this list — the island served as an immigration station, a Civil War fort, and a Nike missile site across its history, all of which the summit loop trail passes evidence of. The round-trip ferry from San Francisco runs $31 at the paper-ticket walk-up price, or $20 tapping a Clipper card or contactless bank card; the hike itself has no separate fee once you're on the island.

Yes, it's on every Bay Area itinerary ever written — the flat boardwalk loop through Cathedral Grove is still the right answer for a reason, winding beneath coast redwoods over 250 feet tall and roughly a thousand years old, accessible to almost anyone. The $15 entrance fee is separate from the mandatory advance reservation — $10 per vehicle for parking, or $4 per person for the shuttle — a two-charge system that catches a lot of first-time visitors off guard.

Abandoned coastal defense gun batteries from the early 1900s sit right along this trail, which winds down bluffs inside a former US Army post now folded entirely into the city's park system. Free, and it connects directly into the Golden Gate Bridge overlook at Fort Point, so it's easy to extend into a longer coastal walk.

Tule elk graze wild across this exposed peninsula trail, reintroduced here in the 1970s after being hunted to near-extinction in California — the elk reserve at the trail's far end is one of the few places left in the state to reliably see them in open grassland. Free, but it's about an hour and a half from the city, so plan this as the day's main destination rather than an add-on.

A genuine rocky canyon with a creek running through it, sitting almost entirely unnoticed in the middle of the city — most San Franciscans who've lived here for years have never been. Free, and the red-tailed hawks and coyotes that nest in the canyon walls make it feel far more remote than its actual location.

The city's second-largest park after Golden Gate Park, and yet most visitors — and plenty of residents — have never set foot in it, which keeps this 3.9-mile loop genuinely quiet even on weekends. Free, with philosophy-quote markers along the trail giving the route its name and a reason to actually stop and read something between the eucalyptus groves.