Tiburon To San Francisco Ferry

Great place for a day trip with options to bike around, hike or take a tour. Just a warning that the walking and hiking can be strenuous and a lot is uphill. Plenty of benches for picnics. There are some beaches that are nice to visit. The fort McDowell is pretty much a ghost town of old rotting buildings and not necessarily worth seeing. The immigration detention center is worth seeing it's $5 per person. You can rent bikes or e-bikes on the island. A lot of people bring their own bikes on the ferry. It's easiest to pay with a clipper card or just get your round trip ticket ahead of time. This is a good option for people visiting San Francisco and not being able to get out to a hiking spot. It can be cold or windy on most days so watch the forecast and I suggest not wearing only shorts and t shirt. There is a small cantina that sells limited food and drinks including beer. I recommend packing your own food I got something from the ferry building. It's a full day to visit so plan ahead!

A great day trip from San Francisco. It 's only accessible via ferry from which I took from Terminal B San Francisco Ferry building. The ferry ride gives you great views of both the San Francisco and Oakland City Skyline and both the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge. The ferry ride takes about 30 minutes or so. There is a general map of Angel Islands near the restroom area when you get there but no paper maps available. There are 2 trails, Perimeter and Sunset. I hiked the Sunset trail all the way to the end which is the top of Mount Livermore. There is shade, for the most part, during the hike although there 's no shade once you get near the top. The trail has nice views as you 're making your way through it and you 'll be rewarded with a great 360 degree view of the Bay Area once you get to the top. There are some historical buildings here as this used to be an immigration station and it was nicknamed Ellis Island of the West . I 'll be back for this though since I went on a Tuesday and that part of the island is only staffed from Thursday Sunday

Despite having grew up and spending the better part of my adult life in SF Bay Area, I have sadly never been to Angel Island until recently. Short of having your own boat or being a very fit (albeit slightly suicidal) swimmer, the only way to reach Angel Island would be via ferry from either SF or Tiburon. We opted for the Tiburon route, which proved to be the wise choice. As we had a lot less people to contend with vs the SF ferry, and parking at/near the pier in Tiburon was plentiful. Tickets cost $17.40 round trip for adults. Although originally utilized as a seasonal hunting and gathering location for indigenous peoples, Angel Island has been repurposed over the years for quite a few uses, many of which were tragically sad and a direct result of our countries past bigotry and racism. Some of its history includes an army fort and battery defense for WWI and WWII, a quarantine station for the bubonic plague, an immigration station, and nowadays, a state park with an active US Coast Guard lighthouse. While for most visitors (including us), Angel Island is just a day trip. But you can also book a reservation for a camp site to stay overnight. For the rest of us, you can opt to either hike, bike, or like us, book one of the tram tours that will take you from the pier to the former immigration center and back. The tram costs $18/adult, and most people will hop off at the immigration center to explore and ultimately walk back to the pier on foot.

My boyfriend surprised me with a wonderfully planned trip to Angel Island after doing an extensive amount of research on his own. We ended up taking the ferry at noon at the Tiburon location instead of the SF one. We left our car at a $5 all-day public parking lot a couple blocks down. It was approximately $18 round trip for the ferry itself and about $8 for the toll back over the Golden Gate Bridge. The ferry was a fun and gorgeous 10 minute ride. There's plenty of activities you could do on Angel Island and we were tempted to rent a bike or do a tour. My boyfriend planned for us to do the 5 mile hike to Mt. Livermore (roughly 2.5 hours). The forested portions of the hike had a lot of nettles that felt impossible to avoid because of the number and the narrowness of the path. There were also a few scattered poison oak towards the top of the island. I highly recommend avoiding shorts for this hike. Luckily, we soon forgot bout the nettles once we started getting glimpses of the 360 view of the bay. This was definitely one of my favorite hikes and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a mild/moderate challenge! The Tiburon Ferry departs Angel Island every 20 minutes past the hour, with the last being 5:20 pm. Our line was significantly shorter than the SF line, however, since the ferry arrives less frequently, we ended up leaving after everyone in the SF line had boarded and left.

We went with a group of ladies from the East Bay. What a terrific outing! Great ferry rides, tram tour and tour of immigration center and barracks. Such interesting history! Everyone had a fabulous time. Thank you!