Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Free Days
The major museums offer free admission for 1 day once every 30 days or so. So if
you want to save, the best time to hit San Francisco is the first week of the
month.
California Academy of Sciences
Free every first Wednesday of each month. Third
Thursday of the month, $5, plus a cash bar. As the museum puts it, it's when
“clownfish, coral, and cocktails converge.”
de Young
Free first Tuesday of each month.
Exploratorium
Free first Wednesday of each month.
SFMOMA
Free first Tuesday of each month; Half-Price Thursdays ($6.25 adults)
6-9pm.
Asian Art Museum
Free first Sunday of every month; $5 Thursdays 5-9pm.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Free first Tuesday of each month.
Legion of Honor
Free first Tuesday of each month.
San Francisco Zoo
Free first Wednesday of each month.
Conservatory of Flowers
Free first Tuesday of each month.
Cartoon Art Museum
First Tuesday of each month “Pay What You Wish Day.”
The Chinese Historical Society of America Museum and Learning Center
Free
first Thursday of each month.
San Francisco Cable Car Museum
Always free.
Wells Fargo Museum
Always free.
The
California Academy of Sciences
9
555
(Golden Gate Park; www.cal
academy.org; $10 adults; $6.50 seniors 65 and over, kids 12-17, and students; $2
kids 4-11),
more than 150 years old, has moved its 38,000-odd animals and 20
million specimens to a lavish custom-built facility in Golden Gate Park, within
sight of the equally impressive de Young museum. The $484-million, 410,000-
square-foot museum was scheduled to open in September 2008, too late to be
reviewed for this guide, but expect a top-flight celebration of all things natural in
the West. That mandate spans animals, geology, and the aspect it's best known for,
a 220,000-gallon Steinhart Aquarium complex with live fish, sea turtles, pen-
guins, and one of America's largest tanks of live coral. This beautiful new home,
which includes a rainforest with free-flying birds, is one of the largest “green”
buildings in the world, in more ways than one; its roof is a gently undulating,
2
1
⁄
2
-acre planter that's lined with tiles made of coconut husks.
