Welcome back to Condo Weekly’s lifestyle column! We provide you with useful insider tips on getting the most out of your city: in this case, San Francisco and the Bay Area. This week, one of our lifestyle columnists is covering a great spot for weekenders that combines cosmopolitan culture with outdoor activities: Golden Gate Park.

Golden Gate Park is often compared to Central Park in New York City. However, based on the fact that Golden Gate Park is 20% larger than New York’s famous urban greenspace, maybe it should be the other way around. At three miles long, this natural oasis will take you about an hour to walk from one end to the other, according to google maps. Why would a city with such valuable real estate dedicate so much space to nature? A sunny climate year-round means that Californians value any opportunity to spend time outdoors. Not only is this park ideal for activities like picnicking, hiking, running, and golfing, but it’s also an epicenter of San Franciscan culture.

CW Pro Tip: Park under the Music Concourse

Golden Gate Park is large. There is a bus system solely dedicated to moving people around the park, if that tells you anything about the scale. You don’t have to trudge through fields and open spaces if you don’t want to. Most of the highlights (the De Young, the Academy of Sciences, the Japanese tea garden, Stow Lake) are located in one central area that’s a very short distance from the Music Concourse Parking Garage. This underground garage can be conveniently accessed from John F Kennedy Drive.

As far as parking goes, the Music Concourse can be relatively expensive ($6 an hour), but if you plan to walk around a museum for 4 hours, it can be worth it. A cheaper alternative is to park near the Botanical Garden on Martin Luther King Drive, but you’ll have to show up much earlier to snag one of the coveted spots.

CW Pro Tip: Go on the right days and times

Your experience at the attractions in the park can be dramatically affected by the day and time that you go. In addition, many of the prices for these attractions are variable and depend on the season or the day. For example, the California Academy of Sciences has a calendar of ticket prices for each day of the month (yes, the admission price changes daily) that you can access online. Though the variation is small (usually less than $7), there is a strong correlation between price and crowds.

CW Pro Tip: Tickets to the California Academy of Sciences cost more on days they anticipate a large crowd (law of supply and demand), so visiting on cheaper days both saves you money and the time it would take to navigate a heavily populated museum.

Both the California Academy and Sciences and the De Young close relatively early, around 5 pm. If you want to see the Planetarium Show at the California Academy, I recommend either going very late or very early. I was able to get in at 4:30 without having the special ticket they usually require, because it was the last show of the day

My Trip

I got to Golden Gate Park by car, but there are also buses that run through the park as well. As I mentioned earlier, if your primary goal is to visit the museums, the best parking space is under the Music Concourse. When I arrived on a Saturday in the early afternoon, there were plenty of open parking spaces, so I opted for the lot designated for the De Young, which was closer to the entrance.

I hiked up the stairs to the Music Concourse (you pay with your ticket once you leave). This open-air park area reminded me of the gardens near the Louvre, but was much smaller. The trees and shrubs were organized geometrically, and there was a fountain in the center of the concourse surrounded by benches and ample seating areas. Plenty of couples and families were crossing this open plaza, located smack dab between the two museums. I noticed a few statues of historical figures scattered around the edges, which definitely added to the European feel.

Continuing with the garden theme, I headed over to the Japanese Tea Garden. It’s only a few blocks from the De Young Museum, though the entrance is slightly hidden. There was a group of teenage girls outside the entrance wearing colored wigs, sort of like in an anime. What else could you expect from a tea garden that is so distinctly Japanese?

It does cost money to enter the Tea Garden, but there is a discount for San Francisco residents. There are also slight variations in price depending on the season. I got in for $10, and spent at least 30 minutes traversing the carefully cultivated landscape. There were bridges, rivers, koi fish, even a forest. The entire area evoked a feeling of calm and serenity, despite the fact that there were hordes of people all trying to walk through the garden at the same time.

Some of the paths require you to step on stones to cross rivers, so I would not recommend heels. One of the landmarks you can’t miss is a very steep bridge. There was a line of people waiting to mount it and have their picture taken. It looks a little scary from the outset, but it’s essentially like climbing a ladder. You will definitely regret it if you see this bridge and don’t try to walk over it.

The Japanese Tea Garden also has a restaurant. I would call this eatery “light”, because it’s mostly tea, desserts, and soup. I had a Matcha Ice Cream Sandwich, and got to eat it inside a wooden open-air room that had great views of the garden.

If you’re looking for one more thing to do in the Japanese Tea Garden, I would recommend getting your fortune from the gift shop. The woman who gave me my fortune wasn’t very enthusiastic when I inquired about whether this was how they really told fortunes in Japan, but it only cost me $2, and it’s sort of an interactive process (you pick a series of numbered sticks and papers). They also sell a variety of items you might expect from a Japanese Tea Garden, like chopsticks and Buddha Statues.

My final outdoors activity before visiting the museums was Stow Lake, just a few blocks from the Japanese Tea Garden. This outdoor area is perfect for hiking, jogging, or walking, and it is chock full of natural beauty. There’s a trail running along the edge of the water, and an elevated hiking area on an island in its center. Maybe it was just the season, but there was an unusual number of ducks.

CW Pro Tip: If you like ducks, I recommend bringing some bread, like one of the couples I saw who got a picture with this unusually coifed bird.

If I had the opportunity to visit again, I would definitely recommend renting a paddleboat, which you can find at the Stow Lake Boathouse. Like the Tea Garden, you can also buy food and other gifts here. This includes a branded “Stow Lake” mug with a design so preppy (two crossed boat paddles) that you’ll question if you are even in San Francisco anymore. The lake is more like a moat that surrounds an island called Strawberry Hill, and these paddle boats are a great way to explore the area.

At this point, it was 3:00, and I realized that both the de Young and the California Academy of Sciences stop serving lunch at 3:30. I high tailed it to the de Young Cafe, which you can visit even if you don’t enter the museum. The layout of this corner of the building is akin to an upscale cafeteria, with a wall of refrigerated soft drinks and a menu of items like “Summer Squash and Corn Ravioli”, “Grilled Beer Sausage Sandwich” and “Green Grape Gazpacho”. According to their website, the menus are always changing because they are designed to pair with their special exhibits. I later learned that I ate a menu inspired by “Ed Hardy: Deeper than Skin.”

After eating lunch I went across the Music Concourse to the California Academy of Sciences building. This glass structure was completely rebuilt in 2008, and features a futuristic rooftop lawn that you can access via elevator. However, because I entered at 4:00 pm and the building closes at 5:00 pm, I only had time for the highlights. If you must see one thing at the California Academy of Sciences, I would have to recommend the Osher Rainforest Exhibit.

The Osher Rainforest Exhibit transports you to, as you may be able to guess, a rainforest. Like many of the attractions at the California Academy of Sciences, this exhibit is not just a series of plaques. The incredibly interactive multi-story structure allows you to touch and smell the exotic plants of the Amazon, and also opens up the possibility of having a butterfly land on your hand. I and a group of fellow museum-goers were allowed to enter the sealed rainforest exhibit (they don’t want the butterflies to escape) and I walked the circular ramp from bottom to top. There are many opportunities to look out over the edge of a ramp and see fish, birds, and other exotic animals. You are definitely advised not to touch the butterflies, but I can guarantee you there will be times when you want to, because they are everywhere.

When I exited the Rainforest Exhibit (you leave from the top floor) I was able to take an elevator directly down to the next must-see - the Aquarium. The Aquarium is located directly under the Rainforest exhibit, which means that all the fish you just saw from a three-story height are now swimming directly above you. You, or any child you are with, will definitely want to put your hand to the glass and pretend you are touching a fish. It’s human nature.

The rest of the Aquarium also includes a Discovery Tidepool, where children (and unself-conscious adults) can touch starfish and other creatures that are native to the tidepools of California. There’s also a very large aquarium area which is designed sort of like an amphitheater. The lack of light makes the glow of these exhibits all the more enchanting.

The final must-see at the California Academy of Sciences is the Morrison Planetarium. I took a trip through the Solar System with the help of an immersive domed screen. Unlike other Planetariums that play pre-recorded video, the show is live (the narrator asks the audience questions) and the images in the Morrison Planetarium are incredibly up to date. Our guide showed us an image of the earth that was taken the day before. The show is 20-30 minutes in length, and the room feels a bit like a college lecture hall.

When I left the show, it was closing time (5:00), though the gift shop was slated to stay open a while longer. The primary benefit of parking under the Music Concourse is that it is incredibly easy to leave the park at a moment’s notice. Exiting the structure will take you directly out onto the street.

This covers part 1 of our series on Golden Gate Park. We’ll have a followup edition shortly! Stay tuned, CW readers.