The Best Free Morning Walk in SF? Get Into This Botanical Garden Before 9 AM
Fog in the redwoods, empty paths, and a garden that is quietest in its first ninety minutes, when nobody pays to walk in.
🌫️ Ninety Minutes, No Ticket
Fog does most of the decorating here before the city is properly awake. It hangs in the tops of a century-old redwood grove, settles over the Andean Cloud Forest, and turns the paths into corridors of wet leaves and quiet. The Garden opens at 7:30, and from then until 9 entry is free for every visitor, with no residency check and no ticket to buy.
Use the Main Gate at 1199 9th Avenue. The Friend (North) Gate does not open until 9, so the early hour belongs to this one entrance. By 7:45 be in the Cloud Forest and the redwood grove, where the mist is still caught in the canopy, then take the long loop past the Great Meadow and the California native garden while there is nobody to walk behind.
Enter before 9 AM for free, then enjoy the garden at your own pace during opening hours. When the fog lifts, walk back out for coffee on the way to work. One seasonal note: from the first Sunday in November through January the last entry is 4 p.m., and the gate closes an hour after that. Free entry also comes back on the second Tuesday of every month, and on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
