San Francisco — By Katrina Verweel on October 31, 2009 at 12:07 pm

Golden Gate Park

You think Central Park is impressive? Well just wait until you experience Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It is a huge picturesque park with much to do, and it is 20% bigger than Central Park. This park used to consist mainly of sand dunes before it was transformed into an impressive park full of more than one million trees. Also did you know that Golden Gate Park is bison friendly?

Back in 1870, there was a notion that San Francisco would eventually get very crowded which is when the park area was created. This is a haven where San Franciscans can escape to, with over 75,000 on average visiting the park on weekends. Still to this day, the park has kept to its original theme: a place to play, a place to relax, and a place to grow culturally.

Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park

The new de Young museum has brought many visitors to Golden Gate Park after its opening in 2005. It opened sixteen years after the old museum was destroyed in an earthquake and the area became a seismic hazard zone. The first two floors of the museum feature art from America, Africa, as well as American Indian art, New Guinea, Maori, and Filipino. Special exhibitions from Egypt are also always on display.

The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum has been in the park since 1937. The impressive botanical gardens span over 70 acres and contains over 6,000 plant species. Daily-guided tours are available free at 1:30 pm.

There are also many things you can do in the park on your own. An archery field is located in the park with equipment available to rent. Highly competitive and entertaining basketball games are always going on at the basketball courts and miles of paved trails are available to you if you want to tackle the entire park on your rollerblades or your bike. There is even a nine-hole public golf course in the park and 21 tennis courts. This is only a short list of the many things you can do in the park. There are a few lakes in the park where people can go fly-fishing, or rent a paddleboat or a rowboat.