Art Tour. Museums of San Francisco. Visits to De Young Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Legion of Honor, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, California Academy of Natural Sciences.

About the website
Press Clippings
Client Log-in
Passport information
(from U.S. State Dept)

Trip Evaluation

Walking Softly Live!
John Osaki's Blog
Amy Osaki's Blog

Facade of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

This trip (or a modification thereof) may be booked as a private departure for your group of friends, family or colleagues.

Best time to travel: Year round
Best gateway city: San Francisco, California

Set off on a three-day/two-night art adventure to San Francisco. Journey to the City by the Bay for a cultural feast visiting ten cultural sites in three days. Enjoy art created over a six thousand year period in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Visit newly renovated or newly built museums to compare and contrast the elements of successful museum architecture. Experience innovative ways to learn about art across the ages and through many different stylistic periods. Behind the scenes visits with museum staff, visits to private collections, galleries, artist studios, or optional evening concerts and performances enhance your experience. Finally, revel in the holiday spirit and enjoy the thousands of lights which will be illuminating the Embarcadero and Huntington Park on Nob Hill!

Day 1
Overnight in San Francisco
Transfer from the airport to your hotel before setting off for a visit to the Museum of the Legion of Honor dedicated by Alma Spreckles in 1924 less than two decades before she helped with the completion of the Maryhill Museum of Art. Enjoy lunch at the museum and tour the extraordinary permanent collection of Rodin sculptures, paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau, de la Tour, Vigée Le Brun, Cézanne, Monet, and Picasso, and masterpieces of European decorative arts. Continue to the newest and largest cultural attraction in San Francisco, the California Academy of Sciences, with its innovative meadow-covered roof and fascinating exhibitions all housed in a masterpiece of sustainable architecture designed by Renzo Piano. Stay for the optional evening program, NightLife, for an experience of the California Academy of Sciences after dark.

Rodin's "The Thinker," in the courtyard of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco. This image is not copyrighted and is in the public domain.
Auguste Rodin's The Thinker in the courtyard of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco.

Day 2
Overnight in San Francisco
Immerse yourself in a rich international medley of world cultures with visits to the Asian Art Museum (one of the largest museums in the western world devoted to Asian art, and reopened in 2003 after a superb renovation by Gae Aulenti architect of the new Musee d’Orsay in Paris), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (with the innovative Koret Visitor Education Center and cell phone tours of special exhibitions), and the vibrant Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where exhibitions of contemporary visual and performing arts celebrate the diversity of human experience and expression. Continue to the Zeum, a one-of-a-kind art and technology museum that caters to families.

The DeYoung Museum, San Francisco. This image is not copyrighted and is in the public domain.
The DeYoung Museum seen from the California Academy of Sciences.

Day 3
Afternoon departure from San Francisco
Today contrast three gardens with visits to the Hagiwara Japanese Tea Garden developed in 1894 (and where a 1916 court ruling confirmed that the first fortune cookie was created), the Conservatory of Flowers built in 1878 and lovingly restored as a tropical oasis with nearly two thousand species of plants, and the San Francisco Botanical Garden with over fifty acres and 7,500 varieties of plants. The crescendo experience is the new state-of-the art DeYoung Museum with its stunning exhibitions of American art, including masterworks by John Singleton Copley, Thomas Hart Benton, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keefe, Diego Rivera, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. Enjoy a special exhibition of Amish quilts. After lunch, travel directly to the airport for your departure.

Would you like to see a San Francisco trip back on our Trip Calendar? Please let us know:

Fields marked with (*) are required in order to submit this form.

Organize a San Francisco trip for your own private group. See our Private Trips page for more information.

Back to top

Walking Softly Home

Mountain Hiking Trips by Mountain Hiking Holidays