Discover Sausalito: Marin County’s Most Picturesque Coastal Town

Since Sausalito residents Lloyd Smalley, Paul Maxwell, and Pat Arrigoni founded the Marine Mammal Center in 1975, they have rescued more than 20,000 marine mammals. The center is a non-profit private organization established to rescue and rehabilitate marine mammals and provide education on marine mammals and related research facilities. Their work includes whales, dolphins, seals, Pacific harbor seals, northern elephant seals, sea lions, and fur seals. Animals they deal with are pups abandoned or separated from their mothers or those found injured or ill. Animals brought to the center receive veterinary care, treatment, rehabilitation and, if possible, release into their natural environment.

2000 Bunker Rd, Sausalito, CA 94965, Phone: 415-289-7325

Located north of San Francisco, Muir Woods National Monument is part of California’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area. What makes Muir Woods so well known are its old-growth magnificent, towering redwood trees. As if meandering through fairytale tunnels, trails run between the trees along Redwood Creek, from Cathedral Grove to Bohemian Grove. For the best views of the treetops, Mount Tamalpais, and the Pacific Ocean, take the Dipsea and Ben Johnson trails, which climb up a steep hillside. The woods, which have been used throughout history starting with the Coast Miwok people, have been declared a National Monument to ensure their protection.

1 Muir Woods Rd, Mill Valley, CA 94941, Phone: 415-388-2595

Completed in 1897, Battery Spencer is a concrete gun battery located on Fort Baker at Lime Point with fantastic views of the Golden Gate Bridge and entire San Francisco. It is located high up on the top of the Marin Headlands, about eye-level with the Golden Gate Bridge’s north tower. When it was constructed, Battery Spencer was a very important site guarding the Golden Gate. Originally, it had three M1888 12-inch rifles mounted on M1892 barbette mounts. One gun was removed in 1917 and the other two in 1943, when the battery was deactivated. Today, the battery is a popular tourist spot, both for its historic role as well as the great views.

Conzelman Rd, Sausalito, CA 94965, Phone: 415-561-4700

Located in Sausalito, on national park land at the foot of the soaring Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Area Discovery Museum fires up the imagination with seven exhibition rooms and six or more drop-in monthly programs for kids aged 6 months to 10 years. The children learn about such concepts as gravity, laws of motion, friction, and much more. All activities are hands-on and interactive and let the children use all kinds of tools and technology at the Fab Lab Open Studio programs, designed according to their age. There are also the Art Studios, Discovery Hall, Bay Hall, Lookout Cove, and Tot Spot. Through hands-on activities, children explore and develop creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. The Bay Area Discovery Museum, which has both indoor and outdoor spaces, is the only children's museum located inside a national park.

557 McReynolds Rd, Sausalito, CA 94965, Phone: 415-339-3900

Attractions for Couples

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model is a working scale hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta located in Sausalito, California. The bay model is located in the visitor center in Sausalito, an education center managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and is fully accessible to the public. The purpose of the model is to provide scientists, visitors, and educators interested in San Francisco Bay with a fascinating opportunity to see the entire bay-delta system in one place. Group tours are welcome and can be guided depending on their technical level. The bay model is fully operational, but it is not used any more for scientific research but rather for general public and educational courses about Bay hydrology.

2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965, 415-289-3007

Since 1995, a life-sized beautiful bronze sculpture of a horse located in the pasture in Tiburon, near San Francisco, has attracted the attention of visitors curious about the horse’s story. This story is a part of local history and lore, a story of the love for a horse that lived in that same pasture for 28 years. In his youth, Blackie was a cavalry horse stabled at the Presidio. Every spring the horse would patrol Yosemite National Park with the cavalry, returning to the pasture in the Presidio during the winter. After his retirement he became a rodeo horse for a while and then finally retired completely to the pasture, which by then had become known as Blackie's Pasture. He was visited daily by his owner and local kids until he died. In 1995, thanks to a gift by the family of Tiburon’s first mayor Gordon Strawbridge, the sculpture, created by the renowned Bay Area artist Albert Guibara, was placed in Blackie’s favorite pasture.

Tiburon Blvd, Tiburon, CA 94920, Phone: 415-499-6387

Owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the PS China, a side-wheel steamer also rigged for sail, spent its life carrying the mail between San Francisco and Far East destinations such as Hong Kong and Yokohama. When it was decommissioned after only 30 round trips, the ship was sold for scrap metal but its most beautiful part, the luxury Victorian saloon, was removed and taken to shore to be set on pilings on the Belvedere waterfront and used as a weekend home. This unique structure was named the China Cabin by the locals and is recognized as a National Maritime Monument. The Belvedere-Tiburon Landmark Society restored it and returned it to its original splendor with intricate walnut woodwork, floral etched-glass windows, brass chandeliers, painted wood panels with real gold leaf, and original period furniture. Today, besides being a tourist attraction, the China Cabin is used for weddings, reunions, meetings, and private parties and celebrations.

52 Beach Rd, Belvedere Tiburon, CA 94920, Phone: 415-435-1853

Mathew Turner Educational Tall Ship is an educational project run by Call of the Sea, a Sausalito educational nonprofit organization that serves Bay Area youth by cultivating environmental stewardship and celebrating maritime tradition and history. For the last ten years, they have been running shipboard programs aboard their schooner Seaward, having served almost 15,000 local high school students. Today, with the tall ship Matthew Turner, they are building a floating foundation for experiential youth education by building a copy of the historical wooden tall ship in a totally innovative way and with the help of local volunteers and donors. Once completed, the ship will take hundreds of local young people on a trip of discovery and learning. The Matthew Turner will be a brigantine with two masts and will be 100 feet long, and will be the first large wooden ship built in the San Francisco Bay Area in almost 100 years.

2330 Marinship Way, Sausalito, CA 94965, Phone: 415-886-4973

Unique Attractions

A part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Fort Cronkhite is a former army post and part of the coastal artillery that defended the San Francisco Bay Area in WWII. The soldiers stationed at Cronkhite managed radar sites, gun batteries, and other fort installations placed on the ridges above the fort. Fort Cronkhite is today a part of the Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is managed by the National Park Service. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are walking tours of the army buildings, but some of the buildings are now used by non-profit groups for their offices and are not accessible to the general public. Visitors can enjoy hiking the trails around the fort, and Rodeo Beach, known for great surfing, is also nearby.

Marin Headlands, Sausalito, CA 94965

San Francisco is no stranger to eccentric colorful communities and the Gates Co-op Houseboat Community fits right in. It is located in Sausalito’s Richardson Bay and consists of a bunch of houseboats that range from a pirate ship to a home built on a WWII tug. The community is surrounded by a very different kind of “floating homes,” luxury floating palaces protected by locked gates. Gates Coop is the last remnant of a once thriving community of hippies, artists, musicians, and other “free-thinking” bohemians who lived in colorful floating houses of all kinds. The late 60s brought an end to the famous week-long parties the community was famous for, and after what was known as the “water wars,” many house boats were cut off from the dock for the violation of various codes. The 38 floating houses that still exist are all that is left and the age of both residents and the boats, the law, and changing times mean that the community’s days are numbered.

Gate 6, Sausalito, CA 94965