While my husband spent the entire drive trying to tone down my expectations of San Fransisco, I couldn’t help but ooze with excitement to visit the city of fog. Being that I’m from Seattle, that description alone should lower my expectations. But I’m glad I didn’t let him damper my mood. And he would tell you that he was thankful I pressured him a bit. He didn’t have a high opinion about SF in general based off of his previous visits. I guess you can say that seeing it through my eyes (and the kids) changed his tune a bit.

While my idea of visiting a new place is flying by the seat of your pants, my husband insisted that SF was too “busy” of a city to not have a plan. He requested that I sit down and make my bucket list so that we could have some resemblance of a plan and cross off as many of those as possible. You’ve seen my entire SF Bucket List, but we obviously had to narrow it down a little more due to our limited amount of time. We had to find a balance between what was most important to me…us…and what would be enjoyable for the kids.

Thankfully, they are huge Full House/Fuller House fans.

It should come as no huge surprise that the first place I dragged them to was Alamo Square. Infamous for it’s Painted Ladies, and opening scene in Full House (picnic at the park, anyone?).

This park was the perfect mix of sight seeing and play. Up on a hill, this park is literally a square, surrounded by the stunning architecture of the colorful Victorian homes that SF is known for. And perched on Hayes Street, are the stunning Painted Ladies. We had to google why they were called that! It was kind of a fun history lesson for all of us.

Alamo Square also had a playground, surrounded by picnic tables. The kids enjoyed running wild and climbing everything in sight, especially after the long drive. It would have been the perfect spot for a lunch break, but we had more to see and none of us were exactly hungry.

I will say…I am glad that I was warned about the dogs, given I’m not much of an animal person. On one half of the park, dogs are not required to be on leash. It’s just good to have a heads up when you have kids, although we didn’t run into any issues.

Have you ever visited Alamo Square? What was your experience like?

Interested in more sight seeing in San Fransisco? Keep track of all our SF adventures, as I link back to our BUCKET LIST.