6 Best Sights in Sausalito, The Bay Area

One of the Bay Area's most unique attractions is a model of itself. It's a giant—over an acre—hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay–San Joaquin River Delta (Sacramento area) watershed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, demonstrating how Sierra Nevada snow eventually ends up in the bay. For visitors and tourists alike, it's a fascinating place to learn about one of the most complex, diverse environmental regions in the country.

This hospital for distressed, sick, and injured marine animals is a leading center for ocean conservancy in the Bay Area and the largest rehabilitation center of its kind in the world. Dedicated to pioneering education, rehabilitation, and research, the center is free and open to the public. Tour the facilities and see how elephant seals, sea lions, and pups are cared for and meet the scientists who care for them. Bonus: you'll catch some of the best views of the Marin Headlands and San Francisco Bay along the way.

There's an unusual historic landmark on the Sausalito Ferry Pier—a drinking fountain inscribed "Have a drink on Sally" in remembrance of Sally Stanford, the former San Francisco brothel madam who became Sausalito's mayor in the 1970s. Sassy Sally would have appreciated the fountain's eccentric attachment: a knee-level basin with the inscription "Have a drink on Leland," in memory of her beloved dog.

The landmark Plaza Viña del Mar, named for Sausalito's sister city in Chile, marks the center of town. Adjacent to the parking lot and ferry pier, the plaza is flanked by two 14-foot-tall statues of elephants, which were created for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition World's Fair held in San Francisco in 1915. A picture-perfect fountain here is great for people-watching.

Sitting on 7½ acres of national park land at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, this indoor-outdoor nonprofit children’s museum offers entertaining and enlightening hands-on exhibits for younger children. Kids can stretch their creativity and develop early STEM skills as they navigate wind tunnels, fish from a boat at the indoor wharf, configure oversized foam blocks in the Imagination Playground, and play outdoors among the tide pools, gravel pits, shipwrecks, and caves of Lookout Cove. At the multisensory Tot Spot, toddlers and preschoolers dress up in animal costumes and crawl through miniature tunnels.

This one-of-a-kind education center focuses on a sprawling 1½-acre model of the entire San Francisco Bay and Sacramento–San Joaquin River delta system, complete with flowing water. Now open for public exploration, the model has been used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reproduce the rise and fall of tides, the flow of currents, and the other physical forces at work on the bay.