Notices for the Roundabout route:
1) If walking Section 2 of the Roundabout, please refer to the turn-by-turn directions below to detour around the recent closure of the northern entrance to India Basin Park.
2) If walking in the Fort Baker area, either on the Roundabout or the Crosstown, please note that until the federal shutdown is over, the gate on 25th Ave. North at the southern end of Baker Beach is locked. Please use Lincoln Ave. for your detour.
Navigation apps
With AllTrails and Google Maps, you can preview the route, download maps for offline use, and track your location on the trail in real time.
Maps
These detailed maps (courtesy of Pease Press) show complete street and trail names of the Roundabout:
Turn-by-turn directions
Turn-by-turn directions to follow on the trail with restroom information included. Available in both ‘web’ (best for computer or mobile phone use) and ‘PDF’ (best for printer) versions. Please note that directions are subject to construction and other temporary closures.
We introduced the Roundabout in October 2025. Explore it on your own, or join the guided walks planned for Crosstober 2025 by following the link below:
Crosstober 2025 guided walks
Trail overview
Section 1: Ferry Building to Heron’s Head Park
Start your Roundabout journey along San Francisco’s eastern waterfront at the Ferry Building, once the world’s second busiest transit hub (behind only London’s Charing Cross Station), and still a transit powerhouse (and foodie mecca). Carry south past old piers and colorful dives, through the still-emerging Mission Bay neighborhood, where the cheers of fans at the Giants’ ballpark and Warriors’ arena now ring louder than noise from offloading ships. Waterfront rehab continues at Bayfront Park (look for repurposed old Bay Bridge structural members outside the Warriors’ Chase Center), Crane Cove Park and Pier 70, where recreation and access to nature have replaced industry, a repeated theme on the eastern waterfront and throughout the Roundabout.
Section 2: Heron’s Head Park to Visitation Valley Greenway
Once a dump and landfill project for a never-built Pier 98, Heron’s Head Park now provides wetland and mudflats for the birds many come here to see; arrive by foot from the Ferry Building, or take the 44 O’Shaughnessy or 19 Polk Muni bus. See more transformation of wasteland to wonderful at India Basin Waterfront Park, where an 1870’s Victorian shipwright’s cottage, once a modest home to a wooden shipbuilder and family, is now reborn as a welcoming community center and mini museum. Stop for lunch at “The Food Pavilion”, the adjacent incubator kitchen for emerging chefs and host to community cooking classes, or try the charming Cafe Alma, where amazing origami mosaics from Lilli Lanier, Ruth Asawa’s granddaughter, have recently been featured on the walls. Amazing transformations continue at Hunters Point, where hundreds of housing units have been built and hilltop parks dot the route in this long neglected but now rising former shipyard, with many more homes to come. Candlestick Point State Recreation Area (familiar as the Crosstown Trail starting point) and “Little Hollywood” finish this section.
Section 3: Visitation Valley Greenway to Daly City BART
The Visitation Valley Greenway, a series of contiguous parks with greenhouses, a plaza, community garden and more, on old SF Water Department right-of-way, is perhaps the most beloved previously unknown gem on the Crosstown Trail; please come if you’ve never been, perhaps arriving by T Third St rail. Refresh with a stop in the plaza, perhaps with a coffee from neighboring Mission Blue cafe (where you can buy trail merch), then carry west towards busy Crocker Amazon Park, where you’ll be joined by countless neighborhood walkers, youth soccer and baseball players, pickleballers, and multiple groups practicing traditional Chinese dance. Cross south over Geneva Avenue and be amazed by the neighborhood landmark “Cow House”, where even the Little Library out front is topped by a cow. The trail continues to the west and through magical Cayuga Playground, another once-forgotten now-transformed space, largely the work of one man, longtime caretaker (and totem carver!) Demetrio Braceros. Waiting-to-be-discovered OMI (Ocean View, Merced Heights, Ingleside) comes next; look for retired SFFD Engine Company #33 along the trail; built in 1896 and now a private home, in 1921 it was the last SFFD station to give up horse-drawn wagons. Stop for coffee and homemade treats at the Blue House Cafe.
Section 4: Daly City BART to Lands End
Too many transit lines to list to and from this hub just outside of San Francisco’s southern border; take your pick! From the station, the trail heads west on John Daly Blvd., named for the dairy and businessman who donated land for homes following the 1906 quake and fire. Just before reaching Lake Merced (one of only three remaining natural lakes in San Francisco), look for the Broderick-Terry Duel Site, where former friends David Broderick, a US Senator, and David Terry, a CA Supreme Court Justice, disagreed and dueled over slavery. Broderick’s gun fired prematurely, Terry shot him, and Broderick died three days later. Their 1859 gun battle is considered the last major duel in US history; the site is a California Historical Landmark. The trail heads for and continues through dog walking mecca (and Double Cross end) Fort Funston, then north along the Pacific Ocean, through the new Sunset Dunes Park, billed as the “largest pedestrianization project in California’s history”. Work your way from the shore up to Sutro Heights Park, where engineer, philanthropist and former mayor Adolph Sutro lived. Sutro’s large property here (including the site of the Sutro Bath ruins) was just part of his San Francisco holdings; before his 1898 death, he owned 1/12 of the whole city.
Section 5: Lands End to Tunnel Tops
From the Lands End Visitor Lookout Center (accessed easily by the 38 Geary), take in the views and imagine what life might have been like long ago – in the early 20th century when the Sutro Baths were in their heyday, or even farther back, when native Yelamu Ohlone lived off the land, taking in shellfish, seabirds and marine mammals. Head out to the Point Lobos promontory, named for the “sea wolves” or sea lions that might still be seen from here. Trek east along the Coastal Trail, following the path of an old rail line that once brought visitors to Sutro’s baths. The trail continues past beautiful Sea Cliff homes, China Beach (named for the Gold Rush-era Chinese American fishermen who once worked here), Baker Beach, and up the notorious sand ladder. Views abound as you approach and pass under the Golden Gate Bridge, the bridge sometimes seeming to play peek-a-boo, momentarily passing from view through the trees or oft-present fog. This section finishes just past Crissy Field, which takes its name not for the grassy expanse it is now, but from the airfield it once was, from where Amelia Earhart flew in the 1930’s.
Section 6: Tunnel Tops to Ferry Building
Though this final section is likely the most familiar part of the Roundabout trail for both locals and visitors, we trust we’ve still found some new treasures to share with all. Open only since 2022 and still adding features, community-built Tunnel Tops Park (over 80% funded by public donations) is part of the former army base turned national park Presidio; access by free Presidio Go shuttle, Muni 30 and 43 lines and more. Continuing the Roundabout theme of transformation, the site of a utilitarian Golden Gate Bridge freeway connector is now a park and kids natural playscape connecting Crissy Field and the waterfront to the Presidio Main Post, and known for its sweeping views from the Golden Gate to Alcatraz and beyond. Head east from here along the waterfront and through the Marina District, former marshland transformed into a site for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, at which San Francisco showed off its recovery following the 1906 quake and fire. Bernard Maybeck’s magnificent Palace of Fine Arts is one of the few expo remnants; catch some photos as you pass.
Many may be familiar with the path through former Port of Embarkation Fort Mason (busiest during WWII, when it was the central hub for troops and supplies headed to the Pacific), but the Roundabout takes us off the familiar route, revealing little-known Black Point Battery, where cannons still look out to the bay, and the adjacent Black Point Historic Gardens, offering terrific views from the hillside terraced in the 1850’s, the gardens restored and reopened in 2021. The trail continues past Aquatic Park, historic Hyde Street Pier, and Fisherman’s Wharf. Along the way, stop in at the SF Maritime National Historical Park Visitors Center in a 1907 brick warehouse known as “The Cannery” (where, despite its location, 2,500 employees once canned fruits and vegetables, not fish, for Del Monte). The visitor center is a great free museum sharing SF’s maritime history (and has a handy clean bathroom!). The Fisherman’s and Seaman’s Memorial Chapel (a tribute to San Franciscans who have devoted their lives to the sea) and the Musée Mécanique at Pier 45 (filled with historic and not-so-historic arcade games and attractions), are other worthy stops. Finally, as you carry along towards the Ferry Building return, don’t miss the slight detour off the Embarcadero, (here named Herb Caen Way after the legendary and beloved former local newspaper columnist), to take in the Klamath Ferry rooftop gardens at Pier 9 (open weekdays and first Saturdays; the 1925 ferry once carried over 1,000 passengers at a time across the bay), and Pier 3 Promenade.