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Get Outside: Free Self-Guided Audio Tours of The Bay

Explore The Bay’s best outdoor sights in peace w/ free self-guided audio tours
By - posted 3/15/2020 No Comment

You don’t need a group or a tour guide to tour some of the Bay Area’s most beloved sights. Grab your phone, head outdoors, and explore in peace on a free self-guided tour.

Learn more about SF’s beloved Lands End Lookout or the historic Fort Point from the National Park Service‘s free audio tours. Or hit the trails and hike the San Francisco Bay Trail with TV host Doug McConnell as your personal guide along one of his free 12 interactive smartphone audio tours.

National Park Service Free Digital Tours

The National Park Service offers free digital tours of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Fort Point

Listen to a slice of life at Fort Point in the post Civil War days. An unidentified private tells about his day. You can download the digital files below to play back on your own MP3 player, smart phone, or other digital audio device.

After it has downloaded, extract the files in your file browser:

Point Bonita Lighthouse

Point Bonita is a historical site on the edge, where the land meets the water, and where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean. You can download the digital files below to play back on your own MP3 player, smart phone, or other digital audio device at the Point Bonita Lighthouse. This version is higher quality audio then is available from the call in version of the tour.

Lands End Lookout

This new 4,150-square-foot visitor center above the ruins of the Sutro Baths opened in May 2012. Learn about the natural and cultural history of the area, and hike the nearby trails along the coast and up into the nearby Sutro Heights gardens.

Presidio Philippine War

The period of the Philippine-American War was one of the busiest in the history of the Presidio. Virtually every soldier who fought there embarked from here, and came home the same way. The tour takes about 1 1/2 hours, and covers app. 2 1/2 miles. There is a map and recorded audio for you to download to an MP3 player, smart phone, or other digital audio device.

Fort Baker

Two Audio Tour routes are available at Fort Baker:

1. A three-mile moderate walking tour with 18 stops.

2. A 3/4-mile route around the Fort Baker parade ground with 10 stops, plus five additional stops that can be listened to from your car.

Follow the guide and look for the small signs indicating a stop. Call 415-375-8281 and enter the tour stop number and then # (pound sign) to hear 1 – 2 minute audio segments. You can also call into the tour from home or any location.

Download All Fort Baker Audio Tour Stops: Accessible Audio Tour MP3 [14.3 MB] Zip File

San Francisco Bay Trail Audio Tours

A creative partnership between the San Francisco Bay Trail Project, the State Coastal Conservancy, Vizzit and popular local TV host and outdoor enthusiast Doug McConnell has resulted in an award-winning collection of 12 free curated smartphone audio tours along sections of the Bay Trail throughout the region. These tours offer an interactive way for the public to learn about and engage with their environment while walking along the Bay Trail. The team worked closely with local historians, shoreline managers and scientists to develop the content. 

Here’s how it works:

First, download Vizzit Places in the App Store or in Android. Then select your tour location. Now you’re ready to explore with your own tour guide. Driven by GPS, the app detects your location and delivers site-specific content as you make your way along the trail.

Flying High at a Historic Airfield in Novato

-Directions-

Easy Hike, 2 Miles
60 Minute Audio Tour

Enjoy a stroll along Bay Trail and immerse yourself in breathtaking scenery and the stories of our military history at this former airfield that now serves fliers of different kind.
Learn more

Richmond Home Front Heroes–Rosie the Riveter

-Directions-

Easy Hike, 2 Miles
60 Minute Audio Tour

Take this easy, beautiful stroll and hear stories about the many contributions made by the civilian women and men who served their country on the home front during the war between 1941 and 1945.
Learn more

Nature Reclaiming its Place

Alviso (San Jose)
-Directions-

Moderate Hike, 4.5 Miles
120 Minute Audio Tour

Take a walk through thousands of years of history and hear what the shoreline of the San Francisco
Bay may once have looked like, and how it’s evolved over the years.
Learn more

Nature’s New Lease on Life

American Canyon
-Directions-

Moderate Hike, 3 Miles
90 Minute Audio Tour

Enjoy restored marshlands, sweeping vistas, glass beaches, and learn about failures of the past and promises for the future.
Learn more

Golden Gate Promenade

San Francisco
-Directions-

Easy Hike, 3 Miles
90 Minute Audio Tour

Crissy Field offers a stunningly beautiful walk along the edge of the bay through a fabled former Army base in what is now America’s most visited national park.
Learn more

The Three Bairs

Bair Island, Redwood City
-Directions-

Easy Hike, 3 Miles
90 Minute Audio Tour

Bair Island is an increasingly wild kingdom and gateway to nature–come see marshes and nature evolve and expand before your eyes.
Learn more

Race Against Sea Level Rise

Sears Point
-Directions-

Moderate Hike, 5 Miles
180 Minute Audio Tour

The Sears Point wetland restoration project is transforming a former diked hayfield into a marshland teeming with life. Learn the how, why and what of this amazing landscape in transition.
Learn more

The Shoreline at Mountain View

-Directions-

Easy Hike, 4 Miles
90 Minute Audio Tour

Made possible through a Resilient Silicon Valley grant from Google, this tour guides you from Google’s campus to Shoreline at Mountain View and the edge of the bay.
Learn more

Benicia by the Bay

Benicia
-Directions-

Moderate Hike, 3 Miles
40 Minute Audio Tour

Loved by cyclists, runners, equestrians, birders, fishers and picnickers, the Benicia State Recreation Area covers marsh, grassy hillsides and rocky beaches along the narrowest portion of the Carquinez Strait
Learn more

Aviation History & Nature

Sunnyvale
-Directions-

Easy Hike, 4 Miles
90 Minute Audio Tour

Walking north along the water’s edge towards Mountain View, see nature thriving, birds galore, and get behind the scenes of historic Moffett Field and its surroundings, which have played remarkable roles in America’s aeronautical and technological history for nearly a century.
Learn more

Return of the Wetlands

Novato
-Directions-

Easy Hike, 2 Miles
60 Minute Audio Tour

On this tour we’ll see first-hand how nature is starting to reclaim its home on the Bay after serving as a military airfield during World War II.
Learn more

Birth of the Bay Trail

Hayward
-Directions-

Easy Hike, 2 Miles
75 Minute Audio Tour

This is the birthplace of the 500-mile San Francisco Bay Trail that will eventually entirely circumnavigate the Bay and be 500 miles long. Listen to the Bay Trail origin story!
Learn more