I thought it would be fun if Alanis and I documented our thoughts on every public park in San Francisco and ranked them. For those which we have already visited, we must visit them again, pay close attention to how much we like them, and discuss. We'll take a selfie of each one for thumbnails for the tier list. Each of us will grade the park on a scale of 0-100 and use the average to determine the letter grade. S-rank will be reserved for when we both agree the park deserves it. We are updating this as we go rather than completing it all at once. Below you can find a summary of our thoughts on each included park.
This one is pure magic. On a large hill offering great views of the city skyline, there are never bad vibes to be found here. There are palm trees, the warmer weather of the Mission District's microclimate, and a college campus feel of young people having fun. Great people-watching, great dog-watching, an immense amount of space, many places to sit down. We met a dog here named Captain who we love very much. On an especially busy weekend day, there will be people walking around selling ice cream, beer, weed, and shrooms. I was very surprised to see that we arrived at San Francisco. This is a strong contender for best park in the city, easily.
Salesforce ParkThis is a very impressive park built on top of the city's main transit center. It feels insanely well-designed; With a great selection of plant life, it's kind of a botanical garden as well. There is a ton of space up here, and probably fewer people here than planned, which affords a lot of breathing room. There is a beer garden with a variety of interesting beers and pizza. One of the coolest things here is a series of fountains that shoot water when buses in the transit center below drive by and activate them.
Hyde/Vallejo Mini-ParkThis one really surprised us. We were walking back home after getting some ice cream when we discovered this place. It's super tiny but has a lot of trees and plants, seating options, and is a beautiful place to enjoy ice cream from Swensen's near by. The cable car stops here as well. There are also these ancient looking pig decorations. Where did they come from?! The pigs and the somewhat hidden nature of this one charmed us very much, so we both agreed this should be the first S-tier park we add.
At Land's End, you have beautiful scenery and long coastal trails. This is less of an urban park and more of a large nature preserve. Land's End offers breathtaking views of the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean, and is famously home to the ruins of the Sutro Baths. We found that this one was difficult to rank, due to being different from other included parks. It's an S-rank trail to be certain, but it's not great as a park in the traditional sense. With that said, it's not really trying to be an urban park, so we will put it in the A tier for now.
We saw fireworks here on fourth of July 2024 and had a lovely time. It also was probably the first park in the city we visited, as it was across from the first apartment we toured. It's very nice and well-maintained, it's newer so it feels modern, it has great views of the bay as well. There's also a verticality to it that makes it unique. There's nothing really wrong with this one, it just doesn't have anything insanely special to put it any higher.
Huntington ParkThis is pretty much your classic urban park. It's well-designed and very scenic. It's not large, but the space is well-used. There is plenty of seating, plenty of shade, plenty of green. There are really nice fountains to look at here. If you like looking at dogs, this is a great spot to do that. It's also accessible via the cable car - California line, which is amazing. A couple of downsides here - there's no restroom, even though there's a building that looks like it would be a restroom. There's also a very sad-looking playground that simply looks like no fun.