California Academy of Sciences

The California Academy of Sciences is a museum with more than 150 years of history, created with the intention to explore, explain and protect the natural world.

It is a very complete museum having a planetarium, a natural history museum and an aquarium.

California Academy of Sciences

California Academy of Sciences, Steinhart Aquarium

The museum by parts

• Steinhart Aquarium: it has more than 38,000 living animals from all over the world, including fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects and other invertebrates. One of visitors' favorites is the albino crocodile.
• Morrison Planetarium: it is the largest digital planetarium in the world. In it you will be able to travel through time and space to learn about the dramatic experience of a stars’ life and death.
• Kimball Museum of Natural History: it has important exhibitions about the evolution of life on Earth and its conservation. Enormous skeletons are shown like that of a tyrannosaurus rex or a large blue whale.
• Rainforest: in here more than 1,600 animals live together. In this environment, which was perfectly created, birds, butterflies, amphibians, bats and exotic reptiles live together.

The academy suffered some mishaps in the past when the earthquake of 1906 practically destroyed the entire museum and it had to be rebuilt. In 1916 it was moved to the building in which it is now located, in the heart of the Golden Gate Park, just across from the de Young Museum.

A good place to visit with children

Children and adults will be enchanted by this natural history museum. The exhibitions are very interesting, above all the rain forest area that is perfectly recreated.

You could say that the aquarium at the Academy of Sciences is significantly better than the Aquarium of the Bay, although the second has a longer history.

Location

55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park.

When to visit

Monday - Saturday: 9.30am to 5pm.
Sunday: 11am to 5pm.

Fares

Adult: $29.95.
Senior (ages 65 and over): $24.95.
Student: $24.95.
Youth (ages 12-17): $24.95.
Child (ages 4-11): $19.95.
Ages 3 and under: Free.

Transport

Bus: lines 5 and 44.
Muni Metro: N-Judah (stops at 9th Avenue).

Map

Hotels nearby

• 
  Geary Parkway Motel
  (a 1.28 km )
• 
  Monte Cristo
  (a 2.52 km )
• 
  Laurel Inn
  (a 2.63 km )
• 
  Luxury Castro Vacation Rentals
  (a 2.72 km )