Dog Friendly San Francisco: Two Days With Three Small Dogs
Every dog friendly San Francisco guide I read before this trip was a list of fifteen places. Useful, sort of, but not the thing I actually wanted to know, which was whether three small dogs and two adults could get through a real day in the city without somebody having to sit in the car.
We did it twice, from a campground an hour north. Here is how the actual days went, including the stretch where we had to get the stroller out and the one meal the dogs skipped.
Quick Look
| Detail | What to know |
|---|---|
| Where we started | Westside Regional Park, Bodega Bay. About 55 miles, roughly 1 hour 15 minutes |
| The dogs | Three small dogs, one 14 years old and two 3 year olds |
| What we carried | Six foot leashes, a pet stroller, water, and one carrier bag |
| Bridge toll (2026) | Southbound only, into the city. $10.25 with FasTrak, $10.50 with a license plate account or one-time payment. No cash booths |
| Night one | Korean barbecue out on Geary, a straight shot from the bridge |
| Day two | Bridge, then Fisherman’s Wharf and the Embarcadero, then North Beach for dinner |
| Day three | Crissy Field East Beach on the way out of town |
| Best stop with dogs | Crissy Field. Grass, water, and the bridge behind you |
| Hardest stretch | The Embarcadero near Pier 39. Crowds, hard pavement, and the senior dog fading first |
| On the pier itself | PIER 39 asks visitors not to bring pets, service animals excepted |
| Dogs on Muni | Off-peak only, one pet per vehicle, leashed and muzzled or in a closed carrier, and the dog pays a fare equal to yours |
Dog friendly San Francisco from an hour away
We were not staying in the city. We were camped at Westside Regional Park up in Bodega Bay, which turns out to be one of the better setups I have stumbled into by accident.
It is about 55 miles to the Golden Gate Bridge, so a little over an hour in normal traffic. That means you can wake up to fog on a harbor, walk the dogs past fishing boats, drive into the city for the afternoon, and be back at your tent that night. Nobody has to find a hotel that takes three dogs, which if you have ever tried it, is most of the problem solved right there.
We did the drive twice in three days and never once regretted not staying downtown.
The bridge, the toll, and three dogs in the back seat
The toll surprises people, so here it is plainly. You only pay going south, into the city. Coming back north is free. There are no cash booths anymore, it is all electronic. As of 2026 it is $10.25 with a FasTrak transponder and $10.50 with a license plate account or a one-time payment. If you do not have an account, you drive across and pay online afterward.
As for the dogs, this is the part of the day they like best. All three ride in the back, and at least one of them spends the entire bridge crossing with her chin on the window edge. I have an absurd number of photos of two fluffy heads reflected in the side mirror with the towers going by behind them.
One practical thing: the wind coming through an open window on that bridge is no joke. We crack them, we do not roll them down. If you are still figuring out how to fit three dogs into one car for a long drive, our car camping with 3 dogs post has the mistakes we made so you do not have to.
Dinner in the city on our very first night
We checked into the campground in the afternoon and drove straight back out to the city for dinner. That sounds unhinged and it slightly was, but we go to Brothers Restaurant on Geary every single time we are anywhere near San Francisco, and anywhere near apparently now includes an hour and fifteen minutes each way.
It is Korean barbecue in the Inner Richmond, at 4128 Geary Blvd, and it is our place. Galbi on the grill in the middle of the table, a stew still bubbling when it lands, rice, and the whole row of side dishes. And here is the part I want to be clear about, because a lot of barbecue spots are only good at the meat. At Brothers the side dishes are as good as the galbi. The soup is as good as the galbi. Even the rice is right. That is rarer than it sounds and it is the reason we keep driving back.
I only have one photo of the whole meal, and it is not a good one, because we were starving by the time the food came out and nobody was in the mood to style a plate. That is the honest version.
We got back to the tent close to two in the morning and the dogs did not care even slightly, because they had slept the entire drive both directions. That tent had no power hookup and the nights were freezing, so I wrote up everything we learned about tent camping with dogs on that same trip.
If your trip has one non-negotiable meal in it, this is the argument for camping within range of a city instead of deep in the woods. You get the quiet and you get the restaurant.
Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 with small dogs
Let me be accurate about this, because most guides are not.
PIER 39’s own code of conduct asks visitors not to bring pets onto the pier, with service animals as the exception. People do it anyway, and nobody stopped us on the public walkways outside, but the pier itself is private property and that is their rule. Plan to see it rather than go into it.
What you can do, and what we did, is walk the Embarcadero and the open plaza area. Wide sidewalks, the marina full of boats, the sea lion sculptures, the observation wheel turning above everything. It is a great walk and it is completely free.
The crowds are the hard part, not the distance. Three small dogs on separate leashes in a moving crowd means somebody is always getting tangled or stepped toward. We ended up walking single file with my husband in front and me picking up the rear.
The ground is hot and hard. Brick, concrete, and no grass for blocks. If it is warm, check the pavement with your hand. Our senior dog slowed down here before anywhere else.
Nothing indoors is an option. Shops, restaurants, the aquarium, all no. Whatever you want to do inside, one person does it while the other walks.
When we started using the stroller
I used to think a dog stroller was a slightly embarrassing object. I now think it is the single piece of gear that made this day possible.
We got maybe six or seven blocks along the Embarcadero before our fourteen year old started doing the thing she does when she is done, which is stop, sit, and look at me. Not limping, not distressed, just finished. At home that is a signal to turn around. In the middle of the city, three quarters of a mile from the car, it is a problem.
So out came the stroller, and she rode the rest of the afternoon. The two younger ones walked, then took turns hopping in when they felt like it, which is how we ended up with a photo of a coffee cup balanced on a stroller full of dogs.
If you are doing a city day with a senior dog, bring the stroller before you think you need it. Getting it out at block six is fine. Wishing you had it at block six, with no car anywhere nearby, is not. I wrote more about how we figured out she needed one in the senior dog stroller post.
Crissy Field is where the dogs were happiest
If you only get one dog stop in San Francisco, make it this one.
Crissy Field is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, out past the Marina toward the Presidio. It is a long stretch of grass and beach with the bridge sitting right there behind it, and it is full of dogs at basically every hour.
The rules, so you are not guessing: across the recreation area, dogs are on leash and the leash caps at six feet. There are designated areas near the central beach and the grassy airfield where off-leash under voice and sight control is allowed. The boundaries are marked on signs and they change, so read the sign where you park rather than trusting any blog, including this one.
We kept all three on leash the whole time, partly because our recall with three dogs at once is not what I would want it to be in an open field next to a road.
What made it the best stop of the trip is simple. Soft ground. Room to actually move. And no crowd pressing in on them. After two days of pavement, watching all three trot around on grass with the bridge behind them was the moment I stopped worrying about whether we had overdone it.
There are picnic tables and grills along the East Beach side, so you can make it a whole afternoon instead of a stop.
Coffee, ice cream, and the one meal the dogs skipped
Coffee was easy the whole trip. Almost everywhere in this city has a window or a patio, and nobody blinked at three dogs waiting outside with one of us. We got coffee at the wharf and again on our way out of the city on the last day, both times without going inside.
Dinner was the exception, and it was worth it. Betty Lou’s Seafood and Grill at 318 Columbus Ave in North Beach is our favorite cioppino in San Francisco, full stop. My husband and I go there for that one dish. It comes out in a bowl the size of your head, packed with crab and clams and mussels and shrimp in a tomato broth you will want bread for, and we have never once finished it. If you eat one thing in North Beach, eat the cioppino here.
It is a sit-down room with white tablecloths, so the dogs stayed in the car with the windows cracked while we took turns.
And a genuine ask: if you know a local spot in San Francisco with better cioppino than this, please tell me in the comments. We will go. That is not a rhetorical offer.
That is the honest version of a city day with dogs. Outdoor food is trivially easy. One real indoor meal takes planning and somebody gives up half of it. It is the same trade we make anywhere we stay with all three.
If you are thinking about transit instead of driving: Muni allows one pet per vehicle, off-peak only, so not weekdays between 5 and 9 in the morning or 3 and 7 in the afternoon. The dog has to be leashed and muzzled on your lap or under your seat, or in a small closed carrier, and the dog pays a fare equal to yours. With three dogs that math does not work, so we drove and parked. With one small dog in a carrier it is genuinely an option.
What I would do differently next time
Start at Crissy Field, not end there. We did the crowded pavement first and the grass last. Reverse it. Let them run first and they handle the crowd better.
Bring the stroller out of the car from the start. It rolls fine empty. It does not roll at all from a parking garage three quarters of a mile away.
Check the pavement temperature with the back of your hand. Every time, not just when it feels hot to you. Shoes lie to you about this.
Pick the indoor meal in advance. Decide who is going first and where the dogs will wait before you are standing on a sidewalk at seven at night negotiating.
Bring more water than you think. Three dogs drink a startling amount on a walking day, and public fountains near the water are not reliable.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you take two things from this: do the grass first and the pavement second, and bring the stroller even if you do not think you will need it. Those two decisions are what separated our good day from our hard one, and both of them cost nothing.
There is one more thing about this trip that I want to say out loud. My husband had been telling me his back and legs hurt for days before we ever left home, and we went anyway. On our second morning at the campground he came out of the shower and asked me to take a photo of his back. It turned out to be shingles. He got medication that same day. I said let us go home, and he said he was fine and finished out all three nights, and then drove the whole way back in one shot, which is a very long drive, without once complaining. Every photo in this post has him in it somewhere, holding a leash or pushing a stroller, and I did not know at the time what he was walking around with. I think about that more than I expected to.
So that is the whole trip, all three posts of it. If you are planning a day in the city with dogs and you have a question I did not answer here, leave it in the comments and I will tell you what we actually did. And if you have taken your dogs somewhere in San Francisco that we missed, I would love to know where to go next time.
