Batteries to Bluffs Trail is an excellent tour of the scenery and history on the San Francisco coastline. It winds along seaside hills covered in colorful vegetation, crosses the walls of wartime defense structures, and reaches a beach with a picture-perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Rodeo Beach is a top destination in the Marin Headlands, popular for its uniquely dark-colored sand, surrounding cliffs, and sea stacks rising from the waves. When visiting Rodeo Beach, you can take a short hike to Tennessee Point for even better coastal views. Tennessee Point is an overlook on the sea cliffs nearby, reachable by a short uphill hike on a wide dirt path. Along the way, you’ll see a few old bunkers, part of the old coastal defense system that is so prevalent in Marin Headlands.

Point Bonita is perhaps the most dramatic spot in all of Marin Headlands. It’s a rocky spine jutting into the mouth of the Bay, tipped with a natural arch of black basalt. Waves crash on the rocks and winds rip unfettered from the open ocean. In the churning waters and foggy atmosphere of the San Francisco Bay, such a spot is naturally dangerous to ships. Thus, the Point Bonita Lighthouse was built in 1855 and operates to this day.

This out and back hike links two of the best beaches in the Marin Headlands, and all of the green rolling hills in between. You’ll enjoy views along the craggy coast, over the boundless ocean, and to Mount Tamalpais—all on a clear day, that is. This shoreline is often foggy, but even without the views, this hike is worthwhile—the fog adds a mystique to your perception of the landscape.

The Bay Area is rich in natural scenery, but waterfalls are not a common sight. Alamere Falls is one of the few, and it shatters all expectations. To call it the most spectacular in the Bay Area would be an understatement, because It’s one of the best waterfalls you’ll see anywhere. It’s a 40-footer that plummets over sea cliffs to a sandy beach and meets the ocean—one of only a few waterfalls in California that fall into the sea.

Tomales Point is the remote, northernmost tip of the large peninsula that is Point Reyes National Seashore. Its windswept hills and wave-battered bluffs receive the brunt of Pacific Ocean force, sheltering the calm Tomales Bay behind it. This weathered spit of land is nearly void of trees, and instead covered in grasses and coastal scrub habitat. It is very green at most times of the year, and bursts with more color in the spring.

The Point Reyes lighthouse dates back to 1870 when it warned ships of the rocky Point Reyes Headlands. It is today replaced by an automated light, but the National Park Service maintains the old lighthouse as a historic and scenic landmark. Getting to it requires only a short and slightly uphill walk on a paved path overlooking the ocean, then going down 308 steps. The path is lined in some places with shady cypress trees and in others, you'll enjoy wide-open cliff-top views.

This 7-mile footpath links some of the best scenery between Mill Valley and Stinson Beach, passing through Muir Woods and Mount Tamalpais State Park. The Dipsea Trail begins in an urban forest, dives into deep redwood groves, climbs to rolling grassland and panoramic ridgelines, and finishes at the beach.

A short network of trails twists around the part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area known as Lands End. This far tip of San Francisco’s peninsula has incredible views of the ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge, tall sea cliffs, wind-warped cypress groves, historic ruins, and shipwrecks. All these highlights are located within a relatively small area and can be linked in one concise hiking loop.