• Tips for Visitors
• History

Ocean Beach is the widest and longest expanse of sand on San Francisco's shores, extending from the Cliff House to Fort Funston along the Pacific Ocean. At one time, a vast sand-dune wilderness (now the city's Sunset and Richmond Districts) separated Ocean Beach from the rest of San Francisco. Later, the Cliff House, and the now-gone Sutro Baths and Playland at the Beach amusement park, helped make Ocean Beach a fashionable resort on the outskirts of town. Today, Ocean Beach is as popular for seaside drives, brisk jogs, and sunset walks as it was the early 1900s, when seaside visitors took in the fresh briny air along the esplanade that tops the seawall.

The beach is nearly always enveloped in San Francisco's characteristic fog throughout the late spring and summer, with average temperatures in the 50s. The water is notorious for its strong currents and fierce waves, making it popular, but dangerous, among serious surfers. The waves are quite cold, due to a process known as "upwelling," in which frigid water from below the ocean surface rises up to replace the surface water that surges away from the beach. The rapid rip currents and cold water make the ocean dangerous for casual swimmers or even for those who simply want to set foot in it, and many swimmers have been swept away and drowned as a result. Lives have been lost here. For your own safety, obey the posted regulations and stay out of the water.

Ocean Beach is a great place to sit or stroll, fly kites, and fish the surf. Occasionally, it's warm enough to lie in the sun. Watch for the small, shy snowy plover, a threatened species that rests here in the winter; and which is being strictly monitored and protected by the National Park Service.

Tips for Visitors

• The best (sunniest) months for an Ocean Beach walk are September and October.
• Please be careful not to trample the fragile plants on the dunes.
• Volunteer with hundreds of others to help keep Ocean Beach clean and safe.
• Fire Rings were installed in April 2007 as part of a pilot program to continue allowing fires at Ocean Beach. If you love fires at Ocean Beach, this is your opportunity to make a difference. To learn more, download the Ocean Beach Fire Ring Policy Brochure (PDF).

Shipwrecks in the Sand
At the foot of Ortega Street during very low tides, you can see the worn ribs of the hull of the ship King Philip sticking out of the sand. Between 1850 and 1926, twenty ships came to grief on Ocean Beach. It wasn't only the heavy surf that broke these shipwrecks into thousands of pieces—in those days, scavenging souvenirs from wrecks was one of San Franciscans' most popular pastimes. In 1887, when the Parallel exploded near the Cliff House, 50,000 people turned out on Ocean Beach to pick her over.