Beautiful nature preserve and historic landmark

Word to the wise: Ferry services from San Francisco are available from Fisherman’s Wharf (Pier 41), but services are reduced during the off-season of October through March.

Today, Angel Island State Park is a tranquil, wooded island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay packed with hiking and biking trails, campsites and sandy coves with stunning views. Visitors can arrive by ferry or private boat, hike to the top of Mount Caroline Livermore for a sweeping panorama of the bay and its bridges, take Segway and tram tours, or scoff down barbecued oysters at Cove Café.

Before it became a park in 1954, however, Angel Island was home to the Immigration Station that screened primarily Chinese immigrants entering San Francisco between 1910 and 1940. Some were interrogated and detained at the station for as long as two years, carving still-legible poems about their frustrations into the detention center’s walls. A newly renovated museum dedicated to that history is located inside an old barracks building and offers guided tours from Wednesday through Friday.