Fort Baker

San Francisco’s Golden Gate National Park Service is one of the most progressive such agencies in the country, and is among the first park services to offer trails and campsites within an urban national park, as it does in the Presidio. Fort Baker was spearheaded by the service’s nonprofit partner, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. A former military post on 335 acres at the northern entrance to San Francisco Bay, Fort Baker is adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge. Its hotel, the luxe Cavallo Point Lodge, comes from the same team behind the favored Post Ranch Inn and offers sweeping views of the bay environs, including both bridges, Alcatraz, Angel Island and downtown San Francisco. Fort Baker also has recreation facilities open to the public and an environmental think tank, called the Institute at the Golden Gate, at which high-ranking representatives from the worlds of business, non-profits and government can discuss pressing environmental problems and practical solutions to them. The freshly finished facilities have now begun conducting seminars.