San Francisco Explorer Pass

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Money Saving Coupon Code! The best coupon you will find anywhere.
Save 5% on the San Francisco Explorer Pass with Coupon: GO5CMANTIS
The Coupon Code stacks on top the current sale prices.
Promo expires on March 31st.

The San Francisco Explorer Pass is a flexible, multi-attractions pass that provides admission to 3, 4, or 5 attractions of your choice from the 26 included attractions. Options cover all sorts of interests and activities, including everything from buses and cruises to museums and mini-golf. Visit the big-name stuff like the California Academy of Sciences and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), enjoy a wine-tasting, or ride a bike up those signature San Francisco hills. You’ll also find a number of cultural attractions like the USS Pampanito, a tour of Oracle Park (home to the San Francisco Giants MLB team), and the Legion of Honor. There’s something for everyone on this pass.

Top Included San Francisco Attractions                      

California Academy of Sciences
Hop-on Hop-off Big Bus Tour
Aquarium of the Bay
Exploratorium
Golden Gate Bay Cruise
Walt Disney Family Museum
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
Asian Art Museum
San Francisco Zoo and Gardens

See the complete list of attractions and tours in the sidebar, divided by type of activity.

How the San Francisco Explorer Pass Works

The San Francisco Explorer Pass is a digital pass that covers admission to your chosen attractions. Present your pass to be scanned, and you’re in!

The Explorer Pass format offers 3, 4, or 5 options out of about 20 total choices. You purchase the denomination of the pass in advance, and can’t add or subtract attractions later.

The pass is designed to be used with the Go City Card App. It’s a free app, but if you’d prefer not to download it you can choose to print out the pass.

The San Francisco Explorer Pass is valid for 30 days after you activate it with your first attraction visit. You have one year from the date of purchase to use the pass.

What’s Good?

All Go City Card products are now digital only – a win on all fronts! It’s good for the environment, and easy for you to use. Just remember your smartphone.

It’s also quite convenient to be able to purchase the pass without having to wait for processing or shipping (and some pass companies won’t ship to hotels, which can make for a big hassle).

This also means you can wait for the pass to go on sale, which it typically does around holidays.

The Go City Card program is often evolving. They add and drop attractions over time, including seasonal attractions. You may find that new attractions have been added since the last time you used the product!

The pass also comes with a digital guidebook. The guidebook includes attraction maps, contact information, operating hours, location, and more. It’s essential when you’re planning your trip, and means you don’t need to look up everything individually.

You also get priority entry to select attractions, currently including the Walt Disney Family Museum and the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens. This is especially handy during the busy season of summer.

What Could Get Better?

While many people appreciate the dynamism of the San Francisco Explorer Pass attractions, it can also be frustrating if you’ve had your heart set on an attraction only to see it dropped. This tends to happen in this city with wine tours or tastings.

The pass typically does not cover special exhibitions at museums, which is a big letdown at the SFMOMA. If the pass does include special extras, the website will indicate that.

If you want to use the pass on your phone, you need to download the app. Some travelers may dislike the extra app floating around on their phone; if this is the case, just opt to print the passes instead.

Unlike its sister product, the Go San Francisco Card, the San Francisco Explorer Pass doesn’t include any extra discounts on shopping or dining. This decreases the overall value of the pass, and can be a disappointment.

San Francisco Explorer Pass Coupon Codes

Save 5% off the already discounted prices with Coupon Code: GO5CMANTIS

Even at full price, the San Francisco Explorer Pass saves money. It's currently on sale at GoCity.com. This coupon code stacks on top of the sale price, saving you even more. You won't find a better deal anywhere. Coupon expires on March 31st. Enter the coupon code on the "Review your order" page. Look for the "Have a promo code?" link under "Your Cart".

Get Your Money’s Worth with a San Francisco Explorer Pass

The San Francisco Explorer Pass advertises a savings of up to 45% on combined admission prices. This compares the amount you would pay for the pass with the amount you would pay at your chosen attractions.

Unless you know exactly what you want to see, the actual math on that can be a little tricky. However, a smart way to make sure you’re maximizing your savings with the pass is to visit the more expensive attractions with the product and pay for anything cheaper out of pocket.

The more expensive attractions are usually cruises and tours (plus California’s Great America, which is a hefty price on its own). Smaller museums usually charge less.

If you’d like to check it out, a handy feature on the San Francisco Explorer Pass website is the “Savings Examples” tab. This highlights real customer savings and gives you an idea of how you might plan your itinerary for maximum savings.

San Francisco Explorer Pass Insider Tips

The product is good for 30 days, so you don’t need to cram all of your attractions into one weekend if you’d prefer a more leisurely sightseeing.

San Francisco is a very compact city, so it makes sense to organize your attractions by neighborhood. Visit Golden Gate Park to see the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens, the California Academy of Sciences, and the de Young Museum. Or, head to Fisherman’s Wharf for oodles of choices.

Reservations are required for some activities – usually cruises or tours. You’ll see an “R” on the attraction page through the Go City Card website if this is the case. You may also need to provide a credit card to make those reservations, but you won’t be charged unless you don’t show up.

If you are interested in doing more than 5 things in San Francisco, you should opt for the Go San Francisco Card.

Where to Buy the San Francisco Explorer Pass

The San Francisco Explorer Pass is sold by many online vendors as well as many concierges in San Francisco but will pay full price. You can get a nice discount if you buy it at the official site and wait for a sale online.