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The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure in San Francisco's Marina District, designed by Bernard Maybeck for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition and rebuilt in durable materials between 1964 and 1974. Its domed open rotunda and curved colonnades stand beside a lagoon, and the hall behind them is used for events.

Vatnshellir is an 8,000-year-old lava tube in Snæfellsjökull National Park, formed in an eruption of the Purkhólar craters about 500 metres away. The cave lies on two levels and has no lighting; it is visited only on 45-minute guided tours, which descend by two spiral staircases with helmets and torches provided. Its name means water cave.

The Walt Disney Family Museum tells the life story of Walt Disney and was founded by his daughter Diane Disney Miller; it opened in 2009 in a former army barracks building in the Presidio. Its galleries follow his life from childhood to the opening of Disneyland, with early drawings, animation artwork, film clips and a large model of Disneyland.

Old Fisherman's Wharf is a pier in Monterey Harbor, built in 1870 by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company and owned by the city since 1913. It served as a wholesale fish market into the 1960s and is now lined with seafood restaurants and shops. Whale-watching and fishing boats leave from it, and sea lions often rest on the pilings nearby.

Cannery Row is a waterfront street in Monterey that was once lined with more than 30 sardine canneries and reduction plants. Originally Ocean View Avenue, it was renamed in 1958 after John Steinbeck's 1945 novel Cannery Row. The last cannery closed in 1973; the surviving industrial buildings now hold shops, restaurants, hotels and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in 1984 on Cannery Row in Monterey, on the site of the former Hovden sardine cannery. Its exhibits focus on the habitats of Monterey Bay, including a living kelp forest, open-ocean tanks, jellyfish and sea otters. Outdoor decks look straight onto the bay and its rocky shore.

The Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, also called the Royal Presidio Chapel, was built of local sandstone in 1791–94 as the chapel of Monterey's Spanish presidio. It is the oldest stone building in California and the only surviving structure of the original presidio. It still serves as a parish church and as the cathedral of the Diocese of Monterey.

Monterey State Historic Park is a group of restored adobe and early American buildings in Old Monterey, the former capital of Spanish and Mexican Alta California. It includes the Custom House of 1827, where the US flag was raised over California in 1846, the Pacific House Museum and California's First Theatre. Guided walks start at the Custom House.

Lóndrangar are two basalt pinnacles, 75 m and 61 m tall, on the south coast of Snæfellsnes inside Snæfellsjökull National Park. They are volcanic plugs left standing after the sea wore away the rest of a crater; fulmars, kittiwakes and guillemots nest on them, and they are seen from paths at Malarrif and on the neighbouring headland Svalþúfa.

Filoli is a country estate in Woodside, about 40 km south of San Francisco, built in 1915–1917 for the mining magnate William Bourn to designs by Willis Polk. Visitors tour the furnished 56-room house and 6.5 hectares of formal walled gardens, with trails leading into the surrounding estate. It belongs to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Monterey Museum of Art, founded in 1959, shows California art from the 19th century to the present in eight galleries at 559 Pacific Street, across from Colton Hall in Old Monterey. Its collection covers painting, photography and sculpture, with a focus on early California painting and the artists of the Carmel art colony.

Colton Hall on Pacific Street in Monterey was built of local stone in 1847–49 by Walter Colton, the town's first American alcalde, with a school below and a public hall above. In 1849 the upstairs hall hosted California's first constitutional convention. It is now a city museum showing documents and objects from the convention.

The Presidio of San Francisco is a park at the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Founded as a Spanish fort in 1776 and a U.S. Army post until 1994, it is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, with trails, beaches, brick barracks and the Presidio Tunnel Tops park.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge across the Golden Gate strait, linking San Francisco with Marin County. Built under chief engineer Joseph Strauss and opened in 1937, it has a main span of 1,280 metres and towers rising 227 metres above the water. Pedestrians cross on the east sidewalk, facing the city.

Twin Peaks are two grassy hills about 282 metres high near the geographic centre of San Francisco, the second and third highest natural points in the city. Christmas Tree Point, an overlook just below the North Peak, looks over downtown, the bay and the bridges, and footpaths and steps climb from Twin Peaks Boulevard to both summits.

The Conservatory of Flowers is a white wood-and-glass greenhouse in Golden Gate Park, completed in 1879 and the oldest building in the park. One of the first municipal conservatories in the United States, it houses a collection of rare and tropical plants under its central dome and wings, and is a California Historical Landmark.

The California Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum and research institution in Golden Gate Park, founded in 1853. Its building by Renzo Piano, opened in 2008 under a planted living roof, houses the Steinhart Aquarium, the Morrison Planetarium, a four-storey rainforest dome and natural history halls.

The de Young Museum is a fine arts museum in Golden Gate Park, founded after the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 and named after the newspaper publisher M. H. de Young. Its copper-clad building by Herzog & de Meuron opened in 2005 with an observation tower, and it shows American art, textiles and art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

The Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park was created for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 and is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. Its three acres of paths and ponds lead past a five-storey pagoda, stone lanterns, a drum bridge and a teahouse, among pruned pines, maples and cherry trees.

Golden Gate Park is a 412-hectare urban park on San Francisco's West Side, between the Richmond and Sunset districts and reaching to the Pacific Ocean. Laid out by William Hammond Hall on sand dunes and opened in 1870, it holds lakes, meadows and groves along with the Conservatory of Flowers, the Japanese Tea Garden and the de Young Museum.