The Bay Area is a candy wonderland for young ghouls and ghosts, with many events for kids to trick or treat in San Francisco during Halloween. The city gets festively freakish all month long, and there are literally dozens of activities to choose from. So, be prepared to enjoy full-on spookiness and fun for your little ones as we dig deeper into every corner to find the best spot for collecting terrifying amounts of candy while experiencing the chills and thrills of the spooky season.
Are you ready to set out for a scary-good trick-or-treating experience with your little goblins? Let the candy hauls begin with our top 15 best places in San Francisco for some trick or treat Halloween activities with kids! Go ahead and mark your calendars and add them to your list to keep the spooky spirit alive.
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
1001 Fairgrounds Dr., Vallejo, CA 94589
September 24 – October 29, 2023
Tuesday – Friday | 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Saturday | 12:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Sunday | 12:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Enjoy this new family-friendly adventure of Trick-or-Treat Street around the park and get candy from your favorite characters. Enjoy all this season has to offer—with a few special animal shows with twists of their own. Be sure to check out The Wildlife Halloween Experience, Drench! Halloween, and Ghoul School. For older kids, check out Fright Fest.
By day, enjoy family-friendly rides, shows, and trick-or-treating. By night, scream your lungs out with scare zones and night coasters. Face your darkest fears inside the premium haunted houses, available only with the Haunted Attractions Pass.
Gilroy Gardens
3050 Hecker Pass Hwy., Gilroy, CA 95020
October 1-31, 2023
Friday | 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Saturday – Sunday | 1:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Bring the whole family to Do the BOO at Gilroy Gardens this October! On select evenings, the entire park will transform into the wacky world of BOO Alley — with kooky characters, tricks, and treats around every corner. Put on your costumes and come experience San Francisco Bay Area’s beloved Halloween event and trick or treat for candy along the Boo Trail. Ride the Boo Train, see the pumpkin pyramid, and make your way through the hay maze.
Enjoy a live musical show as you “Do the Boo” with a charming cast of Halloween characters at Gilroy Gardens’ Lakeside Amphitheater. Meet Vinnie the Vampire, Cranium the Mad Scientist, and Wendella the Witch on a quest to save Halloween.
Children’s Fairyland
699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland, CA 94610
October 20-22 & 27-29, 2022
Friday – Sunday | 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Halloween Jam is back in a big way! This year, they’ve conjured up a cauldron of 6 magically themed days to ensure your family has maximum fun at the most famous festive fall affair. Join the fun for decked-out sets and rides, spook-tacular performances and activities at the Emerald City Stage, costumed characters, bouncy houses, and plenty of photo opportunities. This year, treat stations will hand out special goodies and host a fun, interactive activity that leads participants around the park as they follow the tale of a spider family.
Children’s Fairyland is one of the best events for kids to trick or treat in the San Francisco Bay Area. The “Monster Mash Parade” is your kiddos’ chance to show off their attire as this costume parade meanders around the park and ends with a fashion show on the red carpet, surrounded by bubbles for ultimate Halloween-spirited fun. The Monster Mash Parade happens daily at 12:30 p.m. and again at 3 p.m. It’s going to be bubbling over with eerie-sistible cuteness!
Bay Area Discovery Museum
557 McReynolds Rd., Sausalito, CA 94965
October 21-22 & 25-29, 2023
Saturday – Sunday | 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Calling all little goblins and their families! Join other kids for a spooktacular time at the Goblin Jamboree, where the museum transforms into a wickedly fun Halloween wonderland. Prepare for ghoulishly great activities like building Goblin Gliders, stirring up Magic Brew, and attending a Glow Slime Banquet. It’s a hauntingly good time for the whole family.
Show off your costumes and enjoy special programs, including Glow Slime Banquet, Monster Makeover, Goblin Gliders, Magic Brew, Hay Maze, Spider Web Prints, and more spooky programs. Get the most out of Goblin Jamboree and support the museum by joining the Goblin Sponsor Breakfast on October 21 from 8:30-10:30 a.m. Enjoy early access, breakfast bites and entertainment for the whole family.
Oakland Zoo
9777 Golf Links Rd., Oakland, CA 94605
October 1-29, 2023
Monday – Sunday | 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Calling all ghosts, goblins, and witches – enjoy this family-friendly Halloween event with all new experiences in the San Francisco Bay Area. Navigate through a 500-bale hay maze and follow the clues on our self-guided scavenger hunt to find the animal X-rays throughout the Zoo. Make sure to grab your event guide and OCHO candy bar* as you enter the Zoo to participate in all the fun activities!
Remember to dress in costume (no inflatable costumes – they can scare the Zoo animals) when you visit and tag Oakland Zoo on social media to be entered in the Halloween costume contest. Winners will receive four tickets to the nighttime lantern festival this year, GLOWFARI, from November 10 – January 28. Come and safely celebrate Halloween at Oakland Zoo this year!
Golden Gate Park
55 Music Concourse Dr., San Francisco, CA 94118
October 27, 2023
Friday | 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
SuperNatural is back for the BIGGEST Halloween yet. Join everyone for a heart-thumping and brain-tingling good time as you explore the Academy at night—including the newest exhibition, The World’s Largest Dinosaurs. Start planning your costumes for an evening of larger-than-life, family-friendly Halloween fun with bones, boos, science, and sweet trick or treat events in San Francisco Bay Area’s Halloween celebration.
Shake your bones at a silent disco in Steinhart Aquarium. Satisfy your sweet tooth at trick-or-treat stations. Marvel at mystical magic shows. See what slithers and scuttles at live animal demonstrations. Meet mad scientists and ogle at unusual specimens. Create crafts to “DIY” for. Transform into living (or undead) art with face painting. Immortalize your spirit at a photo booth.
Livermore Downtown
2155 Third St., Livermore, CA 94551
October 28, 2023
Saturday | 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Halloween Fun is back in Downtown Livermore. Livermore’s favorite family tradition is for families with children in 5th grade and under. The day includes the Costume Contest, Music, Trick or Treating at participating downtown businesses, fun kids’ games and activities, and even more trick or treating at Stockmen’s Park with local businesses.
This year, Trick or Treat bags are back! Even better news is this year, the bags are totally free to the little trick-or-treaters while supplies last. Treat bags available to the first 1,500 children in attendance. Trick or Treat Bag pickup locations are coming soon – so stay tuned!
Randall Museum
199 Museum Way, San Francisco, CA 94114
October 21, 2023
Saturday | 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Join Randall Museum for their annual family-friendly Halloween Spooktacular! The whole museum will be filled with spooky but not scary delights for the Halloween season. Costumed revelers will find unexpected surprises throughout the museum while enjoying familiar favorites like creepy crafts, ghoulish games, trick-or-treating, live music and entertainment, pumpkin decorating, and more!
Daytime Halloween activities also include Squared Pumpkin Patch, Corn Husk Dolls, Plant Potions, Plant Potions, Wooden Mask Making, and Apple Twirls. Come in costume and join in the fun!
Children’s Garden, Yerba Buena Gardens
799 Howard St., San Francisco, CA 94103
October 28, 2023
Saturday | 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm
The 23rd annual Halloween Hoopla returns with spectacular performances and activities for kids under ten and their adults. The Hoopla grand finale is the popular Halloween Costume Parade with live music – all kids are welcome to join in their best Halloween looks. Halloween Hoopla is the place to be for family-friendly frights and delights!
Featuring fa-BOO-lous fun with Unique Derique, the hippest clown in town, Venezuelan Music Project’s ghoul-tastic music, Coventry & Kaluza’s laughs galore, Madam Z Palm Reading, and craft and activity tables from Children’s Creativity Museum, the Museum of African Diaspora and the Mexican Museum.
The West End Village
W 4th St., San Rafael, CA 94901
October 28, 2023
Saturday | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Enjoy a family-friendly way to celebrate Halloween. Fourth Street merchants will be welcoming kids and families on Saturday October 28th from 1 pm to 3 pm. Dress up, bring a bag and get ready for some treats or tricks. Look for the “Participating Businesses” sign in the window for some treats. Don’t miss the Pet Costume Contest sponsored by Woodlands Pets Food & Treats in the Plaza from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm.
Trunk or Treat sponsored by the San Rafael Police Department with a festive SR Police Car passing out candy in Plaza from 1 pm to 3 pm. Enjoy spooky live music performed by the Marin Girls Chorus in the plaza from 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm!
San Francisco Zoo
Sloat Blvd. at the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA 94132
October 21-22 & 28-29, 2023
Saturday – Sunday | 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
The most popular event of the year is coming up with two full weekends of Boo at the Zoo, Presented by First 5 California. Bring it on by wearing your creative and imaginative animal or superhero Halloween costumes and more. This popular family event highlights include the daily costume parade and contest and watching zoo animals “chomp and stomp” their Halloween and pumpkin treats. They have a line-up of scheduled treat presentations for animals, such as chimpanzees, lemurs, rhinoceroses, and more!
The event also features the Happy Harvest Hay Maze, a 5,000-square foot hay maze and the largest one in San Francisco, featuring a hay pit, toddler maze, and fun facts kids can find at dead ends within the maze. A candy treat station is located in Entry Village, where guests can pick up a candy treat bag upon exiting. Guests are encouraged to dress in costume, however, please avoid wearing masks for the animals’ safety. Be sure to take a snap of the schedule located on A-frame signs as guests enter.
Jack London Square
Broadway/Embarcadero, West Oakland, CA 94607
October 29, 2023
Sunday | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Join Jack London Square for a FREE Halloween Dia De Los Muertos family fun fest at the plaza near Plank. This event will include a DJ, chalk artists, face painting, crafts, pumpkins, a costume contest, mariachis, Mexican Folklorico dancers, and goody bags filled with treats (while supplies last).
Fourth St., Berkeley, CA, 94710
October 31, 2023
Tuesday | 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Bring the family and join the annual Halloween celebrations on Fourth Street! Fourth Street Berkeley will decorate the street and welcome all costumed kids to trick or treat at over 80 merchant shops. The festival will be on Delaware at Fourth Street, with all sorts of free activities and entertainment for everyone.
Enjoy trick or treat on Fourth Street at 80 merchants shops, a pumpkin at the shop door indicates participation. Free and fun festivities on Delaware at Fourth Street, 3 Face Painters Scary Booth by Keter Salon, art booth, live music, bubble show, and costumed characters, some on stilts.
Photo by: The Great Highway Park
The Great Highway Park
704 Great Hwy., San Francisco, CA 94121
October 29, 2023
Sunday | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
You are invited to Trick or Treat at the Beach! Enjoy a safe, car-free Halloween experience at The Great Highway Park. The Great Highway’s massive Halloween block party, affectionately called the Great HauntWay, is gearing up for the ultimate trick-or-treating experience for kids and families. Take the kids or sign up to run a trick-or-treating booth.
An entire 10-block stretch of the Great Highway between Judah and Taraval Streets will be blocked off during the afternoon for a safe and car-free spooky festival. Kids can enjoy trick-or-treating at countless candy booths, arts and crafts, pumpkin decorating, and big bubbles. Anyone can host their trick-or-treat station and deck it out with their best Halloween decorations.
Photo by: Crane Cove Park
Crane Cove Park
18th St. and Illinois St., San Francisco, CA 94107
October 28, 2023
Saturday | 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
There’s a new recurring market in town, and we love its waterfront location and fun vendors. The Park Market will come to Crane Cove Park in the Dogpatch for the trick-or-treat rendition with Halloween activities and crafts. The Trick or Treat Market will be a fun opportunity for kids and adults alike to wear costumes, trick or treat, and explore Halloween activities and crafts in San Francisco.
The Park Market, partnering with Sunset Mercantile, is San Francisco’s newest venue featuring local makers, food and drinks, activities, and musicians, all nestled in Dogpatch’s waterfront park, Crane Cove.
It’s a no-brainer that trick or treat events on Halloween in San Francisco are one of the much-awaited events for kids and adults. And while walking down the street where you live is always an easy option, some popular hotspots are famed for wildly decorated venues with a festive atmosphere. Your tots and older kids are starting to get excited about the sweet fest that’s coming right around the corner while being dressed up in their favorite character. So, get your little ghosts and goblins all geared up and visit the best places to trick or treat in San Francisco with kids!
San Francisco offers so many opportunities for kids to enjoy and have fun all year round! Check out our list of resources, or browse through our things to do in San Francisco with kids. Still looking for more activities for kids in San Francisco? No problem! Check out our comprehensive listing of places to go in the region and our highly recommended seasonal blog posts.
Top 10 Places for Kids to Trick or Treat in the Sacramento Area
Our Top 10 Trick or Treat Activities in San Jose
25 Best Pumpkin Patches in San Francisco Bay Area
20 Fun Things to Do in San Francisco with Kids
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