The Tourist Club welcomes the public during selected weekend hours. Please see “Hours” below.

About the Tourist Club

The Tourist Club is the San Francisco branch of the worldwide Nature Friends organization.

Please familiarize yourself with our hours and rules before visiting.

Our facility is not ADA accessible.

Nature Friends T-shirts are now available for $15 each. To pick one up, contact Amy at ahbbs2@aol.com for mail order (postage is $4.80 for Priority Mail).

Hours

We selectively open our club to guests from the public on weekends except the second weekend of each month, from 1 pm to 5 pm only. The second weekend is reserved for members and prospective members who attend our regular Work Days.

Some weekends are closed for special events, so please check the Calendar before coming.

Rules of the Club

The Tourist Club is a private membership club. We are not a commercial business. We reserve the right to deny service or permission to be on the property to anyone for any reason at any time.

Please observe these rules for attending the Tourist Club on public weekends:

• No outside alcoholic beverages are permitted.
• No dogs allowed. (Members’ dogs only are permitted. Yes we know who they are.)
• Groups larger than seven (7) persons are prohibited.

History of the Nature Friends Tourist Club

In 1912, a group of German Nature Friends living in the San Francisco Bay area decided to buy land overlooking what is now Muir Woods, only 30 minutes’ drive from San Francisco. Their first American clubhouse was built in 1914. Members did all the work, pulling materials and supplies up the hillside by mule and manual labor.

Branches were founded in Los Angeles in 1920 and in Oakland in 1921. These facilities are for the exclusive use of its membership for overnights, meetings, parties, picnics, movie nights, social events and traditional dinners.

Our activities include hikes, excursions, socials, festivals, camping trips, dances and singing organized by and for the members.

The Alpine heritage is still very present during some of our social events and in our popular fundraiser Fests. Fests are are held in May, July and September (Maifest, Sommerfest and Kinderfest), and feature authentic German music, food, beer, decor and ambiance, all in a secluded rustic setting in a redwood forest overlooking Muir Woods.

The club is accessible via trails by hikers of all ages. They can bring their lunch and come and share what Herb Caen described in the ‘50s as the “the best kept secret in the Bay Area.” Motorists and cyclists are required to leave their means of transportation at the top of the hill, on our private parking lot and walk down the steep paved road to fully enjoy the magnificent scenery, the way the founders of the clubs intended it.

The members built and still maintain the clubhouse. We are members of the Western Federation of Outdoors clubs and the Muir Woods Community Center.

The Tourist Club lodge in the 1920s. Photo courtesy of the Mill Valley Historical Society.