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Treasure Island, San Francisco — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Treasure Island is a man-made island in San Francisco Bay, one of San Francisco's most unusual neighborhoods. The whole place is artificial. Built first as the site of a world's fair, the island later spent decades as a US Navy base before reopening to the public. Ray Sheeran Field and the Treasure Island Museum sit along its flat grid of streets.
About Treasure Island
Where to stay in Treasure Island
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Few travelers actually sleep on Treasure Island. Lodging here is thin, since most of the land was Navy property and is only slowly filling with homes. What the island offers instead is calm and a wide view: the downtown skyline sits directly across the water, and the flat streets stay quiet after dark.
Day visitors come for the Treasure Island Museum and the open shoreline rather than nightlife. Anyone wanting a full choice of hotels is better based across the bridge in central San Francisco.
About Treasure Island
What are the main landmarks in Treasure Island?
Two sights are marked here. The Treasure Island Museum fills the island's old administration building, a curved streamline-moderne hall that is the main structure left standing from the 1939 world's fair. Its rooms trace the fair, the wartime Navy base, and the making of the island.
Ray Sheeran Field, a ball field near the shore, gives the neighborhood its open ground for sport. The bigger draw stays the water view toward San Francisco and the Bay Bridge.
What is the history of Treasure Island?
None of this ground is natural. Crews raised it on shoals off Yerba Buena Island with fill dredged from the bay, completing the ground for the Golden Gate International Exposition, a world's fair held in 1939 and 1940. Its planners named it Treasure Island after the adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
When the fair ended, the US Navy claimed the site, and Naval Station Treasure Island served the fleet through World War II and the decades after. The Navy departed in 1997, and the land passed to San Francisco for gradual redevelopment.
Where is Treasure Island?
Treasure Island sits out in San Francisco Bay, roughly halfway between downtown San Francisco and Oakland. A short isthmus links its southern edge to Yerba Buena Island, the natural rock that carries the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge across the water. Cars reach it by one ramp.
Open bay wraps the rest, with the city skyline to the west.
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Updated July 2026