San Francisco highlight
Golden Gate Bridge
Opened to the public in May 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge spans the Golden Gate Strait with a distinctive International Orange color and 746-foot towers visible across the Bay.
The Golden Gate Bridge was designed by Chief Engineer Joseph Strauss and completed in May 1937, standing as the world's most spectacular suspension bridge at its opening. The structure carries traffic across the Golden Gate Strait, connecting San Francisco to Marin County across a span of 4,200 feet. In its first full year of operation, more than 3.3 million vehicles crossed the bridge, a testament to its immediate importance to Bay Area transportation.
The bridge's architectural character comes from Irving Morrow's selection of the International Orange color, chosen for visibility through fog and to complement the natural landscape. The design emerged from collaboration between Strauss and consulting engineers O.H. Ammann and Charles Derleth Jr., creating a structure that both functions as critical infrastructure and has become a symbol recognized worldwide. Roughly 10 million visitors cross or view the bridge each year.
For San Francisco families, the Golden Gate Bridge represents the city's openness to the wider Bay Region—neighborhoods where people work across the span, where commutes and economic opportunities shape household planning, and where that security net of life insurance becomes part of forward thinking.