Bouncing Around San Francisco

Kristin Luna jumped at the chance to try out San Francisco’s new trampoline park.

I grew up in the South on a large plot of land with both a playground and a trampoline decorating my yard. Even with no real training, I could tumble and flip, bounce and twirl as if I were an aspiring member of the U.S. gymnastics team. Learning a trick or two on the trampoline is a rite of passage when you spend your early years in a rural area (cow tippin’ and moonshine peddlin’ aside, we have little else to keep us entertained, after all) and one I’d long since forgotten about until very recently.

Then, just up the road from my current home in San Francisco, a new kid moved onto the block–one who brought the promise of many afternoons of fun and laughs, and a chance for locals to reenact their youth. This neighbor of mine, House of Air, is a trampoline park. Situated along San Francisco’s waterfront in the historic Presidio, it welcomes 83 jumpers at once onto the Matrix, a tapestry of 42 conjoined, wall-to-wall trampolines. My husband and I went out to jump–twice–in the opening week, and I have a feeling we’ll become frequent visitors of the place. (I was especially pleased to see my back flip had stood the test of time.)

Those with no prior experience (or trampoline at their childhood home) need not worry: There are classes and private tutorials available should you want to perfect your handspring or learn a new trick. Providing an added element of comfort, the walls are lined with trampolines, too, so you can’t go flying off (into oblivion) if you get a bit too bold with your maneuvers.

And the setting is nothing to scoff at either. House of Air is located in a LEED-certified former airplane hangar within a national park, with views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Bay-facing windows sprucing up the stark interior. The complex also has specialty services such as fitness classes and organized games of trampoline dodgeball and basketball in the Colosseum area. The park caters to all ages and levels, too: It offers a training area for extreme athletes such as divers, wakeboarders and snowboarders to work on their moves, as well as an Air Junior Bounce House, specifically for kids ages 3 to 6. Adidas bounce shoes and a helmet (optional) are included in the $14-an-hour admission fee (but be sure and bring your own socks).

So next time you find yourself in San Francisco, throw on your workout clothes, head down to the Marina waterfront and prepare to sweat as you bounce to your heart’s content.

Other places to “tramp” around:

Jump Street has four locations in Colorado (Denver, Littleton, Greenwood Village and Thornton) and two outposts in Arizona (Chandler and Glendale). Sky Zone Sports has trampoline facilities in St. Louis, Mo.; Rocklin, Calif.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Boston, Mass.; Columbus, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Clermont, Fla.

[San Francisco Travel Guide]

Kristin Luna is a San Francisco-based travel writer and blogger; photos by Kristin Luna.