When packing for San Francisco, bring a hoodie and ditch all conventional wisdom. Here you can launch cutting-edge tech startups over organic cocktails in a Gold Rush saloon, skateboard past Mission murals and through Golden Gate Park all the way into middle age, and escape from Alcatraz in time for reservations at America’s next best restaurant.
Getting Around San Francisco
The best way to get around San Francisco is by walking, taxi and public transit. Parking can be expensive ($20-$40 depending on location). Street parking can be difficult to find and is often limited to two hours or less. San Francisco’s MUNI operates trolleys, cable cars, and buses throughout the city. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) serves as a major artery of San Francisco as well as several surrounding cities.
Nearby Airports
San Francisco International Airport-SFO
Oakland International Airport-OAK
Mineta San Jose International Airport-SJC
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Golden Gate Park occupies a 3 mile-long stretch of land in the city, and covers a variety of attractions, apart from the beauty of its open spaces. Among them is the Conservatory of Flowers, Young Museum, Academy of Sciences and a bison paddock. The western end of the contiguous park beach ocean and there is the beach villa, now a brewery restaurant and the home of elaborate murals commissioned by the WPA in the 1930s addition to a park, the Sunset offers San Francisco zoo, the private golf course Olympic Club, and Stern Grove, a wooded amphitheater hosts free concerts in the summer.
Hayes Valley
Reborn after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 overthrew the central highway bridge, sunshiny Hayes Valley is now best recognized for its cafes, boutiques, urban gardens, Zen center and the largest outside Asia. Line up at the garage door for blue bottle coffee and you are almost like a local. Six blocks uphill are Alamo Square, a park hill framed by “painted ladies”—the gingerbread-trimmed Victorian row houses that imply San Francisco in films.
South Of Market
SoMa is home to many technology companies in the city, particularly around small park-South, but the area is not all business. During the day, SoMa offers a high culture arts area in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Contemporary Jewish Museum. SoMa entertainment also offers nighttime entertainment: Giants baseball, drag venues, dance clubs and live music in bars around 11 St. Day and night, be aware in sketchy neighborhoods, especially among the blocks between 5th and 10th streets.
Fillmore
During World War II Fillmore was deemed the “Harlem of the West” where the African American culture flourished. Still, it has blues bars, grills joints and live jazz at Yoshi. Another highlight is Fillmore Auditorium, home of psychedelic rock groups of the 1960s and remains a major music venue. Head to the bar upstairs, where trippy 1960 concert posters cover the walls.
The Castro
The most famous gay neighborhood in the US – it was home to the first openly gay elected official (Harvey Milk) in the United States. As the huge rainbow flag at the corner of 18th and market signals, this district remains an influential center for gay rights. It also hosts the LGBT History Museum and bar called Twin Peaks, one of the first establishments in the country to announce openly as a gay bar. The Castro is also an attraction for visitors with trendy shops of the same name and great theater, and a couple of renowned restaurants.
North Beach and Telegraph Hill
In the days of the gold rush, this famous region was called the Barbary Coast. Lounges and strip clubs still line Broadway, but the area is best known for Italian restaurants, cafes, bars and were home to the poets of the beat generation. City Lights Bookstore won a landmark case of freedom of expression by issuing Allen Ginsberg’s poetry in 1956, and today remains a literary mecca. Summit Hill telegraph to reach the Coit Tower overlooking the bay of vertigo and 1930 WPA murals that were once considered dangerously revolutionary. To the south of North Beach, Jackson Square is full of designer boutiques, antique shops, and galleries.
Financial District
The financial district is known for its iconic buildings and stupefying sculptures. It planned in front of the former headquarters of the Bank of America at 555 California is a black granite block 200 tons officially titled Transcendence, but better known locally as “Heart of banking.” A few blocks, the iconic Transamerica Pyramid horizon that defines hovering over a small redwood forest populated urban bronze frogs. Ferry Building was restored after the earthquake of 1989 and reinvented itself as a gourmet center of San Francisco, with food shops charming, award-winning restaurants and a pioneer organic local farmer market. Near the Ferry Building is the 1971 brutalist Vallaincourt local source often debate: How it looks more like plumbing or entrails? When U2’s Bono graffiti “Rock and roll stops the traffic” on it, even the artist Armand Vaillancourt approved as an improvement.
Chinatown
The gold rush was San Francisco with seedy docks and muddy streets – but the other side of the bay, Oakland 1860 offered an orderly, elegant alternative. Port with comfortable, clean streets was soon lined with Victorian mansions for the newly rich. Today, downtown skyscrapers suddenly stop just south of the Convention Center Oakland, bowing to the stately Victorians and historic brick storefronts of Old Oakland. The best happy hours in town places kept a low profile in well-preserved buildings to the west of Broadway, and Pardee Home Museum offers visitors tea and a tour of an 1869 mansion with all the Victorian ornaments, billiards corsetry. By the 1870s, Chinatown had taken root East Broadway, where ramshackle Victorian hunker behind modern storefronts that sell authentic Cantonese dim sum, Vietnamese pho, and Cambodian spicy papaya salad.
Fisherman’s Wharf
This district was once the main fishing port of the city but is now primarily a commercial tourist area that is rejected by the local population. Historic ships and fishing boats still dock here, kiosks serving local fried fish sandwich. Sunbathing sea lions, candy shops and street performers from around the Pier 39 also make the area family-friendly. The departure of ferries to Alcatraz Island is from Pier 33.
The Marina
The Marina is recognized among locals as a haven for straight singles, who flirt in trendy bars, restaurants, and shops on Chestnut Street. But there are also family attractions here: Marina Green is lined with kite flyers and stroller-runners, and offers picturesque views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. The Palace of Fine Arts rotunda and duck pond are popular scenarios for wedding photos, and Crissy Field and Fort Mason are former military posts transformed to civilian use as parks and cultural centers.
Union Square
The most prominent feature of Union Square is a memorial to 97 feet commemorating the Spanish American War’s Battle of Manila Bay, but it is the name of the pro-Union demonstrations held here before and during the Civil War. Today Union Square is a shopping mall with Macy’s, Saks, Neiman Marcus, Barneys and Bloomingdale inside or at the side of the square and two cable car lines run through the area. But the best deal around is right on Union Square: the half-price ticket booth with a last-minute discount for first-run shows at the Geary or Curran theaters, just west of the square.
Russian Hill
This district is the name of a Russian cemetery during the 19th century that is long gone, but today its most famous attraction is the block of Lombard Street between Hyde and Leavenworth. Here Lombard is steep and switches back eight times, making a worthy challenge for photographers and illicit skaters. Hill is drawn with landscaped pedestrian paths and stairs, including Macondray Lane, the scene of Tales of the City Armistead Maupin. Hardcore hikers are rewarded with panoramic views of the city and the bay at hilltop Sterling Park.
Mission
The Mission is a district full of color and young people full of good cheap food, locavore restaurants, legendary coffee roasters legendary and more than 400 murals. The district owes its name to the Spanish outpost Mission Dolores, around which the original city of San Francisco grew. Today the neighborhood is ethnically and economically diverse, with modern technology experts take roots with the families of the working class. On sunny days Dolores Park is filled with sunbather, Frisbee-throwers, protesters, and people who go for a picnic. Two of the best ice cream parlors in the city are also in the Mission: Bi-Rite Creamery and Humphry Slocombe. Some parts of the area are sketchy, particularly around the 16th Street and 24th Street BART stations at night.
The Haight
The Haight is the spiritual home of the summer of love. Today it clings to its long-haired roots, with lots of head shops on Haight and stoners who pay respects to the former home of Grateful Dead in Ashbury. West Haight is a premier shopping destination Vintage, although scruffy around the edges. Skaters take the downhill slide to Lower Haight, seasonal beers on tap at Toranado and Burning Man planning at NocNoc.
Nob Hill
Historically, Nob Hill was the site of the residences built by the extravagant magnates of the 19th century. The 1906 earthquake and fire changed all that. Except for James Flood mansion, luxury houses have been replaced by high-rise apartments. All lines of the cable car converge on the hill. At the top are the Grace Cathedral, Masonic Auditorium, Huntington Park and five-star hotels with magnificent views of the bay.
