Famously beautiful, San Francisco is one of the most filmed, photographed (and shared on social networks) cities in the world. It’s even better in real life.
Pictures can never capture the taste of mouthwatering, farm-fresh dishes, the clang of the cable car and the truly joyous celebrations of individuality you’ll find on any visit here. But where do you start your urban exploration? From world-class museums to the best in LGBTIQ+ culture and incredible city vistas, here are the best things to do on any visit to San Francisco.
Admire the Golden Gate Bridge from these vantage points
Other suspension bridges are impressive feats of engineering, but the Golden Gate Bridge
tops them all for its razzle-dazzle. On sunny days, this American icon
transfixes crowds with its radiant glow (there are great views from Crissy Field),
made possible by the work of 28 daredevil painters who reapply around
1000 gallons of International Orange paint each week. To inspect their
work, duck under the bridge into Fort Point,
make your way to the roof and look up: you’ll notice that even on the
underbelly of the bridge, not a single rivet is allowed to get rusty. Or take a hike at the Presidio. From the Bay Trail/Golden Gate promenade you can follow the shoreline to showcase views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island and the San Francisco skyline.
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Planning tip: Head
to the Marin County end of the bridge as the late-afternoon fog rolls
in, and you’ll witness the ultimate magic show: now you see the Golden
Gate Bridge, now you don’t. Return tomorrow for its dramatic unveiling,
just in time for the morning commute.
Photograph the Mission’s 400+ street murals
Love
changed the course of art history in the 1930s when modern-art power
couple Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo honeymooned in San Francisco. Kahlo
completed her first portrait commissions during her time in the city,
while Rivera created public masterpieces that inspired generations of
San Francisco muralists. Today San Francisco’s Mission District is an urban-art showstopper, featuring more than 400 murals throughout the neighborhood.
Planning tip: Head to Balmy Alley for some of the oldest murals, while 24th St and the landmark San Francisco Women’s Building are covered with glorious portrayals of community pride and political dissent.
Explore the attractions of Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
seems to contain just about everything San Franciscans love about their
city, from bonsai and buffalo to flowers, free music and free spirits.
The de Young Museum offers superb exhibitions of fine art in a striking contemporary building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, while the nearby California Academy of Sciences
is a research institute and fabulous natural history museum complete
with its own rainforest and aquarium. The park is also home to the San Francisco Botanical Garden, Japanese Tea Garden, Conservatory of Flowers and Stow Lake. Today, everything SF needs is here: inspiration, nature and murals.
Planning tip:
With its myriad attractions, you could wander the park for a week and
still not see them all. Select a few, take your time, and end your day
enjoying the sunset over the Pacific with a fresh-brewed beer at the
Beach Chalet.
Be inspired at the Asian Art Museum
Inspiration
can be found across three floors spanning 6000 years of Asian art at
this inspiring museum. Visitors can take in everything from meditative
Tibetan mandalas to palace-intrigue Mughal miniatures, with stops to
admire intricate Islamic geometric tile work, giddy arrays of Chinese
snuff bottles and an entire Japanese minimalist teahouse. Besides the
largest collection of Asian art outside Asia – 18,000-plus works – the Asian Art Museum
offers excellent all-ages programs, from shadow-puppet shows to DJ
mixers. Expanded ground-floor galleries host groundbreaking contemporary
installations, from Jean Shin’s melted cell phone towers to teamLAB’s
immersive Tokyo dreamscapes.
Browse the iconic City Lights Books
Free speech and free spirits have rejoiced since 1957, when City Lights
founder and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and manager Shigeyoshi Murao won
a landmark ruling defending their right to publish Allen Ginsberg’s
magnificent epic poem Howl. Celebrate your freedom to read
freely in the designated Poet’s Chair upstairs, overlooking Jack Kerouac
Alley. Then load up on zines on the mezzanine and entertain radical
ideas downstairs in the new “Pedagogies of Resistance” section.
Tour Alcatraz, the notorious island prison
From
its 19th-century founding as a jail for Civil War deserters and Native
American dissidents until its closure by Robert Kennedy in 1963, Alcatraz
was America’s most notorious penitentiary. With easy access from the
city, a thrilling and unexpected history, daring tales of thwarted
escape attempts and stunning views of the San Francisco skyline, “the
Rock” garners 1.4 million visitors each year. Freedom will never feel so
good as it will on the return ferry to San Francisco, only 1.25 miles
across the bay’s riptides.
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Planning tip: For maximum chill factor, book the spooky night tour.
Jump on a cable car – and hold tight
Carnival rides can’t compare to the time-traveling thrills of the cable car,
San Francisco’s steampunk mode of public transport. As the rickety
wagons ascend notoriously steep streets, first-timers slide into
strangers’ laps – cable cars were invented in 1873, long before seat
belts – as regulars just grip the leather hand straps, leaning back and
riding the downhill plunges like pro surfers. Follow their lead, and
you’ll soon master the San Francisco stance and find yourself conquering
the city’s hills without even breaking a sweat.
Trace the history of the avant-garde at SFMOMA
From the moment of its founding in 1935, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
envisioned a world of radical new possibilities. SFMOMA was a
forward-thinking early collector in such then-emerging media as
photography, murals, film and installation. Today, the institution has
tripled in size and ambition, dedicating entire wings to new media,
room-size paintings, high-tech design and monumental Richard Serra
sculptures.
Planning tip: If you want to visit all seven floors, it’s best to set aside a whole afternoon.
Savor California food culture at the Ferry Building
Global food trends start in San Francisco. To sample tomorrow’s menu today, head to the Ferry Building, the city’s monument to trailblazing local, sustainable food. Don’t miss the Saturday farmers market,
where top chefs jostle for the first pick of rare heirloom varietals,
and foodie babies blissfully teethe on organic California peaches.
Planning tip: Take
a trip to Pier 14, where you can make a picnic from food truck finds as
you overlook the sparkling bay – and let lunch and life exceed
expectations.
Go over the rainbow in the Castro
Somewhere
over the rainbow (crosswalk), you’ll realize you’ve officially arrived
in the Castro district – the most out-and-proud neighborhood on the
planet for more than 50 years. Walk in the footsteps of LGBTIQ+
trailblazers along the Rainbow Honor Walk, get to know civil-rights champions at America’s first GLBT History Museum and join history perpetually in progress at San Francisco’s month-long, million-strong Pride celebrations in June.
Duck down the backstreets of Chinatown
Enter Dragon’s Gate
to saunter down Chinatown’s main tourist drag, Grant Ave. It’s hard to
believe this pagoda-topped, souvenir-shop-packed strip was once the
wildest spot in the West – at least until you see the fascinating
displays at the Chinese Historical Society of America. Walk Waverly Place, Chinatown’s soul, lined with flag-festooned, colorful temple balconies and family-run businesses. Then duck into Chinatown’s historic alleyways
to glimpse a neighborhood that’s survived against daunting odds,
listening for mah-jongg tiles, temple gongs and Chinese orchestras as
you wander the backstreets.
Local tip: Finish your tour by refueling with some tantalizing traditional dim sum.
Get hands-on with science at the Exploratorium
Can you stop time, sculpt fog or make sand sing? At the Exploratorium,
San Francisco’s hands-on laboratory of science and human perception,
you’ll discover superhuman abilities you never knew you had. But the
Exploratorium is not just for kids: there are kid-free hours on
Thursdays offering mad-scientist cocktails, technology-assisted
sing-alongs and themed exhibits for an 18-plus crowd.
Take in the city panorama from Coit Tower
Wild
parrots might mock your progress up Telegraph Hill – but then again,
they shouldn’t expect to keep scenery like this to themselves. The Filbert St Steps pass cliffside cottage gardens to reach SF’s monument to independent thinking: Coit Tower.
Fire-fighting millionaire Lillie Hitchcock Coit commissioned this art
deco monument to honor firefighters, while muralists captured 1930s San
Francisco in its lobby frescoes. Coit Tower’s paintings and panoramic
viewing platform show off the city at its best: all broad perspectives,
outlandish and inspiring.
Detour: SF
has 41 peaks, and as you scale those steep hills, your calf muscles
will strain, and gravity will seem unkind – but persevere. All grumbling
will end once you reach the summit and feel like you have the world at
your feet. For different angles, head to hilltop green spaces like
George Sterling Park and Ina Coolbrith Park, San Francisco’s crowning glories. Alternatively, go to Corona Heights and Buena Vista Park for wind-sculpted trees and Victorian turrets.
Play vintage amusements at Musée Mécanique
A flashback to penny arcades, the Musée Mécanique in Fisherman’s Wharf
houses a mind-blowing collection of vintage mechanical amusements.
Sinister, freckle-faced “Laffing Sal” has freaked out kids for over a
century, yet don’t let this manic mannequin deter you from the best
arcade west of Coney Island. A quarter lets you start brawls in Wild
West saloons, peep at belly dancers through a vintage Mutoscope and get
hypnotized by a Ferris wheel made from toothpicks.
Hear the sea lions bark at Pier 39
Sea lions took over Pier 39,
San Francisco’s most coveted waterfront real estate, in 1989 and have
been making a public display of themselves ever since. Naturally, these
unkempt squatters have become San Francisco’s favorite mascots, and
since California law requires boats to make way for marine mammals,
yacht owners have had to relinquish valuable slips to accommodate as
many as 1000 sea lions. Night and day, they canoodle, belch, scratch and
gleefully shove one another off the docks. It’s a joy to watch.
Planning tip: These giant mammals can be found on the docks between January and July (and whenever else they feel like sunbathing).
Sip a cocktail at a Barbary Coast bar
Friendly
bartenders were once highly suspect in Barbary Coast, San Francisco’s
Gold Rush–era red-light district. Circa 1849, a night that began with
smiles and a 10-cent whiskey could end two days later, waking from a
drugged sleep on a vessel bound for Patagonia. Now that double-crossing
barkeep Shanghai Kelly is no longer a danger to drinkers, San
Franciscans can relax over historically correct cocktails at North
Beach’s revived Barbary Coast saloons, including Comstock Saloon,
Devil’s Acre and 15 Romolo. Today’s saloon scene is a fitting homage to
drunken sailors of yore, with iron stools, absinthe fountains, dim
lighting and reassuring barkeep banter.