Things to do in California
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FEATURED
Yosemite National Park and Giant Sequoias Trip
14 hours (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
Take time out for a day trip into the wild beauty of Yosemite National Park from San Francisco. Enjoy the beautiful countryside and discover the raw beauty of…Not LP reviewed
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Restaurant Michael Mina
Involuntary shudders can be induced in most San Franciscan foodies by uttering the words ‘hotel restaurant, ’ but chef Michael Mina’s exception to the rule at the Hotel St Francis proved so successful, he’s expanded his empire to 15 other restaurants. Mina takes a three-dimensional approach to dining, where each dish is actually three variations on one key ingredient. Though the signature triple tuna tartare starter and lobster pot pie mains have inspired raves and legions of copycats, the seasonal menu showcases innovation and ripe flavors – butter-poached lobster with melon laced with red curry, or foie gras terrine with pickled strawberries. Consultations with your…
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California Historical Society Museum
Get the lowdown on California history at this exhibition space devoted entirely to the state's history. Galleries show themed highlights from the museum's vast collection of more than half a million photographs, paintings and ephemera. Recent exhibits have shown how the Golden State built its reputation for movies, fresh food and the good life through silent-movie posters, vintage fruit labels and tourism brochures – and how that mythology washes with historical realities.
History buffs will want to make a date at the fascinating research library for access to rare books, photos and manuscripts. The library has the definitive collection on the American Civil Liberties…
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Jai Yun
‘Hello? When? How many? $55, $65, $75 per person? OK, see you!’ That’s how the reservation system works at Jai Yun, where chef Nei serves 15- to 20-course Shanghai-style market-fresh feasts by reservation only. There’s no menu, since the chef creates the bill of fare based on what’s fresh that day – but fingers crossed, your menu will include tender abalone that drifts across the tongue like a San Francisco fog, housemade rice noodles with cured pancetta, and seemingly lowly yet truly opulent mung beans with sesame oil. Never mind that the restaurant has more mirrors than a Bruce Lee movie and Christmas tinsel wrapped around dining-room surveillance cameras – the…
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Bob Kaufman Alley
What, you mean your hometown doesn’t have a street named after an African American Catholic-Jewish-voodoo anarchist Beat poet who refused to speak for 12 years? The man revered in France as the ‘American Rimbaud’ was a major poet who helped found the legendary Beatitudes magazine in 1959 and a spoken-word bebop jazz artist who was never at a loss for words, yet he felt compelled to take a Buddhist vow of silence after John F Kennedy’s assassination that he kept until the end of the Vietnam War. Kaufman’s life was hardly pure poetry: he was a teenage runaway, periodically found himself homeless, was occasionally jailed for picking fights in poetry with police,…
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Aqua
Prix-fixe dinners here are major FiDi investments, but the $36 three-course business lunch delivers tiny, jewel-like dishes so fresh and delicately handled, you can almost taste the sun in a cherry-tomato sorbet and stormy seas in the geoduck clam ceviche. Trust your savvy server to recommend wine pairings and provide spot-on assessments of a dish, including where that tomato or clam comes from (most ingredients are sustainably sourced) and how it was prepared. Aqua has been justly famed as one of the city’s finest for years now – this is where star chefs Traci Des Jardins and Michael Mina got their starts, among others – so be sure to book well ahead if you’re planning a…
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Old St Mary's Cathedral
Many thought it a lost cause, but California's first cathedral, inaugurated in 1854, tried for decades to give San Francisco some religion – despite its location in brothel central. Hence the stern admonition on the church's clock tower: 'Son, observe the time and fly from evil.'
Eventually the archdiocese abandoned attempts to convert Dupont St whoremongers and handed the church over to America's first Chinese community mission, run by the activism-oriented Paulists. During WWII, the church served 450,000 members of the US armed services as a recreation center and cafeteria. The walls of the church miraculously withstood the 1906 earthquake and fire, which destroyed one…
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Columbus Tower
Like most SF landmarks worthy of the title, this one has a seriously checkered career. Built by shady political boss Abe Ruef in 1905, the building was finished just in time to be reduced to its steel skeleton in the 1906 earthquake and fire. The new copper cladding was still shiny in 1907 when not-so-honest Abe was convicted of bribing city supervisors. By the time he emerged bankrupt from San Quentin State Prison, the cupola was oxidizing green.
Towering artistic aspirations found a home here, too. Grammy-winning folk group The Kingston Trio bought the tower in the 1960s, and the Grateful Dead recorded in the basement. Since the 1970s, Columbus Tower has been owned by…
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San Francisco Supersaver: Muir Woods and Wine Country Tour
9 hours (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
Discover why beautiful Muir Woods and the Californian wine country are two of San Francisco's most popular day-trip destinations on this great value tour combo!…Not LP reviewed
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Castro St Fair
This is the yin to the Folsom St Fair's yang. Instead of black leathers, think white sweaters. Instead of whips and chains, think country & western dancing and hot dog booths. The Castro St Fair was started by gay political icon and city supervisor Harvey Milk in 1974 as a way to put the nascent gay community on the map. The fair succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and an estimated 150,000 people now show up. Proceeds fund a variety of queer- and AIDS-related nonprofit groups. The fair is an all-day event, with nonstop bands, emcees and speakers. The primary activities are endless cruising and shopping, the latter being the favorite activity of the somewhat more…
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Chinese Culture Center
You can see all the way to China on the 3rd floor of the Hilton inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits of traditional Chinese arts, including China's leading brush-painters; Xian Rui (Fresh & Sharp) cutting-edge art installations, recently featuring Stella Zhang's ethereal indoor sails and discomfiting toothpick-studded pillows; and a new 'Art at Night' series showcasing Chinese-inspired art, jazz and food. In odd-numbered years, don't miss the Present Tense Biennial, where 30-plus Bay Area artists are invited to give their personal takes on Chinese culture.
For more first-hand experiences of Chinese culture, check the center's schedule for upcoming concerts,…
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Lassen Peak
Lassen Peak, the world's largest plug-dome volcano, rises 2000ft over the surrounding landscape to 10,457ft above sea level. Classified as an active volcano, its most recent eruption took place in 1915 when it blew a giant cloud of smoke, steam and ash 7 miles into the atmosphere. The national park was created the following year to protect the newly formed landscape. Some areas destroyed by the blast, including the aptly named Devastated Area, northeast of the peak, are recovering impressively.
Hwy 89, the road through the park, wraps around Lassen Peak on three sides and provides access to the geothermal areas, lakes, picnic areas and hiking trails. It's only possible to…
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Fire Engine Ghost Tour of San Francisco's Presidio
90 minutes (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
Experience the darker side of San Francisco on this spooky tour of the Presidio. Right near the Golden Gate Bridge, this massive park and former World War II…Not LP reviewed
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Around Furnace Creek Drive
Start by driving up to Dante's View (5475ft), where the view is absolutely brilliant at sunrise or sunset. En route, detour at Twenty Mule Team Canyon, a windy one-way loop through an ancient lakebed - it will make you feel like an ant. Heading back down toward the valley, it's a short walk out to Zabriskie Point, where you can scramble down into the eroded badlands. With a good sense of orientation, make the 4-mile round-trip hike over to Golden Canyon.
Take a break at Furnace Creek Ranch and sit in some shade. The Borax Museum, past the restaurants, will tell you all about the stuff, and there's a big collection of old coaches and wagons out back. The Furnace Creek…
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Peralta Adobe & Fallon House
Peralta Adobe & Fallon House are historic San Jose houses that represent two very different early architectural styles, sitting across the road from each other near San Pedro Sq. To see the houses, drop by the visitors center.
The Peralta Adobe, the city's oldest building, dates from 1797 and is the last survivor from the original Spanish pueblo. The building is very basic, and the two rooms have been furnished as they might have been during their occupation by the Gonzales and Peralta families. Luis Maria Peralta came to the Bay Area at age 16 and died an American citizen and a millionaire, the owner of a large chunk of the East Bay.
Thomas Fallon married the daughter of…
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Blow Buddies
The original owner was a Disney fetishist and set out to recreate, with exacting detail, Disneyland-like attractions, with mazes and specialty-fetish rooms spread over 6000 sq ft of indoor-outdoor warehouse space. It's still the best sex club in town, and hot water, soap and mouthwash are supplied. Sundays around 8pm are best, but other nights can be positively dreary: count coats in the coat-check through the barred window by the entrance to make sure there are at least 30 (call about the Wednesday night fetish parties). Note: no cologne, or they won't let you in.
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San Francisco Food Tour of the Mission District with Optional Cocktail Pairing
3 hours (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
Taste your way through San Francisco’s historic Latin neighborhood, the Mission District, a colorful, cultural, trendy area brimming with great local eats.…Not LP reviewed
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Pacific-Union Club
The only Nob Hill mansion to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire is a squat neoclassical brownstone, which despite its grandeur lacks architectural imagination. Today it's a private men's club. The exclusive membership roster lists newspaper magnates, both Hewlett and Packard of Hewlett-Packard, several US secretaries of defense and government contractors (insert conspiracy theory here). Democrats, people of color and anyone under 45 are scarce on the published list, but little else is known about the 800-odd, all-male membership: members can be expelled for leaking information. Cheeky cross-dressing protesters have pointed out that there's no specific ban on transgender…
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Muir Woods, Giant Redwoods and Sausalito Half-Day Trip
4 hours (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
lt;pgt;Take time out from San Francisco on a half-day trip to Muir Woods and Sausalito. This enthralling half-day trip takes you across the Golden Gate Bridge…Not LP reviewed
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Blue Ox Millworks & Historic Park
Don't miss Blue Ox Millworks & Historic Park. One of only seven of its kind left in America, the millworks uses antique tools and mills to produce authentic gingerbread trim and decoration for Victorian buildings. One-hour self-guided tours take you through the mill and surrounding historical buildings, including a blacksmith shop and recreated 19th-century skid camp. Kids love the oxen.
Master craftsman Eric Hollenbeck does everything by hand, and even manufactures his own stains. (When colleagues laughed, saying, 'Why waste time making stain when you can buy if for around US$10?,' Eric replied, 'The hidden cost of convenience is knowledge.' Indeed.) If you spend…
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Legion of Honor
Never doubt the unwavering resolve of a nude model. This marble-clad replica of Paris' Legion d'Honneur was a gift to San Francisco from Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, a larger-than-life sculptor's model who married well and donated her fortune to create this monumental tribute to Californians killed in France in WWI. The Legion's world-class collection is wildly eclectic, from Monet water lilies to John Cage soundscapes, ancient Iraqi ivories to R Crumb comics. The centerpiece of 'Big Alma's' legacy is Rodin's The Kiss – but at 4pm on weekends, pipe organ recitals steal the show in the Rodin gallery. Don't miss rotating shows from the Legion's Achenbach Foundation for…
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Dragon's Gate
Enter the Dragon archway and you'll find yourself on the once-notorious street known as Dupont in its red-light heyday. Sixty years before the family-friendly overhaul of the Las Vegas Strip, Look Tin Eli and a group of forward-thinking Chinatown businessmen pioneered the approach here in Chinatown, replacing seedy attractions with more tourist-friendly ones.
After consultation with architects and community groups, Dupont St was transformed into Grant Ave, with deco-chinoiserie dragon lamps and tiled pagoda rooftops, and police were reluctantly persuaded to enforce the 1914 Red Light Abatement Act in Chinatown. By the time this gate was donated by Taiwan in 1970 grandly…
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Westfield San Francisco Centre
Wait, is this suburbia? Sure looks like it inside this nine-level chain-store city, with Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom, plus 400 other retailers and a movie theater. Supposedly there's a 'distinctive boutique' concept to this mall, which translates to the same amount of stuff crammed into smaller stores. Best/only reasons to brave this behemoth: post-holiday sales, H&M's Spanish cousin Mango, bathrooms (including lounges with baby-changing tables) and a respectable basement food court.
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Skiing
With an 8000ft ridge rising above the lake's southern side, Big Bear usually gets snow between mid-December and March or April and has two ski mountains, Bear Mountain and Snow Summit. Bear Mountain, the higher of the two has a vertical drop of 1665ft (1200ft at Snow Summit), and is an all-mountain freestyle park with 150 jumps, 80 jibs and two pipes across 195 acres.
At Snow Summit the focus is more on traditional downhill skiing with trails for all levels of experience, although boarders are welcome too. More than two thirds of the trails are for intermediate and advanced skiers, and there's night skiing as well. Altogether the mountains are laced by over 60 runs and…
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Fort Point
Despite its impressive guns, this Civil War fort saw no action – at least until Alfred Hitchcock shot scenes from Vertigo here, with stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge from below.
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Outdoors Unlimited Kayaking
Athletic pursuits and romance at the same time? Hey, when it's paddling a kayak on a moonlit night across San Francisco Bay, why not? Or you could go in the daytime. You'll need to be in shape for this, though you don't necessarily have to have any kayak experience. You might find yourself paddling across the infamous Raccoon Straits to Angel Island; look up at Alcatraz from its shoreline, see the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge illuminated by sun or moon. Landing on Angel Island you'll have lunch, and maybe take a hike or just rest your weary arms. Other excursions take you into McCovey Cove, where Giants baseball games can be watched from the water. (At least you'll…
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