Things to do in San Francisco
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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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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…
reviewed
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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…
reviewed
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South Park
South Park ‘Dot-com’ was the word on the street here in the mid-’90s, when venture capitalists plotted website launches in parkside cafes with tattooed 20-something techies. But speculation is nothing new to South Park, which was planned by a real-estate speculator in the 1850s as a bucolic gated community. Though the South Park development itself never quite took off, a plaque on an office building around the corner at 601 3rd St marks the birthplace of Jack London, esteemed author of The Call of the Wild,White Fang and many other popular adventure stories. Otherwise the neighborhood retreated into obscurity, and Filipino American war veterans formed a quiet…
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Swedenborgian Church
Radical ideals in the form of distinctive buildings make beloved SF landmarks; this standout 1894 example is the collaborative effort of 19th-century Bay Area progressive thinkers, such as naturalist John Muir, California Arts & Crafts leader Bernard Maybeck and architect Arthur Page Brown. Church founder Emanuel Swedenborg was an 18th-century Swedish theologian, a scientist and an occasional conversationalist with angels, who believed that humans are spirits in a material world unified by nature, love and luminous intelligence – a lovely concept, embodied in an equally lovely building. Enter the church through a modest brick archway, and pass into a garden, sheltered by…
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Bohemian Club
The most infamous, secretive club in all San Francisco was founded in the 19th century by bona fide bohemians, but they couldn't afford the upkeep so allowed the ultra-rich to join. Now the roster lists an odd mix of power elite and famous artists: apparently both George W Bush and Bob Weir are current members. On the Post St side of the club's ivy-covered brick wall, look for the plaque honoring Gold Rush–era author Bret Harte, which depicts characters from his works. On the extreme right is 'The Heathen Chinee.' It's not a racist attack – quite the opposite – but a reference to the eponymous 1870 satirical poem Harte wrote mocking anti-Chinese sentiment in Northern…
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Napa and Sonoma Wine Country Tour
8 hours (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
If you love wine, you won't want to miss the chance to visit the famous Sonoma and Napa Valley wineries on a day trip from San Francisco! You'll taste wines…Not LP reviewed
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Fort Funston
Grassy dunes up to 200ft high at Fort Funston give you an idea of what the Sunset looked like before it was paved over in the 20th century. The fort is protected as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and it attracts butterflies and migrating birds. In this defunct military installation, you'll find 146-ton WWII guns pointing out to sea and abandoned Nike missile silos near the parking lot. Nuclear missiles were never launched from Ft Funston, but on any sunny, breezy day, flocks of hang gliders launch and land here.
The National Park Service is gradually replacing invasive ice plants with native California plants such as dune sagebrush, coastal buckwheat and…
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Skip the Line: California Academy of Sciences General Admission Ticket
Flexible (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
Skip the line as you visit the California Academy of Sciences - the only place on the planet with an aquarium, a planetarium, a natural history museum and a…Not LP reviewed
from USD$29.95 -
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Powell St Cable Car Turnaround
Stand awhile at Powell and Market Sts and you'll spot arriving cable car operators leaping out, gripping trolleys and slooowly turning them around by hand on a revolving wooden platform. Cable cars can't go in reverse and this terminus is where the Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines end and begin. Riders line up late morning to early evening for the city's famous moving historic landmarks – so do panhandlers, street performers and preachers on megaphones. Some find the scene colorful, others find it unnerving. If you're worried about time, count heads and do the math: cable cars hold 60 people maximum (29 seated, 31 standing), but leave the terminus with fewer as to leave…
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Alcatraz Tour plus Muir Woods, Giant Redwoods and Sausalito Day Trip
8 hours (Departs San Francisco, California)
by Viator
Contrast the brutal austerity of Alcatraz with the sheer beauty of Muir Woods and Sausalito on this enthralling day trip from San Francisco. It's a whole day of…Not LP reviewed
from USD$89.99 -
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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Masonic Auditorium
Conspiracy theorists, jazz aficionados and anyone exploring immigrant roots should know about Masonic Auditorium. Built as a temple to freemasonry in 1958, the building regularly hosts headline acts. And every other Tuesday morning it hosts mass US-citizenship swearing-in ceremonies. If you're looking for confirmation that California is run by a secret club, here you have it: many of the nation's founding fathers were Freemasons, including George Washington, and the same can be said about California's. It's all captured in the modernist stained-glass windows, which depict founders of Freemasonry in California and their accomplishments – if you can decipher the enigmatic…
reviewed
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Portsmouth Square
Since apartments in Chinatown's narrow brick buildings are small, Portsmouth Square is the neighborhood's living room. The square is named after John B Montgomery's sloop, which pulled up near here in 1846 to stake the US claim on San Francisco. Bronze plaques and monuments dot the perimeter of the historic square and a monument bearing a ship with golden sails is dedicated to adventure author Robert Louis Stevenson, who found inspiration here c 1879. But the presiding deity at this park is the Goddess of Democracy, a bronze replica of the statue made by Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.
First light is met with outstretched arms by tai chi practitioners. By afternoon…
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The Dyke March
Never underestimate the power of the lesbian activist network. The annual Dyke March, a bold, informal, grassroots-feeling equal rights event preceding the Pride Parade, got its start by a single rallying call.
At the 1993 LGBT March, a group called the Lesbian Avengers set forth to Washington, protesting what they saw as the control of Gay Pride by white gay men and corporate sponsors. Armed with one bullhorn and the word-of-mouth telegraph, the Avengers announced the first ever Dyke March and, to their shock, thousands swarmed to the White House. San Francisco's first Dyke March was set up by the same gals the following year. The event now attracts 50,000 lesbian, bi…
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Presidio National Park
Explore that splotch of green on the map between Baker Beach and Crissy Field, and you’ll find a parade grounds, Yoda, a centuries-old adobe wall and a pet cemetery. What started out as a Spanish fort built by conscripted Ohlone in 1776 is now a treasure hunt of oddities. Begin your adventures by heading across the parade grounds at Moraga to get a trail map at the visitors center (Moraga Ave near Arguello Blvd) in the old Officers’ Club (verify location ahead of time; it’s slated to move), or take advantage of rock-star photo ops among the decrepit barracks. This is where Jerry Garcia began and ended his ignominious military career by going AWOL nine times in eight…
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Sterling Park
'Homeward into the sunset/Still unwearied we go/Till the northern hills are misty/With the amber of afterglow.' Poet George Sterling's City by the Sea is almost maudlin – that is, until you watch the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge from the hilltop park named in his honor.
Sterling was a great romancer of all that San Francisco offered – nature, idealism, free love and opium – and was frequently broke. But as the toast of the secretive, elite Bohemian Club, San Francisco's high society indulged the poet in his eccentricities, including carrying a lethal dose of cyanide as a reminder of life's transience. Broken by his ex-wife's suicide and loss of his best friend,…
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San Francisco Opera
SF has been obsessed with opera since the Gold Rush, and it remains a staple on the social calendar. Blue bloods like Ann Getty always book the Tuesday A-series – the best nights to spot fabulous gowns and tuxedos. The gorgeous 1932 hall is cavernous and echoey, but there's no more glamorous seat in SF than the velvet-curtained boxes, complete with champagne service. The best midrange seats for sight lines and sound are in the front section of the dress circle. The balcony has the best sound but you'll need binoculars to see the stage, unless you come on 'Opera Vision' nights, when a huge screen shows the action on stage. (Don't sit directly beneath the flickering…
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