Top Choice Park in Golden Gate Park & the Avenues
Golden Gate Park
When San Franciscans refer to 'the park,' there's only one that gets the definite article: Golden Gate Park. Everything San Franciscans hold dear is here: free spirits, free music, redwoods, Frisbee, protests, fine …
Top Choice Museum in Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The expanded SFMOMA is a mind-boggling feat, tripled in size to accommodate a sprawling collection of modern masterworks and 19 concurrent exhibitions over 10 floors – but, then again, SFMOMA has defied limits ever …
Top Choice Cultural Center in The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill
826 Valencia
Avast, ye scurvy scalawags! If ye be shipwrecked without yer eye patch or McSweeney's literary anthology, lay down ye doubloons and claim yer booty at this here nonprofit Pirate Store. Below decks, kids be writing t…
Top Choice Cultural Center in North Beach & Chinatown
City Lights Books
Free speech and free spirits have flourished here since 1957, when City Lights founder and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and manager Shigeyoshi Murao won a landmark ruling defending their right to publish Allen Ginsber…
Top Choice Park in The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill
Dolores Park
Semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics: welcome to San Francisco's sunny side. Dolores Park has something for everyone, from street ball and tennis to the Mayan-pyramid playground (sorry, kids: no blood sacrifice…
Top Choice Museum in Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa
Contemporary Jewish Museum
That upended blue-steel box miraculously balancing on one corner isn't sculpture but the Yerba Buena Lane entry to the Contemporary Jewish Museum – an institution that upends conventional ideas about art and religio…
Top Choice Street in The Haight & Hayes Valley
Haight Street
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, dude, you probably weren’t there. The fog was laced with pot, sandalwood incense and burning draft car…
Top Choice Bridge in The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers
Golden Gate Bridge
San Franciscans have passionate perspectives on every subject, especially their signature landmark, though everyone agrees that it's a good thing that the Navy didn't get its way over the bridge's design – naval off…
Top Choice Mexican in The Haight & Hayes Valley
Cala
Like discovering a long-lost twin, Cala's Mexico Norte cuisine is a revelation. San Francisco's Mexican-rancher roots are deeply honored here: silky bone-marrow salsa and fragrant heritage-corn tortillas grace a swe…
Top Choice Public Art in The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill
Balmy Alley
Inspired by Diego Rivera's 1930s San Francisco murals and provoked by US foreign policy in Central America, 1970s Mission muralistas (muralists) led by Mia Gonzalez set out to transform the political landscape, one …
