Top Tourist Tips
Tidbets of unconventional wisdom for those planning a trip to San Francisco
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SFO has good public transportation: use it, but be aware of the different types and their strengths and weaknesses. Plan on using BART when you can, riding a cable car just for fun, and using Muni when you have to. Avoid Muni during rush hour if you can. < more >
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Go see Alcatraz, but make sure you get the boat that actually stops at Alcatraz so you can take the walking tour. Do not take the “tours” that just sail around the island. < more >
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For a city as progressive and “green” as San Francisco likes to think itself to be, the city is surprisingly hostile to biking. If you bike in San Francisco, be careful about your route, lock your bike, and avoid congested areas. < more >
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Dress in layers and be ready for the weather to change. San Francisco gets cold in the summer and hot in the winter. Additionally, San Francisco is famous for its microclimates: the weather in one neighborhood may be completely different than the weather in another. < more >
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You will encounter beggars and homeless people. What to do is up to you. My advice is don’t give money to anyone on the street: you’re probably just paying for their drugs or alcohol. If you want to help them, donate to a charity that offers real help. < more >
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If you’re worried you are in a bad area, walk up hill. (Legal disclaimer: there is no substitute for being aware of your surroundings and prudent in your choices. Do not blindly follow safety advice from me or anybody else.)< more >
- Don’t bother with Japantown unless you have identified some specific destination or event there. < more>
- For an American city, San Francisco has good public transportation and you would be wise to make use of it on vacation here. This is especially true because much of San Francisco has bad traffic, very little parking, and complicated traffic rules that often result in even locals being pulled over by the police or having their cars ticketed or towed.
Keep in mind that there is a definite hierarchy to the different types of public transport:- BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the fastest, cleanest, and most reliable public transportation. Use it when you can. BART
- The Cable Cars are great fun, but not reliable transportation. Sitting outside on a cable car on a nice day is a fantastic way to see San Francisco. There are three problems with the cable cars as transportation. Problem #1: they are open to the weather: if it is wet or cold outside, you’ll be wet or cold on the cable car. Problem #2: the cable car routes are very limited. Problem #3: due to their popularity, there are usually long lines to ride the cable cars and they can be difficult to catch anywhere except at the ends of their routes. Cable Car Info
- Muni is a nickname, a short version of Municipal Railway. Muni, operates buses and trolleys. The trolleys run both above and below ground. Muni covers much more of the city than BART and the cable cars do, but is much less pleasant to ride. Muni does not run on schedule the way BART and the cable cars do and the service is less reliable in general. Unexplained gaps in Muni service are common. Muni is also often packed during rush hour: buses and trolleys are so full that you either can’t get on them at all or, if you do get on, it will be an unpleasant journey. Muni is also usually noisier, dirtier, and a bumpier ride than BART and the cable cars. Rush hour is usually about 8-10 AM in the morning and about 4:30 -6:30 PM in the afternoon. SF Muni
- Alcatraz is a great tourist stop: it is unique to San Francisco and there is a very good self-guided audio tour of the prison, available in several languages. Only one ferry company actually docks on the island. It is Alcatraz Cruises.
Other companies will try and sell you Alcatraz “experiences” and Alcatraz “tours” that are just boat rides that circle the island. This is like taking a tour where you get to see a cable car but you don’t get to ride it: it’s second rate. You need to book your Alcatraz tickets in advance. If you plan on seeing Alcatraz on a Saturday or Sunday, the busiest days, you may have to book several weeks in advance. Alcatraz Cruises
On other note: if you want to see a movie to prepare for your trip to Alcatraz, do NOT rent “The Rock.” “The Rock” is a horrible movie and includes several scenes that bear little or no resemblance to the actual island. Watch the far superior Clint Eastwood film, “Escape from Alcatraz,” instead. - There are several good places to rent bikes in San Francisco and there are a couple very nice bike tour routes, but be careful if you plan to do a lot of riding around the city for transportation. The hills in San Francisco can make for tough biking: very hard climbs are followed by high speed descents.
The biggest issue, however, is the traffic. San Francisco does not have a lot of bike lanes and relations between drivers and bikers aren’t always good. Unless you have a lot of big city biking experience, you probably want to avoid trying to bike in very congested areas (Financial District, Chinatown, North Beach) especially during rush hour.
There is also a lot of bike theft in San Francisco, so lock your bike up with a very good lock. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has put together a pretty good resource list if you plan on doing a lot of biking in San Francisco: SF Bike
- OK, OK: everyone is telling you to dress in layers for San Francisco, but I couldn’t leave it off of this list. There’s a lot of stores by Fisherman’s Wharf that survive by selling sweatshirts to tourists who didn’t bring their own and can’t believe how cold it got when the fog rolled in.
Remember that it is usually windier and colder by the water. It’s particularly chilly if you are taking a ferry ride of any kind. This is true even when there is sunny weather: the ocean chill is even greater if there is a fog.
For planning your clothing, the best San Francisco weather forecasts I’ve seen are from Weather Underground. Make sure to pay attention to the forecast detail section to get a feel for how your clothing needs will change during the day. Weather Underground
- San Francisco, like most big cities, has problems with people begging on the streets and a homeless population. The city recognizes this and is working on it but there is a lot of disagreement about how to handle the problem. In some neighborhoods, and most tourist areas, you won’t see any street people, but in others you may almost literally be tripping over them.
How you handle this is up to you, but, having said that, here’s my advice:- Don’t be intimidated. Not many panhandlers are aggressive, but aggressive panhandling is bad for everyone. Don’t encourage it.
- I believe that, most of the time, money given on the street is used to buy alcohol or drugs. This is why I suggest that, if you feel like you should help, you find a charity and donate to the charity. Then you know your money will go for real help. I encourage you to look for a charity that matches your beliefs but, if you want a recommendation, try The San Francisco Food Bank
- Do not talk to a crazy person. There aren’t many people on the street who are actually raving, but if you run into one and even make eye contact, let alone speak to them, they will follow you for blocks yelling at you. You can tell crazy people because they aren’t asking for money, they’re just standing around talking to themselves.
- The most street people intensive areas are the Tenderloin and Civic Center areas and there will be a fair amount of begging up and down Market Street and near Fisherman’s Wharf.
- I make an exception for beggars who are trying to offer entertainment value. Sometimes it is a funny placard and sometimes, like with the famous San Francisco bushman, it is borderline performance art. I give these people money.
- Don’t let this section of the list put you off of San Francisco: it’s a great place to visit and all of this discussion probably makes it sound scarier than it is.
- In San Francisco, as in most of California, real estate that commands scenic views is highly prized. Thus hill top areas in San Francisco tend to be much more expensive, and therefore safer and more residential, than low lying areas. There are one or two exceptions, but in most of San Francisco, walking uphill will put you in the midst of safe, and often boring, rich people. If you want a vivid demonstration of this, walk out of the Tenderloin up into Nob Hill. Things get safer and more expensive with almost every foot of altitude you gain. (Legal disclaimer: there is no substitute for being aware of your surroundings and prudent in your choices. Do not blindly follow safety advice from me or anybody else.)
- Japantown was a large and thriving area before the massive internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. For various reasons the neighborhood never came back as strong as it once was. Japantown has some nice places and shops but, unless you have a specific destination or event you want to see, it is not particularly interesting or fun for visitors to San Francisco. If you want a different opinion, you can go to Japantown’s web site:
