San Francisco, California - Attractions

The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park

See

San Francisco has much to see - these are just the most significant sights. For more detail see the individual district sections, often linked from this entry.

A couple of passes are available which offer discounts to many interesting attractions.

• CityPass [1]. A relatively cheap and easy way to cover many attractions of the city is the CityPass. For a fare of $54 (adults) and $44 (children 17 and under) you get admission to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museum (both must be visited on the same day), the Aquarium of the Bay, a Blue and Gold Fleet bay cruise, and the Asian Art Museum OR the Exploratorium. A City Pass works for 9 consecutive days starting with the use of your first ticket (each ticket only accounts for one visit to each attraction). The pass also includes seven consecutive days of Cable Car and MUNI fares.

• Go San Francisco Card [2]. Another easy way to cover many attractions and tours is the Go San Francisco Card. This card allows you to take some tours for free (Wine Country tour, San Francisco Sightseeing [3], City Tour), Bay Cruises, museums, aquariums, The Conservatory of Flowers, and many other activities. Other tours and activities are also discounted from $5.00 to 40%. The cost of the card is $45 for 1 day, $65 for 2 days, $89 for 3 days. $119 for 5 days, and $139 for 7 days.

Tours

Harbor tours

One of the best ways to see San Francisco is from the waters of San Francisco Bay. There are many companies offering San Francisco harbor tours of varying durations and prices but they all provide marvelous views of the bay, the bridges, the island of Alcatraz and the city.

Only specific island tours are allowed to land at Alcatraz, but the typical harbor tour will circle the island at a slow crawl, giving you plenty of opportunity to photograph the now-inactive prison from the water.

Also consider taking a ferry from San Francisco across the bay to Tiburon, Sausalito, or Alameda. Same views for a fraction of the price.

Most tours leave from docks between San Francisco/Fisherman's Wharf|Fisherman's Wharf and adjacent Pier 39. Tickets can be purchased at kiosks along the waterfront walk. Buy tickets a day or two in advance during the summer high season.

Boats usually leave roughly hourly starting around 10AM and ending around 5PM. Multi-lingual guides are available on some tours. Prices range from $20-$40, more for sunset, dinner, or whale watching tours.

• Even on a sunny day the bay can be chilly, so be sure to bring a sweater as well as sun screen.
• Some boats have snack bars on board, but bring your own water and treats to avoid paying high costs or going without. There are now limited refreshments and a souvenirs shop on Alcatraz.

Companies offering harbor tours include:

• Red & White Fleet [4].
• Blue & Gold Fleet [5].
• Adventure Cat Sailing Charters [6].
• Hornblowers [7].

Walking/Biking tours

• All About Chinatown [8].

• American Running Guides, 415-864-2103 [9]. Offers guided running tours for active travelers wanting to maintain a workout routine without being relegated to the hotel treadmill. Experienced runners take clients on classic routes throughout the city and on the Marin trails, just across the Golden Gate Bridge. This is a great way to see the city and get a workout before breakfast. Reservations required.

• Bike and Roll [10].

• Blazing Saddles Bike Rentals and Tours, with multiple locations in Fisherman's Wharf [11]. In addition to bike rentals, this company offers guided bicycling tours over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County, where you can return by ferry.

• Geogad Mobile Tours [12]. Geogad has free MP3 walking tours for Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf that can be downloaded directly from the Geogad website. These tours can be uploaded to any MP3 device and work best on MP3 players that can display the tour photos and maps. These tours are a great introductions to San Francisco as they explore the most popular destinations for travelers to San Francisco in a fun, relaxed way. You can also rent an MP3 player with all of the Geogad Mobile Tours of San Francisco from the California Welcome CentreCalifornia Welcome Center at Fisherman's Wharf for a small fee. These tours include San_Francisco/Fisherman%27s_Wharf|Fisherman's Wharf, the Ferry Building, Market Street, and San_Francisco/Union_Square|Union Square. These tours are designed to make your sightseeing easy by linking some of San Francisco's best sightseeing together. For example, the Ferry Building tour ends where the Market Street tour begins. Likewise, the Market Street tour ends where the Union Square tour begins. Best yet, the staff of the California Welcome Center can answer all of your sightseeing questions to make your trip to San Francisco really memorable.

• San Francisco City Guides [13]. Founded in 1978, City Guides is a non-profit organization with more than 200 trained volunteers who lead free history and architectural walking tours in San Francisco. They are sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library.

Bus/Driving tours

• A Friend in Town, 800-960-8099 [14]. Offers personalized sightseeing tours conducted by a trained historian. Solo travelers or groups up to 30 are picked up and dropped off at their home, hotel, or anywhere within 100 miles of downtown San Francisco.

• Blue Heron Custom Tours and Travel, 415-337-1874 [15]. Private, custom tours for groups of six or fewer persons in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit boutique wineries in Napa and Sonoma, San Francisco's vibrant neighborhoods, the giant redwoods of Muir Woods, the hillside village of Sausalito, the magnificent California coast, and the beautiful Monterey Peninsula.

• GoCar [16]. These little yellow cars show you the way as they lead you on their tour of San Francisco.

• Mr. Toads Tours, 877-467-8623 [17]. Semi-private environmentally friendly tours are provided in 10-passenger, propane powered pre-1930s touring cars. Highlights include Chinatown's fortune cookie factory, Victorian homes, Lombard Street, Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park, Presidio National Park, Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts, and Ghirardelli Square. Frequent daily departures from Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square. Reservations recommended and can be made online.

• Gray Line Motorized Cable Car Tour.

• Isolda Anilovich - Russian-Speaking Tour Guide, 415-351-2232 [18](in English) [19] (in Russian). Private, custom tours of San Francisco, Bay Area and Napa Valley are provided in native Russian language. Flexible accommodations to suit your interests, taste, and budget.

Other tours

• Guided Segway Tours, 415-474-3130 [20]. New three hour guided tours on a Segway. Departures daily. See the San Francisco Waterfront, Marina Green, Fort Mason and more. Includes 35-45 minutes of training and 2 - 2 1/2 hours of sightseeing. Small group make this ideal for individuals and families. Reservations required. Tours are now also offered in Sausalito.

• Local Tastes of the City [21].

• Ballpark Tours - San Francisco Giants AT&T Stadium [22].

SFMOMA from Yerba Buena Gardens

Museums

When the morning is foggy, you may want to spend a few hours in one of the city's many world-class museums.

• Asian Art Museum of San Francisco located in the San Francisco Civic Center.
• Cable Car Museum at Nob Hill offers exhibits on the famous moving landmarks of San Francisco.
• California Academy of Sciences which is scheduled to re-open in September 2008 after extensive renovations.
• California Palace of the Legion of Honor is in Lincoln Park in the northwest corner of the Richmond district.
• Cartoon Art Museum
• Contemporary Jewish Museum designed by Daniel Liebeskind and opened in June 2008 is the latest major addition to San Francisco's museum scene.
• M.H. de Young Memorial Museum houses an impressive collection of contemporary and indigenous art.
• Moscone Center
• Museum of Craft and Folk Art
• Museum of the African Diaspora
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
• Zeum

At the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco/Fisherman's Wharf|Fisherman's Wharf you can go on board several historical ships, including the 1886 Balclutha clipper ship, a walking-beam ferry, a steam tug, and a coastal schooner. At Pier 45 just to the east, the World War II submarine USS Pampanito and the World War II Liberty Ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien can be visited. Nearby on Pier 39 is the excellent Aquarium of the Bay.

The Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts in the San Francisco/Marina|Marina will keep you busy for an entire day with their science and perception exhibits. Also in the Marina district is Fort Mason, home to a few cultural museums.

The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) contains 20th century and contemporary pieces. It moved to its iconic building in South of Market in 1995 and attracts 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor contains primarily European works. The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and the Asian Art Museum have significant anthropological and non-European holdings.

The Palace of Fine Arts, originally built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, today houses the Exploratorium, a popular science museum dedicated to teaching through hands-on interaction. The California Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum and hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. The San Francisco Zoo cares for a total of about 250 animal species out of which 39 have been deemed endangered or threatened.

Landmarks

Image:Goldengatebridge2.jpg|frame|The Golden Gate Bridge

• The Golden Gate Bridge, located at the San Francisco/Golden Gate|Golden Gate, is perhaps the most recognizable landmark in San Francisco and one of the most famous bridges in the United States, and has been called one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The bridge spans the Golden Gate, a strait between San Francisco and Marin County to the north, and is one of the major road routes into and out of the city.
• The famous cable cars run up and down the hills of San Francisco between Market Street and Fisherman's Wharf and offer quite a ride. See above under San Francisco#Get around|Get around for more info.
• The Presidio, located in the San Francisco/Golden Gate|Golden Gate district, was founded in 1776 and was the longest-running military post in the U.S. before closing as a base in 1994. It is now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and contains the Fort Point National Historic Site. From its vantage point overlooking the spectacular Golden Gate, Fort Point protected San Francisco harbor from Confederate & foreign attack during & after the U.S. Civil War. Its beautifully arched casemates display the art of the master brick mason from the Civil War period. The Palace of Fine Arts is a beautiful building, built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and reminiscent of Roman and Greek architecture.
• Coit Tower, atop Telegraph Hill in San Francisco/North Beach|North Beach, is dedicated to the San Francisco firefighters (who fought a massive blaze in 1906 after the earthquake that destroyed much of the city center), and the tower is rumored to be designed to resemble the nozzle of a fire hose. At 250' high, it is a healthy hike from the nearby neighborhoods just below the hill.
• The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest and most recognizable building in San Francisco, located among the skyscrapers and highrises of the San Francisco/Financial District|Financial District.
• Alamo Square Park in the San Francisco/Western Addition|Western Addition district is home to the famous Painted Ladies row of Victorian houses on its east side along Steiner Street, with many other pretty Victorians encircling the lovely park.
• Lombard Street. The (nearly) twistiest street in America, between Hyde & Leavenworth on San Francisco/Russian Hill|Russian Hill. The city has a twistier but less scenic hill-climb along Vermont Street, south of McKinley Square on San Francisco/Potrero Hill|Potrero Hill. You can get a view of Lombard from the Powell & Hyde cable car line.
• 22nd Street between Vicksburg and Church in San Francisco/Noe Valley|Noe Valley and Filbert Street between Leavenworth and Hyde on San Francisco/Russian Hill|Russian Hill - At a 31.5% grade, these streets share the honor of steepest streets in San Francisco.
• The Mission Dolores Church in the San Francisco/Mission District|Mission District is one of the oldest structures in the city with superb city views from Dolores Park. The walls of many nearby buildings, especially on alleys between Market and Valencia are painted with a fantastic collection of murals of all sorts.

Parks/outdoors

• Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco/The Avenues|The Avenues district, is a massive (roughly 1/2 mile-by-four mile) urban oasis with windmills, bison, museums, a carousel and much more hidden among its charms. The park contains the antique palatial greenhouse of the Conservatory of Flowers, the modern and ethnic art focused de Young Museum, the large Japanese Tea Garden, and the Strybing Arboretum, a collection of plants from across the temperate world.
• Lincoln Park, in the San Francisco/Richmond|Richmond, defines the extreme Northwestern corner of San Francisco. It provides majestic views of the Marin Headlands, the Golden Gate Bridge from the Ocean side, and the Pacific Ocean itself. At the extreme western end the well known Cliff House provides both semi-casual and a more formal eating and drinking place. The Legion of Honor museum at the center of the park houses many incredible artworks.
• San Francisco/Twin Peaks|Twin Peaks, accessible by car or on foot via Twin Peaks Boulevard (north of Portola Drive, just east of Laguna Honda). The small parking area at the northern tip of Twin Peaks Boulevard (875' above sea level) is near the physical center of the city, and one of its highest points, providing spectacular views in all directions. Tour buses can get backed up here during the day, but it's a great place to really appreciate the City from above, especially at and after sunset. Temperatures up there can be quite a bit lower than in the rest of the city, so bring a jacket.
• San Francisco Zoo. Located in the San Francisco/Twin Peaks-Lake Merced|Lake Merced area at the end of the L streetcar line near Ocean Beach, this large and well maintained zoo is a great place to go if you are traveling with children or have a fondness for penguins, primates, lions or llamas. It is Northern California's largest zoological park.

Beaches and parks

Baker Beach

Ocean Beach runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline, but is not suitable for swimming because the waters off the coast are cold and have deadly rip currents. Baker Beach occupies a picturesque setting just west of the Golden Gate Bridge and is where one of the few existing colonies of Hesperolinon congestum, the threatened Marin Dwarf Flax, can be found. China Beach in San Francisco/Richmond|Richmond is a smaller, rather secluded beach with lovely views.

The biggest and most well-known park is Golden Gate Park, stretching from the center of the city to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered only in grass and sand dunes, the park is planted with thousands of non-native trees and plants and is rich with attractions including the Conservatory of Flowers, the Japanese Tea Garden, and Strybing Arboretum. The Presidio, a former military base, and its Crissy Field section, restored to its natural salt marsh condition, are part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Alcatraz, and other regional parks. Buena Vista Park is the city's oldest, established in 1867. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland.