San Francisco Recommendations

I'm going to be in San Francisco soon for a week, and I'm looking for recommendations for fun things to do!

Anybody familiar with the area?

Ive been living in SF for 8 years, I can give some recommendations!
What are you into though? Museum, artsy stuff, food, night life? Where do you stay?
Have you ever been to SF before? If not then you should spend a day or 2 checking out the touristy areas like the golden gate bridge, fishermans wharf, piers 39, ferry building, golden gate park.
Union square is where most of the hotels are, it's right next to the tenderloin, which is the sketchy area of SF, so dont walk west from union square. Go east to get to downtown, there's a cable car stop at Powell, it's 1 of the touristy things, that will take you to Lombard street, the famous zigzag street.
Those things I listed above are just touristy stuff. If you want to do more local stuff, the night life scenes are in the mission district, lots of bars and restaurants in that area. There's also dolores park, it's where the locals go to hang out, you can see everything there, weird stuff, normal stuff, everything. People will try to sell you "special cookies" and such there as well. pretty fun experience. More bars along polk street as well.
My favorite place in SF is the golden gate park, there's a japanese tea garden, though if you wanna go there, I suggest go early in the morning, around 9am, less people and very peaceful. Walk around, grab a cup of tea and some Japanese sweet. Then walk over to the academy of sciences, it's a science museum if youre into that sort of things. It also has the largest all digital planetarium in the world, a living roof, underground aquarium. Every thursday they have this thing called night life there as well, thats when they have music played, and you can party in the aquarium with the fishes, the drinks are quite expensive though. Right across from the academy is deyoung museum, which is an art museum.
Once of the "hidden spot" is the palace of fine arts, its not really hidden, just a lot less tourists, and its super beautiful, from there you can walk to chrissy field to have the view of the golden gate bridge, you can also walk up to the bridge if you want.
Another hidden spot is land's end, it's an easy hike inside the city with a gorgeous view, highly recommended.
Twin peaks is also a nice spot to look at the city, you need a car to get up there though.
In finalcial district - where all the big buildings are, there are many hidden gardens that are accessible to the public, the biggest one is on top of salesforce transit center. Go to the center and you can take the elevator, escalator, or even the gondola lift up to the top. It's a very nice little rofftop park in the middle of the city.
There's also chinatown and japantown, which is 1 of the biggest japantowns in the US, they have pretty cool japanese stuff there.
There are a lot more to SF I can recommend, let me know what youre into, or if you have any other questions.

Lands End was on my list, but I'll add the science museum and Japanese garden!
I'm not really into big tourist traps. As far as interests go I'm more into geeky stuff, so barcades, Lazer tag, unique movie theaters (sadly the Alamo wasn't showing anything fun) that sort of thing =)

Hi Liza,
I can drive you around SF and bay area on weekend. Just feed me

Calvin

I was there over the summer. This is what I did.

Japanese Garden
Palace of Fine Art
Ghirardelli Square
Fisherman's Wharf
Alcatraz island
Walk up or down of Lombard Street(crooked street)
Muir Woods National Park
Eat dim sum in the old Chinatown
Get irish Coffee at the Buena Vista.
Bourbon & Branch (really cool Speakeasy bar) need reservation to get the password to get in.
Dont drive, use public transportatio. (SFMTA) It's easy and cheaper. They have app and you can buy visitor passport for $13 that include bus and cable car.

Thanks for the offer, but I already have access to a car XD
=D

Foreverblue wrote: I was there over the summer. This is what I did.

Japanese Garden
Palace of Fine Art
Ghirardelli Square
Fisherman's Wharf
Alcatraz island
Walk up or down of Lombard Street(crooked street)
Muir Woods National Park
Eat dim sum in the old Chinatown
Get irish Coffee at the Buena Vista.
Bourbon & Branch (really cool Speakeasy bar) need reservation to get the password to get in.
Dont drive, use public transportatio. (SFMTA) It's easy and cheaper. They have app and you can buy visitor passport for $13 that include bus and cable car.

Did you find Alcatraz to be worth it? I've been considering checking it out...

if you do have access to a car, I suggest going to hawk hill on a week day, very nice view of the whole city.
Also for geeky stuff, check out the exploratorium as well.
I myself think alcatraz was good, do the audio tour they have.

LizaDolittle wrote:

Foreverblue wrote: I was there over the summer. This is what I did.

Japanese Garden
Palace of Fine Art
Ghirardelli Square
Fisherman's Wharf
Alcatraz island
Walk up or down of Lombard Street(crooked street)
Muir Woods National Park
Eat dim sum in the old Chinatown
Get irish Coffee at the Buena Vista.
Bourbon & Branch (really cool Speakeasy bar) need reservation to get the password to get in.
Dont drive, use public transportatio. (SFMTA) It's easy and cheaper. They have app and you can buy visitor passport for $13 that include bus and cable car.

Did you find Alcatraz to be worth it? I've been considering checking it out...

Yes, the price come with audio tour. Sometime, they have the tour after dark.
Btw driving sucks there, also some of streets are very steep like 30% incline or decline and parallel parking.

take care of the poo on the streets