San Francisco

We love exploring the destinations we visit and sharing our insights with you – our members. These destination guides will give you plenty of inspiration about what you should – and could – be enjoying, whether it will be the first or the tenth time you’ve visited. From exciting activities, tips about where to head for luxury shopping and even things that you may find a little bit quirky, you’ll find something new and inspiring to try. Explore San Francisco.

The ‘City by the Bay’ is many things to many people. The carefree spirit of the Summer of Love (1967) lingers on in neighbourhoods such as Haight Ashbury, while for others, San Francisco is the home of all things hipster and high tech, with companies such as Airbnb and Uber headquartered there. Some will come for the incredible food, to explore LGBTQ history in the Castro, jog in one of the city’s numerous parks or the chance to cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge. When the famous fog rolls in, just bear in mind Mark Twain’s quote that ‘the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco’ and pack a sweater.

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Live like a local

Must-do

Do the self-guided audio tour on the former prison island of Alcatraz: for an even eerier experience, go at night. (The latter is available Thursday to Monday.) Once back on the mainland, take a ride in one of the city’s iconic cable cars – there’s something rather fun about hanging from the side as you zip along through Nob Hill to Union Square. Take a trip, by bicycle if you want an adventure, over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. Here the pretty waterfront town of Sausalito is well worth visiting for its one-of-a-kind shops, art galleries and lunch at a bayside restaurant with views across to San Francisco.

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Culture

Your first stop should be the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), where you can easily spend a whole afternoon. The De Young Museum, the city’s premier fine-arts space, is also worth your time. Built in 1894, it was refurbished a decade ago and contains nearly 30,000 works. (If you go on the first Tuesday of the month, entrance is free.) Of course, this being San Francisco, the spirit of counter-culture still lingers on. Take the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, for example, a fund-raising and campaigning group that organises a Hunky Jesus contest every Easter. To balance things out, there’s a Foxy Mary competition too.

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Adventurous spirit

Scratch beneath the surface to see a different and playful side to the city that you won’t find in the guide books. Take the Peephole Cinema on Orange Alley, which is literally a hole in the wall to peek through to see two-minute art-house movies. But the great outdoors is where the real adventures are. Join a whale-watching trip (May to October) or head to Muir Woods to see the mighty redwood trees that grow up to 250 feet high. From San Francisco, it’s also possible to visit beautiful Yosemite National Park for some hiking, but as it’s several hours by car an overnight stay nearby is advised.

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With the kids

Even hippies and tech billionaires were children once. A ride on a cable car followed by sushi or ice cream is a treat whether you’ve got $10 in your pocket or $10,000. The California Academy of Sciences – under an undulating grass roof that looks like it should have Teletubbies dancing on top – is very child-friendly. It’s part aquarium, part natural history museum and part planetarium. With advanced planning you can even book a sleepover so your little ones wake up next to an albino alligator. Or take them for a picnic in The Presidio, another of the city’s lush green spaces, and also home to the Walt Disney Family Museum.

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Retail therapy

You’ll find department stores and international brands around Union Square and on Market Street, with artsier boutiques in the Mission District and Hayes Valley. If you’re in the latter, stop by the recycled shipping container that houses Smitten Ice Cream: you can’t go wrong with the pretzel and chocolate-chip cookie-dough flavour. Literary lovers should head to Columbus Avenue and check out the iconic City Lights bookstore, which was made an official historic landmark in 2001. The Ferry Building Marketplace is a rather splendid structure in its own right, and inside you’ll find a farmers’ market and food stores providing tempting choices for an impromptu picnic.

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Food and drink

San Francisco is a world in one city when it comes to cuisine. It’s a foodie town whose inhabitants have arrived from all over the world and combines innovation, fusion and fresh, healthy ingredients via recipes handed down from an aunt in Saigon or a granny in Naples. It’s perhaps the most caffeine-obsessed city in the country leaving aside Seattle, but once you’ve had your Nicaraguan single-estate flat white, you can then move on through the day to dim sum, pizza and burgers, banh mi and Bloody Marys. And wine-lovers must take a trip to the stunning Napa Valley wine region to taste world-class wines and fantastic local produce.

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