California
San Francisco
One of America’s most beautiful cities, and one whose locals are not afraid to harp on such a claim, especially when designing tourist brochures, SAN FRANCISCO sits poised on the 47-square-mile fingertip of a peninsula at the western edge of America – the perfect location for a place that considers itself the last stronghold of civilization in California’s lunatic fringe.

Indeed, the city has much to gloat about, not least the breathtaking natural beauty that surrounds it – from rugged coastline and tranquil bay waters to rambling, fog-capped hills and dense, unspoiled woods. Along the steep streets of the city itself, sit a cluster of distinct neighborhoods – by turn quaint or hip, lined by rows of preserved Victorian houses or dotted with chic clubs in converted warehouses. 

Residents like to think of their home as the cultured northern counterpart to sunny Los Angeles, mass entertainment capital of southern California, and to an extent they’re right – this was the place that birthed the United Nations and became forever associated in the public consciousness with the literary Beat and gay rights movements. Still, San Francisco is undeniably Californian; after all, this is also the city where blue jeans, mountain biking and topless waitressing first took off.

From its earliest days as a stop on the Spanish chain of Missions, through its explosive expansion during the Gold Rush and right up into the present-day Internet boom, San Francisco’s turbulent history is relatively short. Named for Saint Francis of Assisi, the kindly monk who harbored society’s outcasts, the city sprang up almost overnight in the late 1840s from a sleepy fishing village named Yerba Buena. 

The hilly terrain did not daunt the rough-and-ready prospectors who built on it according to a grid pattern that ignored even the steepest inclines; with its whimsical architecture, its vast irrigated park on the site of a former sand dune, and its cliff-hugging resort buildings, the late nineteenth-century city defied the elements and served as much as a playground as an economic center, luring writers, architects, immigrants, and thousands of transient sailors eager to “make it” in the newest, westernmost, metropolis. 

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Though earthquakes, fires, droughts, landslides, and other natural disasters have put the city’s very existence to the test, residents have never taken long to rebuild and resettle, refusing to give in to nature’s tantrums. Politically, San Franciscans are known for the same unbreakable character, infusing their city with an activist spirit most evident in the high visibility of once disenfranchised groups, especially Asian-Americans, gays, and people with AIDS.

Many visitors to the city today are drawn as much by its nonconformist spirit as by the sights; for some, it’s a veritable pilgrimage site. But the most common lure of San Francisco is its easy charm – with inescapably quaint pastel street scenes and blossoming parks offset by a sophisticated selection of international cuisine and world-class clubs, making it the ideal American city in which to linger without the encumbrance of a serious agenda. Indeed, despite all its activity, San Francisco remains a small town, where having a car is a liability due to traffic-jammed streets and a dearth of parking spaces. Provided you don’t mind hills, every major sight in town is a short walk, bike or bus ride away.

The City
Surrounded by the shimmering waters of the San Francisco Bay to its east and the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean to its west, San Francisco sits on a hilly peninsula at the United States’ final frontier. The city’s nearly four dozen hills serve as handy markers between its shifting moods and characters; as a general rule, geographical elevation is synonymous with wealth: the higher up you are, the better the views – barring fog, of course – and the higher the rents. Commercial square-footage is surprisingly limited for a city of nearly a million people and is mostly confined to the downtown area; elsewhere, neighborhoods are primarily residential, giving the place an undeniable smalltown feel despite its status as the second densest city in the country.

One of the flattest stretches of land, created by landfill and bulldozing, is located at the top right-hand corner of the peninsula and comprises downtown. Almost entirely contained within the pie wedge formed by the diagonal artery of Market Street to the south, Van Ness Avenue (a continuation of Hwy-101) to the west, and the bay to the east, the compact district is the obvious focus for initial explorations. Lined with the city’s stores and tallest office buildings, Market Street begins at the water’s edge of the Embarcadero, and runs alongside the boxy corporate high-rises of the Financial District, past the shopping quarter of Union Square, also home to a number of upscale hotels. Just north of Union Square is Chinatown, a tight cluster of apartments, restaurants, temples, and stores built around historic Portsmouth Square. Nearby, the towering Transamerica Pyramid makes a useful landmark to orient yourself by, shadowing historic Jackson Square’s restored redbrick buildings, most of them converted into prime office space.

Diagonal Columbus Avenue separates Portsmouth from Jackson Square, heading northwest and forming the backbone of North Beach, the old Italian enclave once haunted by Beat writers, and still popular among pasta eaters and espresso drinkers. To either side of Columbus stand the peaks of three of San Francisco’s steep hills: Telegraph Hill to the east, perch of the unmistakeable Coit Tower, Russian Hill to the west, reached by curvy Lombard Street, and Nob Hill to the southwest, capped by stately Grace Cathedral along with some of the city’s poshest hotels – though the area was once the province of robber barons.

Along the northern edge of the peninsula, Fisherman’s Wharf is thoroughly loathed by locals, but draws plenty of visitors to its tacky waterfront piers; it’s also the departure point for ferries to one-time island prison Alcatraz. Trails along the water’s edge lead west past the clutch of museums in Fort Mason and the ritzy Marina district, home of the Palace of Fine Arts and some of the city’s best shopping. High above, on the hills just to the south, the ornate mansions and Victorians of Pacific Heights make for splendid viewing; from this perch you’ll spot too the Presidio, a vast expanse of green stretching west to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Back near downtown, west of Union Square, the gritty Tenderloin, a run-down section of cheap hotels and sleazy porn shops, will snap you back to reality. It sits uneasily next to the Civic Center, where the painstakingly restored City Hall is the imposing focus of a concentrated few blocks of public buildings and cultural venues. Cross Market Street and you’ll hit South of Market (or SoMa), once the city’s major industrial enclave, but now more of a new media center, with the offices of many Internet start-ups. It has gained some cultural cachet, too, with the development of the Yerba Buena Gardens and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. SoMa’s waterfront, long-neglected South Beach, has recently been rezoned for housing and businesses, anchored by the Giants’ brand new PacBell Ballpark.

Inland, the Mission district was built around Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco. The neighborhood’s diverse population, which includes a large Hispanic community, is privy to a dense concentration of cafés, restaurants, and entertainment that runs along Valencia Street. Just west is an equally energetic neighborhood, the Castro, the nominal center for San Francisco’s gay population, and home to most of the best gay bars and clubs.

North of the Castro, the Haight-Ashbury district was once San Francisco’s Victorian resort quarter before hippies and flower children took over. Today it’s a rag-tag collection of used-clothing stores and laid-back cafés, though prices here have kept pace with more chic parts of town. Nearby are a few areas of only marginal interest to visitors: tiny Japantown, the slightly tatty Western Addition, and unexciting – save for some decent nightlife – Lower Haight.

Surrounding the central parts of the city, the western and southern sides of San Francisco are where most locals actually live, in districts like the Richmond, whose two main drags, Clement and Geary streets, are liberally sprinkled with a number of the city’s best ethnic restaurants. The Richmond is hugged by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to the north, along the coast of which you can pick up the four-mile Pacific Coast Trail; expansive, man-made Golden Gate Park, meanwhile, borders the south of the district, and holds a number of fine museums, gardens and the like in its confines. South of the park, the Sunset district’s homogenous single-story townhomes stretch on relentlessly; relief can be found throughout on the western coast, home to the city’s best beaches.

Greater San Francisco Area
Though San Francisco is undoubtedly the focus of the Bay Area, there’s much in the surrounding parts to take in too. The East Bay is centered around the up-and-coming port city of Oakland and the University of California’s flagship campus in hipster Berkeley. To the south, the Peninsula contains fast-growing Silicon Valley, with San Jose as its hub, home to many computer giants. North of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin County boasts enormous wealth in spots like the postcard-perfect towns of Sausalito and Tiburon, plus prime biking and hiking trails in the Marin Headlands. Further north, the lush beauty continues in California’s famed Wine Country.

Orientation
When pinpointing an address verbally to a cab driver or when giving directions, San Franciscans always give the crossroad rather than the number (eg Valencia and 18th), and you’d do well to follow their example. You may, however, see numbered addresses written down (in this guide for example), in which case there is a formula for working out where it is on the city’s very long thoroughfares. All streets work on blocks of 100 from their downtown source, which on north–south streets is Market Street; on east–west streets it is the Embarcadero or Market Street in the case of those streets that don’t extend all the way east to the bay. For example, 950 Powell St is on the tenth block of Powell north of Market; 1450 Post St is on the fifteenth block of Post west of Market; 220 Castro St is on the third block of Castro south of Market. 

Unlike many American cities, most streets have names rather than numbers, the only grid of numbered streets being that radiating into the docks area south of Market. Further out from downtown, in the Richmond and Sunset, the avenues all have their origin at the foot of the Presidio and travel south in increasing blocks of 100. Block numbers are usually also posted above the street sign, with an arrow indicating whether the numbers are increasing or decreasing.

History
Though its recorded history may not stretch back very far by European standards, in its 150 years of existence San Francisco has more than made up for time.

Half-heartedly settled by Spain in the 1770s. Spanish colonialism and rowdy American romanticism blend like watercolors in the splashy history of San Francisco. After Spaniards founded a mission and presidio in 1776, a village called Yerba Buena took shape nearby.

San Francisco had a rude awakening in 1848, when gold was struck near Sacramento. Americans came in a human tidal wave during the California Gold Rush of 1849. In a few short months, the population burst from 800 to 25,000. Expansion continued over the following decades, as San Francisco banks financed new mineral strikes, the Central Pacific Railroad began building eastward, and shipping bloomed.The city became a hub of commerce, built a cable car system, and put up fine Victorian houses.

The Great Earthquake
Then in 1906 a great earthquake and a catastrophic fire erased 500 city blocks.  Today little damage is visible from the tremblor of 1989. One of America's most demographically diverse cities, The Jackson Square Historic District (Jackson St. bet. Montgomery and Sansome Sts.) preserves brick buildings that survived the disaster. A rebuilt San Francisco showed itself during the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. 

In the 1930s the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges spanned the bay. (Visitor Information Center, Hallidie Plaza at Powell and Market Sts. 415-391-2000)  San Francisco is tolerant to the point that nonconformity seems the norm. While finance and shipping remain important, tourism also plays a major role in the city's economy

Arrival Information
All international and most domestic flights arrive at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), inconveniently located about fifteen miles south of the city. San Mateo County Transit (SamTrans) buses leave every half-hour from the upper level of the airport; the #KX express ($3) takes around 25 minutes to reach the Transbay Terminal downtown, while the slower #292 ($1.10) stops everywhere and takes nearly an hour. On the #KX, you’re allowed only one carry-on bag; on the #292, you can bring as much as you want provided you can carry it onto the bus yourself. Another alternative from the airport is the excruciatingly slow #193 bus to the Daly City BART station ($1.10), where a train downtown will run you an additional $2.10. The SFO Airporter bus ($10) picks up outside each baggage claim area every fifteen minutes and travels to Union Square and the Financial District in about thirty minutes. The blue Supershuttle, American Airporter Shuttle and the Yellow Airport Shuttle minibuses depart every five minutes from the upper level of the circular road and take passengers to any city-center destination for around $12 a head. Be ruthless – competition for these and the several other companies running shuttle service is fierce and queues nonexistent. Taxis from the airport cost $25–30 (plus tip) to any downtown location, more for East Bay and Marin County – definitely worth it if there is more than one of you. If you’re planning to drive, the usual car rental agencies operate free shuttle buses to their depots, leaving every 15 minutes from the upper level. Driving from SFO, head north on gritty US-101 or northwest on prettier I-280 for the 20–30-minute drive downtown.

Several domestic airlines (including America West, Southwest and United) fly into Oakland International Airport, across the bay. This is actually no further from downtown San Francisco than SFO, and is efficiently connected with the city by the $2 AirBART shuttle bus, which drops you at the Coliseum BART station, from where San Francisco’s downtown stops are fifteen minutes away ($2.75).

The third regional choice, the San Jose International Airport (SJO), should really only be considered if you’re staying in Silicon Valley on high-tech business. Fares in and out of SJO tend to be higher than to the other airports and public transportation to the city is inconvenient.

All San Francisco’s Greyhound services use the Transbay Terminal at 425 Mission St, south of Market Street, near the Embarcadero BART station in the South of Market (SoMa) district; the terminal might eventually become a stop for trains and BART as well. Green Tortoise buses stop behind the Transbay Terminal on First and Natoma. Amtrak trains stop across the bay in Oakland, where free shuttle buses run passengers across the Bay Bridge to the Transbay Terminal. Though technically closer to San Francisco than Oakland don’t get off at Emeryville, where consistent public transportation to the city is non-existant.

Getting around the city
Getting around San Francisco is best done on foot as the city center is compact. Walking the dense metropolis reveals numerous surprises, often in the form of stunning homes and bustling marketplaces. The hills can be brutal on your legs and feet, so wear comfortable shoes and consider the occasional flat – if less direct – detour. Watch traffic when crossing the street, and don’t start off until the light has been green for a few seconds. You may see outlines of bodies painted on street corners; they represent real people killed on city streets, stenciled by activist Ken Kelton (www.pedsafe.com) over the past two years to raise awareness of pedestrian safety.

San Francisco’s public transportation system, Muni, though much maligned by locals for its unpredictable schedule, covers every neighborhood via its system of cable cars, buses, and trolleys. Cycling is another good option, as marked bike routes lead to all major points of interest. If you’re considering journeying further north to Marin County and the Wine Country or south to San Jose and Santa Cruz, consider renting a car as public transport, while extant, is infrequent and complicated.

Visitor Information Service
Advance information can be obtained by post from the California Office of Tourism, 801 K St, Sacramento, CA 95814 (tel 916/322-2881 or -800/862-2543), though the best source of specific information on San Francisco is the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, Suite 900, 201 Third St, San Francisco, CA 94103 (Mon–Fri 8.30am–5pm; tel 415/974-6900). The bureau publishes the San Francisco Visitor Planning Guide which includes detailed, if somewhat selective, information about accommodation, entertainment, exhibitions, and stores, as well as a handy map; they’ll send it to you for free if you leave your address on their answering machine.

Accommodation in and around San Francisco:

For more regional information on the San Francisco Area, go to:

For more travel information on the San Francisco Area, go to: