Calling Bay Area Dopers: I'm going to San Francisco for spring break - Where do I go?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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So, it’s my last spring break and the boyfriend and I have decided to go to San Francisco and LA. In LA, we will be staying with friends (and largely doing an itinerary set by them), but in San Francisco, we’ll be staying in a hostel and exploring on our own.

So…Bay Area Dopers, where should I go? Also, where should I stay? We’ll be arriving Monday afternoon and renting a car and driving down the PCH to LA on Thursday. So 3 nights, 2 1/2 days.

Options to stay are as follows:
USA Hostel, 711 Post St.
Green Tortoise Backpackers, 494 Broadway
Adelaide Hostel and Hotel, 5 Isadora Duncan, (@ Post & Taylor)
Hostel International Downtown (Union Square), 312 Mason Street
Dakota Hostel, 606 Post Street
Hostel International City Center, 685 Ellis Street

My personal favorite (also the cheapest by about $20 a night) is the Globetrotters Inn on 225 Ellis Street. They bill themselves (and I think they’re right) as the closest to Powell St. Station, which would mean we could easily get around (I think) and easily get there from the airport. They also have $5 all-you-can-eat meals.

Are any of these locations much better than others? Is Ellis Street really shady (I read some things saying it was bordering a seedy neighborhood).

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Missed edit window:

What should I eat? Food should be cheap. Willing to pay $20/meal/per person for 1-2 dinners, and probably will eat breakfast in, so where should we eat lunch, and possibly a cheaper dinner? Ethnic food is a plus, truck or cart food is always lovely. Quality and taste of food are far more important than ambiance or formality.

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What are your interests? Do you like nature? Clubs? Museums? There are so many things to do in San Francisco that it’s hard to make recommendations without narrowing things down first.

That being said, since you’re trying to control your spending you might want to do things that are cheap or free, like:

  • The Golden Gate Bridge. While you’re at it, you can see Fort Point, a Civil-War-era brick fort under the San Francisco end of the bridge.

  • Alcatraz

  • The Exploratorium (a hands-on science museum in the Palace of Fine Arts)

  • Coit Tower. If you’re up for a climb, rather than driving to the top of Telegraph Hill walk up the Filbert Steps (a long pathway that starts at Filbert Street on the bay side of the hill). You’ll see some great views of the bay and some nice homes, and will avoid waiting in the ever-present line of traffic on the one road to Coit Tower.

  • North Beach (the historically Italian neighborhood). Walk around and look at stuff. Have some coffee and pastry at an Italian coffeehouse on Columbus Ave. while you’re there.

  • Chinatown. Don’t eat there, though. The best Chinese restaurants are not in that neighborhood.

  • Golden Gate Park. There are a lot of things to see and do there, including Strybing Arboretum, the Academy of Sciences, the De Young Museum and the Japanese Tea Garden.

  • The Asian Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Palace of the Legion of Honor (another art museum). Of these three, the Asian is my favorite.

  • Musee Mechanique, a museum devoted to old coin-operated games, nickelodeons, carnival attractions, etc.

  • Cable cars.

  • Muir Woods. This park in Marin County has old-growth redwoods. There are tour buses you can take if you don’t have a car.

  • Lombard Street. One block of Lombard is often called “the crookest street in the world,” although one block of Vermont Street is a strong challenger (no cracks about Wall Street, please!)

I always advise visitors to avoid Fisherman’s Wharf, which is just a tourist trap. Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square are almost as bad.

My main food recommendation is to look for Asian restaurants on Clement Street. King of Thai Noodles is cheap and the food is very good (especially if you like spicy stuff), but it won’t win any prizes for atmosphere. Yet Wah is probably the best-known Chinese restaurant on the street, but some others like Clement Restaurant are probably better (BTW, a lot of the Chinese places on Clement serve dim sum).

I hope this helps. . .

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Another food idea: the Mission District is full of great, cheap taquerias.

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I second Coit Tower, North Beach, Golden Gate Park, and especially the Musee Mechanique because it is part of my very favorite place of all in the city, the ruins of the Sutro Baths. This area is at the beach along the Great Highway, and it includes the Cliff House. The Cliff House itself is nice but overpriced, & you can skip it. It’s all on the opposite side of the City from Ellis Street, but it’s well worth the trip, and I’m 99% sure you can get all the way there on the underground. (Muni Metro.)

Ellis Street does indeed border on a shady neighborhood called the Tenderloin (mostly south and west of Ellis); I would say it’s not so much violent as riddled with con men, thieves, and hookers. I doubt there’s much you’d be doing specifically in that particular area anyway. If you stay on Market Street, you’re cool.

There are also a dishearteningly large number of homeless people in the City. Please don’t let this put you off – the vast majority of them are neither hostile nor dangerous. If you dress casually and don’t act fearful or arrogant, you’ll be fine. I really think that the Ellis Street place might be the best, because it is very central to all points, and you’ll have the extra money!

The airport, actually located in my hometown of San Bruno, includes a BART station where you can get a train that will take you right to Powell/Ellis/Cable car turnaround. (and right near there is the Virgin Megastore – woo hoo!)

The Mission District does indeed have loads of excellent taquerias (my favorite is Cancun; they make their own tortillas). This neighborhood has lots of truly outstanding murals everywhere. Also, great panaderias. (bakeries) There is a little bit more of a street scene (i.e., dopesters etc.) in this area, but also lots of families and skinny punk kids and everything else. I love it there. There are two BART stations in the Mission District, as well as several bus lines.

Hope this helps. Dress warm in layers, don’t tie your sweater sleeves around your neck, don’t say “Frisco,” and have fun!

P.S. There are some small clubs in North Beach (on and just off of Broadway) where you can catch live music – rock, blues, bar bands etc. – for not too much money. Good pizza & pasta there too! Short cab ride or single bus ride from Ellis.

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The Musee Mecanique (warning: very annoying sound at that link) is indeed very cool, but **brujaja **hasn’t been there for a while. A few years ago it moved to Pier 45 at the foot of Taylor Street near Fisherman’s Wharf.

The Sutro Bath ruins are still a cool spot, and an easy walk through Lincoln Park from the Palace of The Legion of Honor art museum or to Baker Beach or Ocean Beach. Bring a jacket; it will be crisp out there.

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Golden Gate Park, North Beach, the Academy of Sciences, Coit Tower, Asian Art Museum, Chinatown, Mission District and Muir Woods interested me already, but I figured I’d get a wide variety of feedback from everyone!

How’s Russian Hill and the Castro? Worth seeing, since we’re there such a short time? (2 1/2 days)

Thanks everyone, keep the recommendations coming!

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The crooked block of Lombard Street is on Russian Hill. Other than that, it’s mostly residential. The Castro is more interesting to visit, in my opinion, although it’s gotten pretty touristy.

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Thanks brujaja! I was hoping Ellis wasn’t too shabby. Are any of the clubs under 21 (boyfriend’s not yet of age!) in North Beach? We currently live in Pittsburgh (where we go to school), so we’re not unaccustomed to living/walking/carrying ourselves about in the heart of a city, and I used to go to USC, so I’m not foreign to shady neighborhoods.

Any particular food/restaurant recommendations from anyone - particularly in the Golden Gate Park, North Beach, Chinatown, Mission District, and the Castro? How’s the Hog Island Oyster Company? And Sellers Markets? I do love truck/cart food as well.

Thanks everyone!

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Re: the Academy of Sciences - not so cheap these days if you’re counting your dollars. $25 a head since they re-opened in their new digs. If you do visit do it early on a weekday and make it a day in the Park if you can afford it - Academy first ( crowds are a killer ), DeYoung museum across the road ( $10 a head ), Japanese Tea Garden ( $4 ), Conservatory of Flowers ( $5 ), Strybing arboretum ( free! though not for long as the SF budget crisis compels the city to soak tourists even more ).

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Brandy Ho’s is a pretty good Hunan restaurant right between Chinatown and North Beach (the neighborhoods border on each other). There’s a second branch in the Castro that I haven’t been to.

Most of the Italian places in North Beach aren’t cheap. One place I like that’s reasonably priced is Trattoria Contadina at 1800 Mason (at the corner of Union).

Belden Place is a one-block alley in the financial district, which is an easy walk from Chinatown. The alley is full of restaurants. The only one I’ve been to is Plouf, a French bistro that specializes in seafood, especially mussels. It’s not cheap, but not terribly expensive, either.

There are no restaurants in Golden Gate Park, although you might be able to find a hot dog vendor. There are plenty of places to eat in the streets surrounding the park. You should be aware that the park is very large and oblong - a restaurant that’s only one block from the park can be miles from where you are in the park. Popular restaurants near Golden Gate Park include Park Chow at 1940 9th Ave. and Memphis Minnie’s BBQ at 576 Haight (this is actually off the end of the panhandle, the narrow strip that’s east of the park itseld).

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I just thought of another place near Golden Gate Park: Katia’s, a Russian tea room at 600 5th Ave. near Balboa. San Francisco has a pretty good-sized Russian immigrant population.

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Not in the area anymore but lived there for over ten years.
If you wanna do the touristy trolley, your best bet is the turnaround at the Embarcadero. It’s a shopping center that has a lot of business offices above it and there’s not often much of a wait for the trolley there. The other location (Polk? I can’t remember, I never went there much) has INSANE wait times, especially during the weekend with the tourists. Remember, you have to pay both ways.

If you like Japanese food, there’s loads of fantastic restaurants in the Japantown mall, which is down on Geary between Laguna and Webster. Best curry in town (imho) can be got on the curry restaurant “On the Bridge”.

I dunno, I always enjoyed Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a good place to people watch and often has some neat street entertainers on the weekends. However it’s definitely not a good place to go for cheap food. It does have the Hard Rock Cafe though if you’re into visiting those.

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If you are interested in something you won’t see anywhere else, and free, you can kill some time at the Cable Car museum. The cables for a couple of lines are powered there and you can see quite clearly how it all works.

I’ve walked by Brandy Ho’s a zillion times, looked nothing special to me, awhays wondered why would it be just a block or two off of Chinatown (Grant Street), where it is wall to wall floor to ceiling Chinese? Walk up Grant Street, and explore the side streets and alleys and you will find great cheap food. Then go a little further for dessert and then somewhere else for tea.

No doper should miss a visit to City Lights Bookstore, if only for the Beat History. Best selection of Dope-ish books in town too. And right where Chinatown meets North Beach at Grant and Broadway. Price is what you decide, visiting is free. And if you like bookstores, and find your self on Clement (SF’s “other Chinatown”, yes there is more then one) look out for Green Apple, a large (mostly) used bookstore.

Any visitor to CA, especially those traveling from SF to LA , would be remiss if they left without checking off at least a couple of historical Missions. Cheaper history and more insight into the formation of California you can’t get anywhere. Yes, Mission Street mentioned upthread is named after the SF Mission.

I’d check travel times on PCH (Route 1) very carefully, keep an eye on both the weather and darkness this time of year. I made that drive end of March the other way when first moving to CA, I remember it taking 11-13 hours with only a stop in Monterey for dinner. Twisting 2 lane roads on 200 foot sheer cliffs to the ocean are not fun in the dark and rain. Some spots are notoriously dangerous. Once you get south of say, Monterey, your options to reconsider and scoot over to 101 are going to be limited.

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Spend one day at the Marin Headlands. Hike on your own or take a guided tour. Depending on exactly when you are there, there may be a wildflower walk. Marin Headlands - Golden Gate National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service)

There is a hostel there. Find a Hostel Near You | Backpacker & Youth Hostels Nearby | HI USA

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not_alice, that’s a lot of very useful information. Anywhere in particular you frequent on Grant Street? Or (to all dopers), any good bookstores you’d recommend, used or otherwise?

Would 930/1030 in the morning be wise to leave, to avoid rush hour in both directions seemingly? We figured we’d stop off in at least one small town, perhaps to avoid traveling between 430 and 6.

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An excellent list that will keep our young traveler hopping. The one block of Vermont is in fact crookedier. And much easier to get to and never crowded.

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Mrs. WeHaveCookies and I are planning on heading up to the city to catch this show one of these days:

http://www.audium.org/

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That’s about the time my friend leaves Russian hill for his Hwy 101 commute down to Sunnyvale, and he says he sees very little traffic unless there’s been a hellacious collision right at the end of rush hour.

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You almost (almost!) can’t get a bad burrito in the Mission, for $6.00 or less. It will fill you up, with the chips and Salsa. I LOVE Taqueria El Castillito on Mission at 18th, next to the porno store. Their Super Nachos are better than their burritos, and are ridiculously filling and tasty. This location is better than the one near the Church Street Muni station. Also, on Mission, right at the 24th St. Bart station, is a place that has the BEST Al Pastor burritos - I just can’t remember the name - it’s on Mission, across from the McDonald’s, right next to the King Bakery, which has AMAZING buttery pastries.

Joe