I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to spend a week this January in San Fran. MIT is sending my husband out to MacWorld and I get to tag along. Sweet!
Neither of us has been out to the west coast before, so it’s all new to us. He will spend his days 9 to 5 at the convention but I plan on roaming around the city and exploring. Our evening plans are open too.
I’d love some advice on where to go, what to do,and what to avoid. we are staying at the Club Quarters, I think it’s called, in the financial district. We won’t be renting a car, so public transport tips are also welcome!
What are you into? Do you drink? What kinds of food do you like? Are you interested in touristy stuff?
I need more to go on here. I recently read an interesting article about speakeasies in San Francisco (don’t call it Frisco to the locals, you’ll get funny looks).
Haight Street is the place to be to go see the freaks and shop for your tie dye needs. Leather stores abound South of Market. If you’re into the kinky stuff, you must check out Mr. S and Madame S (385 8th Street (between Harrison St & Heron St)) - really cool fetish gear and toys. Shop at Union Square if you’re looking for a more vanilla experience. Take one of those tourist boat trips out onto the bay - it is really cool.
Have you bought your plane tickets yet? If not, you should look for tickets into San Jose or Oakland rather than San Francisco airport, if possible. San Francisco airport gets horrendous weather-related delays in the winter, while Oakland and San Jose have many fewer such delays (this is because of the microclimates in the Bay Area and the design of San Francisco airport).
The weather is going to be cold, foggy, and rainy. It won’t be that cold temperature-wise, but it will feel colder because it’s humid and clammy. There won’t be ice or snow.
Don’t eat in the restaurants right on Fishermans Wharf. You will find better and less expensive ones elsewhere. North Beach is a good neighborhood for Italian restaurants, and Chinatown of course has many Chinese restaurants. There’s lots of great food in San Francisco and the Bay Area- there’s no excuse for settling for mediocre food there. If you are vegetarian or vegan, the Bay Area is one of the most accommodating places in the country for that.
If you want sourdough bread, most grocery stores will have it. Grace Baking and Semifreddi’s make good local breads (I moved from the Bay Area this summer, and I miss them…), and will probably be less expensive in the grocery stores than the sourdough they sell to tourists at Fishermans Wharf.
I’ll just chime in on the public transit question; it’s plentiful and frequent and goes literally everywhere. Buses, trains, trams, streetcars, you name it, they’ve got it. I agree with the Wharf comments. You’ll get better food almost anywhere else. Wear good walking/hiking shoes; the hill climbing will flat wear you out.
Bring good walking shoes and a jacket - the easy way to tell the unprepared visitors is that they are the folks wearing an overpriced “San Francisco” logo fleece jacket that they had to buy because this isn’t San Diego weather
I can’t recall his name but there’s one Bay Area doper who is an expert in all things mass transit related here in the Bay Area, hopefully he’ll pop in shortly. There’s BART (subway) which has limited routes through SF and connects to the East Bay (Berkeley, Oakland, etc). Muni is the SF bus/trolley system. There are the cable cars and taxi cabs as well.
SF is only about 7 miles on a side so walking is an option but parts are quite hilly.
If you’re at the MacWorld expo that puts you right downtown in the financial district and you are within easy walking distance of Chinatown, North Beach, tons of funky little stores and great places to eat. The Embarcadero is the main street that runs along the bay waterfront, you can walk from the baseball park, under the Bay Bridge, over to Fisherman’s Wharf (one gigantic tourist trap), to the Golden Gate Bridge (you can even walk across the bridge to Marin if you like, you’re getting into a lot of walking at this point though).
Are you planning on staying in SF are interested in going out of the city? BART will get you over to the East Bay and there’s more stuff to do over there (it’s about 20-30 minutes to get to Berkeley from downtown SF via BART, for example).
I ate at Burma Superstar last time I was there. But be warned-there are no reservations and it’s INCREDIBLY hard to get in (this was on a Saturday for us though).
On the other hand, I’ve had the pleasure of eating at a restaurant that kept the CEOs of Google waiting in line!
They just opened the newly remodeled deYoung museum earlier this year, and it’s a must-see. It’s right in the middle of Golden Gate Park, which is one of the premier urban parks in the US. (The designers of Central Park were originally approached to design it, and passed on the job because they thought it would be impossible to do. Pikers!) The MoMA is also fantastic, and is within walking distance of the Expo.
It might be too cold in January, but I’m a big fan of Golden Gate Park. Great people-watching, love the Arboretum.
I haven’t visited the Musée Mechanique in its new location in Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a museum of various fin-de-siècle coin-operated entertainments. I found it a blast. I’ve never eaten anywhere on the Wharf, but everyone always runs it down. My restaurant recommendations would all be circa 1990, so I’ll pass. The burritos in the Mission were still good when I was there last year.
If you want to ride a cable car but don’t feel like waiting in a long line, the one that runs east-west on California Street is much less crowded than the other lines. The hills are less steep, and there’s no earthly reason you want to be on the corner of Van Ness and California, but you can always turn around and ride back.
When I lived there, I put off visiting Alcataraz for 2 years. It’s one of those tourist-trappy things that’s completely worth the trouble. The ferry rides across the bay are great by themselves.
My husband and I spent a week in the city last year and I purchased a couple for us.
If you plan on checking out at least 3 of the attractions and using public transportation, it really is a value.
I also highly recommend the de Young, the Legion of Honor, the Exploratorium, and even the Aquarium of the Bay, which wasn’t as awful as I always thought it would be. (All included in the CityPass.)
And all the other things I mentioned in the other thread.
I agree that most of the restaurants around Fisherman’s Wharf are overpriced, but I love stopping at the crab stations for chowder in a bread bowl or crab cakes or shrimp sandwiches. It’s part of what makes SF SF to me. Like getting a Sabrett from a cart in NYC.
Awesome, thanks everyone!
We are in our mid-20’s, geeks, and we love anyting cheap, quirky, artsy or techy. Since we are coming from Boston, I think assessments of the cold are probably relative. 30 degrees seems warm these days, so I’m looking forward to it!
Is Alcatraz worth the wait/tourists? Any other little-known historical sites? I love a good museum-art, science, natural history, it all interests me. The golden gate park looks fun, what is in there?
Any specific cool shops or fun tasty restaurants?
Also, how does, say, a weekly pass on your transit system work? Are all lines included?
Our travel plans were all booked already by MIT, but I appreciate the airport advice.
If you do buy a CityPass, know that the transportation included is only Muni and Cable Car lines. It doesn’t include BART or GGT or anything else. But I always find Muni (particularly the streetcars) and the Cable Cars enough to get us around.
For fun shopping I think of Haight, Union Square, and Cow Hollow. Just walk around and pop into the shops that look interesting to you. There are plenty of funky and fun ones.
Hehe…normally I spend my time on the other side of the Bay, but as I was just at the Moscone Center for the annual earth science nerds convention, I feel I should add some comments.
If I am not going to that area (around the Powell St. BART) for the convention, the only other time I find myself there is when I want to go shopping. And there is tons of it. Just about every retail outlet you can imagine has a near flagship store there. We are talking a 7-FLOOR Macy’s. No I know you say you’re cheap, but really, 7-FLOORS! There’s the biggest Old Navy I’ve ever seen right next to the huge, rather upscale mall. And the Apple Store. And the Virgin MegaStore. And on and on…Yes, yes, there is more to life than shopping, but it is a sight to behold. Talk about retail therapy. And go to Cody’s books. That’s one of the best book stores the area has to offer.
Public transit - if you had any ideas about the viability of cable cars as transit (like I did at one point), forget them. It’s $5 one way. Ride it once to say you did and then walk or take the Muni. Heck, cabs are really easy to come by in that neck of the woods.
Earlier they said not to call it Frisco. But don’t call it “San Fran” either. Us “stylish” East Bayers refer to it simply as “The City”. The really cool San Francisco dwellers don’t call it anything at all.
Alcatraz is totally worth it. Just remember, it’s not a tourist trap. It’s a bonefied national park. You’re supporting the park service! Try to get the night tour (buy tickets now) and wear something warm.
You should see the Ferry Building too. It’s near the intersection of Embarcadero and Market. A foodie paradise. Has Semifreddies Bread, mentioned upthread.
Which reminds me of the pier system. All of the buildings along the water front, Bay side, are called piers and labeled in number order, with the lowest numbers being closest to downtown and the highest being closest to the GG bridge. Pier 39 is the tourist trap mall and I think Pier 41 is Fisherman’s Wharf. The loading point for the Alcatraz tours is now Pier 33. Piers 33 and 41 are about a ten to fifteen minute walk, to give you some idea of distance.
Chinatown has lots of quirky stores that aren’t full of tourist crap, but you have to be a little discerning. Try to Wok Shop, the Kite Shop, and some of the specialty food stores (all on Grant St.). There’s an awesome candy/fudge shop called Z. Cavarriti a few blocks away in North Beach. And if you want a fun tasty restaurant, try the Stinking Rose. (These are both on Columbus.)
