Places to Go in San Francisco!
San Francisco is one of the best cities in the world to visit (or live) in my opinion. As a resident of San Francisco for the last 3 years, let me show you the “best” places to go in San Francisco if you are going to San Francisco for a vacation.
First off, if you follow my guide, you won’t need to book your vacation with one of those travel agencies and go along with a big group in a big bus. My best advice is to simply rent a car for a few days or you can even get these GoCars.
For booking a hotel, if you want to be near shopping, you will want to book a hotel near downtown.
But for those of you who do rent a car, don’t go downtown, there’s way better places near the beach, Ocean Beach. Why stay in smoggy downtown when you can enjoy the best of SF beaches.
Also, the beaches are the nicest during summer when weather is at its peak near 70s. Best time to check out the beach is during summer. There’s also a surf shop where you can rent some surf gear to go surfing too.
Hotels near Ocean Beach
If you are planning to get a rental car and you like the beach, you might want to stay at hotels near Ocean Beach. There’s not that many hotels near Ocean Beach so you might want to book way ahead of the time but it will be worth the extra effort being able to hear ocean waves before you go to sleep.
Seal Rock Inn is about 1-minute walk from Ocean Beach and some of the rooms will have awesome ocean views. Just make sure to ask for an “ocean view” room if you are booking ahead of time, you should be able to get it. (location on Google Maps) Rooms are fairly decent at about $114 to $152 per day.
Great Highway Inn is on the other side of Ocean Beach, it’s much cheaper and crappier hotel but if you are traveling on a budget and you want ocean view, this might be a good place to stay for less money. (location on GoogleMaps)
There’s many, many other great hotels but for beach-access, the above two are probably the best. Hotels near Fishermen’s Wharf are not too bad either but there’s no real beach access there.
Video of Ocean Beach: (Not the best day but a typical day in fall, my recommendation is to go in the summer.)
Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode
Best Place for Photos of Golden Gate Bridge
If you follow the tourist route, you might miss the best place to take photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is at the Golden Gate Pier on the east-side of Golden Gate Bridge. (You can see location here.)
There’s also a lot of lawn here where you can have a picnic or even barbeque.
Try to come here during the week as parking is almost impossible during the weekends.
Also, you can go fishing on the Pier without a license. You can expect to catch a lot of crabs at the Pier if you bring a net. I like coming to this spot as it’s not quite as busy as Golden Gate Bridge itself and also you can take much better pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.
(This is actually a picture I took on a chartered boat, that would be most ideal for best GG bridge pics, you can charter a boat here.)
Hiking Trail Along Golden Gate Bridge
This “hidden” hiking trail along Golden Gate Bridge near the Richmond district (where I used to live) is really another great place to hike and take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. I don’t see many tourists here but mostly residents who go there so this might be a great hidden spot you can check out.
Fisherman’s Wharf
Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco is one of the most fun tourist spots with a ton of things to see.
If you are into some good chicken wings and girls, make sure to check out Hooter’s at Fishermen’s Wharf.
For best crab food, check out Nick’s Lighthouse, it’s the best crab you can get at Fisherman’s Wharf in my opinion. (and opinions of my peers)
For the best San Francisco style clam chowder, check out Boudin’s Bakery, which should be easily visible at Fisherman’s Wharf as they have multiple locations.
There’s a lot of shopping to do here, make sure you check out at least 3 different shops before buying as prices can be much cheaper at some stores. (especially for souvenirs.)
Of course, don’t forget to save a day for trip to Alcatraz Island, where the movie Rock was filmed and also used to be America’s most wanted jail.
(Above is map of Fisherman’s Wharf)
Video Tour of Fishermen’s Wharf:
Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode
You can expect to see a LOT of street performers here, this is where all those street performers are from on TV.
Twin Peaks
For city-wide view of San Francisco, you will want to make a trip to Twin Peaks, one of the highest points in San Francisco. Try to get up there on a good day with no clouds for best photos. Also, you can drive your rental car all the way up to Twin Peaks.
Here’s a YouTube video of Twin Peaks and what you can expect:
Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode
Lombard Street – World’s Most Twisted Street
Of course, one of the most fun places to visit in San Francisco is this part of Lombard Street where the road is twisted like crazy. Bring your GoCar or rental car to experience the dizziness. It won’t be fun just taking pictures of it on a tour bus so…
Lol, check out this guy who’s skateboarding down Lombard:
Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode
Shopping in Downtown
San Francisco downtown offers one of the best, premier shopping experiences in the world. There’s many high-end shops near downtown, you can expect to see major brand name stores located here including LV, Gucci, and whatnot.
This whole area is really for shopping so if you are staying at a downtown hotel, you certainly won’t miss it. I won’t go too much into this and leave the exploration options up to you. Also, the high-end stores are actually on the east-side of downtown, sorta hidden so just make sure you check them out if you are into that.
Public Golf Courses
I tend to play a lot of golf in San Francisco. If you like playing golf, the best place to start out would probably be Lincoln Park Golf Course (I used to live right next to this golf course). It’s not the most high-end golf course but you get to enjoy plenty ocean views and frontal views of Golden Gate Bridge. Even if you don’t play golf, you can walk along the hiking trails as it’s open to the public. The course rates are decent and pretty cheap, usually around $25-35 for a full round. Again, this is a great course to play if you want to be near the ocean and feel the ocean breeze.
The other high-end golf course if Harding Park Golf Course (which I live practically off the 3rd hole now), you can expect to pay about $100 for a full round. This is where they held the 2009 President’s Cup couple days ago. Harding Park offers a great challenge, especially if you play right before or after big tournaments like President’s Cup where they will have the fairways mowed tight and rough grown long.
There’s also Presidio Golf Course, which is nicely situated between Golden Gate Bridge and Lincoln Park Golf Course. This is somewhat in-between Lincoln Park and Harding Park, meaning it’s the “medium” rate golf course. Course rates around around $50-60.
Lincoln Park Golf Course Website
Harding Park Golf Course Website
More stuff?
The above activities should be plenty for you to enjoy San Francisco for at least 3-5 days. There’s plenty more attractions to check out like Academy of Sciences and whatnot but I will leave more digging up to you, I only outlined the most “fun” stuff to do in San Francisco, in my opinion that is as a SF resident.
These are actually spots I go regularly to enjoy San Francisco, even though I’ve lived here over 3+ years. But my best choice for hanging out is certainly the Ocean Beach, there’s nothing like fresh ocean breeze waving your hair. Well, enjoy now and make sure to book your hotel near the ocean and DON’T book your hotel in downtown with 99.9% of the tourists. (unless you want to overpay for parking, food, and enjoy tourist traps… although there’s some great restaurants near downtown)
