SF
Guide

Curated by a local tour guide.
What I recommend on tour, collected in one place.

Neighborhoods

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Fisherman’s Wharf

Fisherman's Wharf runs along the northern waterfront from Pier 39 west to Aquatic Park and Ghirardelli Square.
SoMa

SoMa stands for South of Market.
The Richmond

The Richmond is the residential grid west of Arguello and north of Golden Gate Park, running out to…
Russian Hill

Russian Hill is a residential neighborhood on the hill north of Nob Hill, between Polk Street and the…

Where to Eat

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The Pawn Shop

SoMa speakeasy tapas restaurant hidden behind a pawn shop facade

SoMa Spanish

Marufuku Ramen

Hakata-style tonkotsu ramen in Japantown. So delicious.

Japantown Japanese

Tartine Bakery

Amazing bakery in the Mission Neighborhood

The Mission District Bakery

Foreign Cinema

Films from the 1960s and 1970s projected on the courtyard wall.

The Mission District California-Mediterranean

Things to Do

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Classic

Palace of Fine Arts

The surviving structure from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, designed by Bernard Maybeck as a temporary plaster building. Reconstructed in reinforced concrete from 1965 to 1974 using Maybeck's original drawings, with a second seismic retrofit completed in 2009. Rotunda rises 162 feet over the reflecting lagoon. Grounds are free.

30 minutes - 1 hour
Classic

Garden of Fragrance

A walled sensory garden designed in 1965 inside the SF Botanical Garden for visitors with visual impairments, with plants chosen for scent and texture and Braille labels on redwood blocks. Many of the walls are built from stones of a 12th-century Spanish monastery shipped to San Francisco by William Randolph Hearst. Included with garden admission (free for SF residents).
Classic

Coit Tower

A 210-foot Art Deco column on Telegraph Hill completed in 1933, funded by Lillie Hitchcock Coit's $100,000 bequest. The ground-floor murals were painted in 1934 by 25 artists under the Public Works of Art Project, with imagery so left-leaning the tower briefly closed during the controversy. Lobby and murals free, elevator separate. Take the Filbert Steps up through the wild parrots.