5 Days in San Francisco

Start with the strangest building in the city. The Palace of Fine Arts was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, which was San Francisco's way of telling the world it had come back from the 1906 earthquake. It was designed to look like a decaying Roman ruin, with a rotunda, colonnades and a lagoon, and it is the only structure from the fair still standing on its original site. Built to be temporary, it was completely rebuilt from 1964 to 1974.

Go early, before the wedding photographers and the tour buses, and walk around the lagoon under the columns. It takes 20 minutes, and it's an exterior stop.

The Presidio is a former army post, and it's the reason the north end of the city is green instead of covered with houses. Spain set up its fortress here in 1776, Mexico took it over in 1821 and the US Army in 1846, and on October 1, 1994 the army handed it to the National Park Service after 219 years of military use. Tunnel Tops is the newest part: a park built over a highway tunnel, with lawns, a children's play area called the Outpost, and views of the bay and the bridge towers.

Start at the Presidio Visitor Center, open daily, for a map, then walk the trail down to the water. Work around the Main Post is planned through winter 2027, so expect some detours.

Crissy Field was an army airfield until 1974, then a dumping ground, and the park service and the Parks Conservancy spent years restoring it into a tidal marsh and a wide beach. It's the flat, easy stretch of the city: joggers, dog walkers, kite surfers and the bridge hanging at the end of the promenade.

Walk the waterfront path to the west end, where the Warming Hut, a park store run by the Parks Conservancy, sells coffee, hot chocolate and packaged snacks, with picnic tables outside by the water. There's no cooked lunch, so bring a sandwich or eat on Chestnut Street. Hours vary with the season. From here it's a short stroll to Fort Point.

Fort Point sits right under the south end of the bridge, and it nearly didn't survive it. The site was first fortified by Spain in 1794, and the brick fort was finished by the US Army just before the Civil War to guard the Golden Gate against ships. It never saw a battle, and the 1930s bridge plans called for tearing it down. Chief engineer Joseph Strauss redesigned the approach instead, so the road arches over the fort.

Walk through the brick casemates, climb up to the roof (it closes at 4:30pm) and look straight up at the underside of the bridge, with the Pacific waves crashing below. The fort is only open Thursday to Monday, 10am to 5pm, which is why this plan starts on a Monday, and the outside is open every day.

The Golden Gate Bridge opened on May 27, 1937, with a main span of 4,200 feet, the longest in the world at the time. The color is called International Orange, and it was chosen by the architect Irving Morrow, after the Navy suggested painting it in black and yellow stripes so ships could see it. Standing next to the riveted towers, it does look like a work of art.

Walk from the Visitor Center on the San Francisco side, on the east sidewalk, the only one open to pedestrians. Go as far as the middle if you only have an hour; the full return trip is about 3.4 miles and takes 90 minutes. It's loud, windy and cold, and the cables hum. Drivers pay the toll in one direction only, southbound into the city.

Alcatraz is a rock 1.25 miles off the shore. It was a lighthouse, then a military fort and prison, and in 1934 it became a federal penitentiary. Al Capone is the name everyone knows, along with Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz". Strong tides and the cold water of the bay made escaping almost impossible, and the prison closed in March 1963. In November 1969 Native American activists occupied the island for more than 19 months, a chapter that gets less space in the souvenir shops than Capone.

The ferry ride from Pier 33 is short, and the cellhouse audio tour is included in the ticket. Look at the cells, the dining hall and the city across the water that prisoners saw every day. Wear layers. There's no food on the island.

Back on land you step into the most touristy part of the city, and it knows it. Fisherman's Wharf was a working fishing port; the fishing declined in the 1960s and 70s and the souvenir stands took over. Most of what you see now is T-shirts and sea lion kitsch.

Pier 39 is the place for the sea lions. The first ones hauled out on the marina docks in September 1989 and the colony has stayed, a barking, smelly crowd you can watch for free from the pier. Then walk west along Jefferson Street for the bakery.

The sourdough story of San Francisco starts with Isidore Boudin, who came from a family of bakers in Burgundy and opened here in 1849 in the middle of the Gold Rush, mixing the sourdough the miners ate with French technique. The bread is genuinely good: a chewy, crackly crust and a tangy inside.

The standard order is clam chowder in a hollowed-out sourdough round. It's a tourist cliche, and a good one. Boudin is a chain these days, but the Wharf bakery at 160 Jefferson Street, with a museum and a window onto the ovens, is the one people come to see.

Walk west along the water to the Buena Vista, a corner cafe at the end of the Hyde Street cable car line. It opened as a saloon in 1916 and is credited with introducing Irish coffee to the United States in 1952. The recipe is simple: Irish whiskey, hot coffee, sugar and a lid of lightly whipped cream, which you drink through the cream.

Order one at the bar or at a window table. It's a sweet, strong drink and a good way to warm up before the cable car.

San Francisco's cable cars are the last manually operated cable car system in the world. Of 23 lines built between 1873 and 1890, three survive: two from near Union Square to Fisherman's Wharf and one along California Street. Andrew Today the riders are mostly tourists.

From the turnaround near the Buena Vista, take the Powell-Hyde line up Russian Hill, hanging off the side if there's room. Get off at Lombard Street and walk down the one-block stretch with eight tight hairpin turns, called the crookedest street in the world. It looks better from the top than from the bottom.

From Lombard it's a 25-minute walk to Telegraph Hill; for the last stretch take the Filbert Steps, which wind through gardens. Coit Tower, the 210-foot concrete column at the top, was built in 1932 and 1933 with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the city. People often say it was built to honor the city's volunteer firefighters, but that isn't accurate.

The lobby is free and worth the climb: a set of Social Realism frescoes painted by 22 artists during the Depression, showing workers, farms, shipyards and city life. Pay for the elevator if you want the view over the bay.

Coming down from Telegraph Hill puts you in North Beach, the old Little Italy and the home of the Beats. City Lights Booksellers, founded in 1953 by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, published Allen Ginsberg's Howl in 1956, and the obscenity trial that followed made both famous. Go in and browse. A few blocks away is Caffe Trieste, which opened in 1956 as the first espresso coffeehouse on the West Coast and has long been a hangout for poets and writers.

Then walk south to Chinatown, the oldest in North America, founded in the early 1850s and centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street. Go through the Dragon Gate at Bush Street and ignore the souvenir shops on Grant. The real life is on Stockton: bakeries, fish markets and herb shops.

The Japanese Tea Garden began as a showpiece at the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition and is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. It covers three acres, with an arched drum bridge, a pagoda, stone lanterns, a teahouse and carefully pruned pines and maples.

Get here at opening, when the paths are quiet, then sit in the teahouse for green tea. Its caretaker Makoto Hagiwara is reported to have served the first modern fortune cookies in the US here in the early 1900s, a claim Los Angeles disputes. Everyone gets in free from 9am to 10am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, as do San Francisco residents with ID at any time. The garden opens daily at 9am and the last entry is 5:30pm until October, 4:30pm from November; check the garden's website for the ticket price.

Across the courtyard, the de Young is an art museum with American painting, textiles, African and Oceanic art and big touring shows, all in a copper-clad building that is slowly turning green. Pick a couple of galleries instead of walking every room.

The surprise is the Hamon Observation Tower, a free elevator ride with a view across the park and the Pacific. It needs no ticket and closes earlier than the museum. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30am to 5:15pm, and closed on Mondays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The Academy puts an aquarium, a planetarium, a four-story rainforest and a natural history museum under one roof, topped by a living roof of native plants. It's a big, loud place that children love, and African penguins are the best-known crowd pleaser.

Be picky: it's expensive, and the rainforest and the aquarium are the parts worth the money. Hours are Monday to Saturday 9:30am to 5pm and Sunday 11am to 5pm.

Walk east out of the park to the corner of Haight and Ashbury, the center of the counterculture of the 1960s. In 1967 the Summer of Love brought thousands of young people here for music, drugs and free everything, and the neighborhood has never quite got over it. Today it's tie-dye shops, head shops and street kids asking for spare change.

A few things are worth a stop. Amoeba Music, a huge record store, is a short walk from the park. Toronado, a pub farther east on Haight, has one of the best draft beer lists in town.

Climb the hill at Alamo Square Park to the row of Victorian houses everyone knows from postcards and sitcom opening credits. The term "painted ladies" was first used for these San Francisco houses in a 1978 book, after owners started repainting them in three or more colors in the 1960s.

Sit on the grass and wait for the light to turn gold. The houses line up against the downtown towers from the middle of the slope. Then walk down to Divisadero Street, the neighborhood's restaurant row.

Divisadero Street is where the city eats on a weeknight. Nopa, near the corner of Hayes, is a loud, popular restaurant with a wood-fired kitchen, a long bar and a menu that locals will argue about. It's the kind of place you book for dinner, and the bar is the plan B.

Expect a long wait on a Friday or Saturday and add 18 to 20 percent tip. If Nopa is full, walk a block in either direction: the street has a bit of everything.

The Mission District is named after Mission San Francisco de Asís, founded on October 9, 1776, by Spanish priests. The little adobe chapel was finished in 1791, and it's the oldest intact structure in San Francisco. Ohlone laborers built the adobe walls between 1788 and 1790, and the chapel came through the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the brick church next to it.

Go through the museum and the old cemetery out back. It's open Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm and Saturday and Sunday 10am to 5pm, and no reservation is needed for the self-guided visit.

Dolores Park, two blocks south of the mission, is the city's living room: a sloped park where on a sunny day thousands of people lie on the grass with picnics, with a view of downtown from the top.

Clarion Alley is a block-long outdoor gallery between Valencia and Mission Streets, painted by the Clarion Alley Mural Project, and the pieces change all the time. The art is political and personal. Don't block the alley: people live and work there.

The Mission burrito became popular in the 1960s in this neighborhood. It's big, steamed in a wheat tortilla until it folds without breaking, and stuffed with meat, beans, salsa, cheese and, usually, rice.

La Taqueria, on Mission Street at 25th, is one of the best-known places, and a lot of locals insist it makes the best burrito in the city. It leaves out the rice, which is a controversial choice, and its fans think that's the point. Order carne asada or carnitas. Expect a line at noon.

Five minutes from the burrito is Balmy Alley, a one-block back alley where most of the garage doors and fences have been painted with murals since 1973. It sits in the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District.

Walk it slowly, with your voice down, since people live here. Then browse the shops on 24th Street, the heart of the district, where a panaderia (bakery) is the right place for a sweet roll.

The Castro became one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States, and it stayed the center of the gay rights movement in America. The man who put it on the map was Harvey Milk, who moved to San Francisco in 1972, opened a camera shop on Castro Street and became the first openly gay man elected to office in California, as a city supervisor. He was shot and killed at City Hall in November 1978.

Walk Castro Street from Market to 19th: the rainbow flags, the neon sign of the Castro Theatre and the shops and bars that make it feel like a village. The theater is a 1922 movie palace, so check what's playing.

Finish on top of the hill. Twin Peaks are two hills of about 925 feet near the center of the city, the second and third highest points in San Francisco, with a road that winds to a viewing area. From here the whole city is laid out: the downtown towers, the bay, the bridges and, on a clear evening, the lights coming on.

Take a ride-hailing car up from the Castro, since the road is steep and walking in the dark is not a good idea. It's windy and cold at the top, so bring a real jacket. If fog is rolling in, watching it pour over the peaks is a show in itself.

Muir Woods is 12 miles north of San Francisco, a 554-acre national monument that protects one of the few stands of old-growth coast redwoods left in the Bay Area. Most of the local redwood forests were cut down, and this canyon was one of the places that survived. The monument was named after John Muir, the naturalist. It's cool, damp and quiet, even with a crowd.

Walk the flat main loop along Redwood Creek, about an hour, then take a side trail to leave the crowd behind. Entry is 15 USD (13 EUR) per adult, children under 16 free. Parking is 10 USD (9 EUR), reserved on gomuirwoods.com; the Larkspur shuttle is 4 USD (3.60 EUR) per adult round trip. There is no cell service, so download your tickets first.

Sausalito, Spanish for small willow grove, is a small town just across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a shipbuilding center in World War II, and later became an artists' enclave and a wealthy suburb. Bridgeway is the main street along the water, with galleries, cafes and views back to the skyline.

Walk the waterfront, have a late lunch on Bridgeway, or buy a sandwich and sit by the water. It's a postcard, and a bit touristy, but the view of San Francisco from across the bay is the best of the day.

Take the Golden Gate Ferry back to San Francisco. The crossing gives you the view of the whole skyline rising over the water as you come in. A one-way fare is 8.50 USD (7.60 EUR) with a Clipper card or a contactless bank card, and 14 USD (12.50 EUR) for a paper ticket.

The timetable changes by season and weekday, so check the Golden Gate Ferry site. With a rental car, drive back over the bridge instead; the toll is collected southbound only, for a two-axle car it is 10.25-11.25 USD (9-10 EUR) depending on how you pay, since 1 July 2026.

The ferry docks at the Ferry Building, finished in 1898 and topped by a 245-foot clock tower. Today it's a food hall for local producers: bakeries, cheese shops, oysters, coffee and chocolate. It's where San Francisco shops for dinner.

Eat oysters at a counter, buy a sourdough loaf and cheese, and walk out to the waterfront behind the building for the Bay Bridge lights.