San Francisco

The Golden Gate Bridge — opened in 1937 and one of the most photographed engineering works in the world — anchors the city's northern coastal edge. Walkable on its pedestrian sidewalks, the bridge connects San Francisco to the Marin Headlands, whose panoramic viewpoints at Battery Spencer, Hawk Hill and Point Bonita frame the iconic skyline-and-bridge view. South of the bridge, the Presidio occupies 1,500 acres of former military land that is now a national park district with hiking trails, the Walt Disney Family Museum, the Andy Goldsworthy “Spire” installation and the Letterman Digital Arts Center. The coastal path from Crissy Field through the Presidio reaches Baker Beach and continues to Lands End, where the Sutro Baths ruins and the historic Cliff House site overlook the Pacific.

The Embarcadero — the city's reconstructed eastern waterfront since the demolition of the elevated highway following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake — runs from the Ferry Building south past Oracle Park (the SF Giants' ballpark) and Mission Bay. The 1898 Ferry Building clock tower houses a major artisanal food market and a working ferry terminal to Oakland, Sausalito, Tiburon and Larkspur. North of the Ferry Building, Pier 33 is the embarkation point for the only authorised Alcatraz Island operator; tickets sell out weeks in advance during peak season. The eastern waterfront continues to Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf — the most heavily touristed zone, with sea-lion haul-outs, Boudin sourdough bowls and the historic Cannery and Hyde Street Pier exhibits.

San Francisco's three remaining cable car lines — California, Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason — are the last hand-operated street railway system in the world and a working National Historic Landmark. The lines climb Nob Hill (Grace Cathedral, the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels), Russian Hill (Lombard Street's famous eight-hairpin descent) and Telegraph Hill (Coit Tower with its WPA-era murals and panoramic views). North Beach at the base of Telegraph Hill is the historic Italian-American district and the heart of the Beat Generation movement, with City Lights Booksellers, Vesuvio Café and the long-running Caffe Trieste. Chinatown — bordered by Bush, Kearny and Broadway — is the oldest in North America and one of the largest concentrated Chinese communities outside Asia, with a dense network of family-association buildings, herb shops and dim-sum houses behind the Dragon's Gate on Grant Avenue.

The Mission District in the east-central city is the historic Latino working-class neighbourhood and one of the most concentrated street-art districts in the United States — Balmy Alley, Clarion Alley and the murals around 24th Street and Mission Street. The Mission's food scene runs from classic taquerías (La Taquería, El Farolito) to wood-oven pizza, third-wave coffee and Michelin-rated tasting menus. South of the Mission, the Castro has been the historical centre of U.S. LGBTQ political organising since the 1970s — the rainbow crosswalk at Castro and Market, Harvey Milk's former camera shop, the 1922 Castro Theatre and the GLBT Historical Society Museum. Northwest of the Castro, Haight-Ashbury was the geographic centre of the 1967 “Summer of Love”; the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets remains a marker for the city's 1960s music and political history.

Golden Gate Park covers 1,017 acres of the western half of the city — 20% larger than New York's Central Park — and concentrates many of the city's major institutions in one walkable strip. The De Young Museum (American art across three centuries, with a copper-clad tower designed by Herzog & de Meuron), the California Academy of Sciences (natural-history museum with an indoor rainforest and a living roof), the Japanese Tea Garden (the oldest public Japanese garden in the U.S.), the Conservatory of Flowers, the San Francisco Botanical Garden and Stow Lake all sit within the park. West of the park, the Outer Sunset and Outer Richmond run to Ocean Beach — a five-kilometre Pacific surf beach with cold water, strong currents and fog year-round; the historic Cliff House and Sutro Baths ruins on the northern end overlook the entrance to the Golden Gate.

The Financial District at the foot of Market Street concentrates the city's banking, legal and tech-office footprint, with the Transamerica Pyramid, the Salesforce Tower (the tallest building in the city since 2018) and the Embarcadero Center towers framing the skyline. South of Market (SoMa) was the city's industrial fringe through the late 20th century and is now its tech and arts core — many headquarters are based here, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA, the largest modern-art museum on the West Coast) reopened in 2016 after a Snøhetta expansion, and Yerba Buena Gardens anchors the convention-and-arts district. Mission Bay south of Oracle Park has been built since the late 1990s as a biotech and university research extension, with the UCSF Mission Bay campus and the Chase Center (home of the Golden State Warriors).

San Francisco's transport mix is multi-operator. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the heavy-rail spine connecting the city to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Oakland, Berkeley and most of the East Bay; Muni Metro light-rail and Muni buses cover the city itself; cable cars and the F-line historic streetcars run shorter scenic routes. Caltrain commuter rail runs down the peninsula to Silicon Valley, San José and Santa Clara, where Levi's Stadium — the 49ers' home and the region's venue for major tournaments and concerts — sits about seventy kilometres south of the city, far enough that anyone attending an event there should plan the journey rather than assume it. Day trips: Muir Woods and the North Bay redwoods around 45 minutes north, Napa and Sonoma an hour north-east, Berkeley and Oakland half an hour by BART, Half Moon Bay 45 minutes south, with Yosemite and Big Sur both long enough to justify an overnight rather than a day. How American intercity travel works more broadly — the driving, the flying and the little rail there is — is covered in the getting around the USA guide.