San Francisco, CA

If you aren’t afraid of getting a little bit afraid, there are some tours in San Francisco that you might think about taking. We’ve got ghosts, vampires and some terrifying history here in the Bay Area and if you want to learn more about them we’ve also got the guides that can tell you. Here are four tours to take if you want to find out what’s out there.

• Alcatraz Night Tour – This is the least scary of the four tours because it’s the one that’s not geared towards the supernatural. It’s just the history of the small island that was best known for its time as a federal prison. The night tour is really more of an evening tour; you aren’t there after dark. But the place is pretty spooky anyway. And the tour is worth checking out.
• Haunted Haight Walking Tour (http://www.hauntedhaight.com/) – Get yourself some interesting history about the historical Haight neighborhood – history with a twist. This area was filled with horror from cult activity to murders and there are said to be some spirits lingering. Do you dare to learn more?
• San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour (http://www.sfghosthunt.com/) – If you want to learn about the ghosts that haunt San Francisco, this is one of the tours where you can do it. You just show up at the assigned location at 7 p.m. any night of the week and you’ll get your local tour of the spots that are reported to be haunted. Make sure that you wear a jacket; there’s going to be an eerie chill in the air.
• San Francisco Vampire Tour (http://www.sfvampiretour.com/) – If you love Anne Rice and you wish you drank blood, you might get a kick out of this tour. Take it and find out!

You don’t want to be a tourist but you do want to see the things in San Francisco that art worth seeing. Skip the annoying tourist traps (like the stores and restaurants located all along Fisherman’s Wharf) but make sure to make a stop at these tourist attractions that even a local things you should probably see:

• Alcatraz – It’s true, this most popular of attractions is worth checking out. It’s filled with history and information and the ferry ride over there is pretty nice too.
• Cable car rides – They’re kind of fun and you can say you did them. If you’re savvy about it, you can even take one to where you really want to go so you can do the tourist thing in a functional way. See this article on how to ride them like a local.
• Chinatown – It’s overwhelmingly amazing, you should go get dim sum and some souvenirs.
• Fisherman’s Wharf / Pier 39 – I wouldn’t spend a lot of time there but you should check it out to see what it’s all about. Get clam chowder in a bread bowl from a street vendor, peek at the seals, stop at the arcade museum and move on.
• Golden Gate Park – It’s massive, there’s tons to see there, check it out.
• Sutro Baths – Located over at Ocean Beach, these ruins are interesting and you get to see your San Francisco version of the Pacific Ocean.
• Twin Peaks – Drive up here in your rental car and get one of the best full views of the city.

You’ll notice a few obvious things missing off of this list. The Golden Gate Bridge is a big one. If you want to say you’ve been there, go for it, but you can see it from afar and not really have missed anything by not walking it. Union Square is good for function (it’s near a lot of stuff, it’s great for orienting yourself if you’re lost in the city) but you don’t need to make it a point to stop there. Coit Tower is a good place to go if you’re looking for another stop on the list but it’s just a good view so if you’re going to Twin Peaks, you can skip it. And Lombard Street; it’s really just a curvy street, you don’t have to see it.

Golden Gate Park is massive. When you think about the fact that San Francisco is as small as it is, it emphasizes how impressive it is that the city maintains a park which runs for about forty avenues from practically the center of the city all the way to the Pacific Ocean. You could wander around the park for days and still not have seen everything that there is to see there. But there are only a few places in the park that I go to on a regular basis.

Here are my favorite spots in Golden Gate Park:

• The Bison Enclosure – Okay, okay, the truth is that I don’t love this place. There are all of about six bison in there and they look totally depressed and awful. (There’s a committee concerned about this.) But I love the fact that there are bison in San Francisco’s park. And I end up going here on a semi-regular basis because people rarely believe me that there are bison in the park so I have to go prove it.

• The Botanical Gardens – This is far and away my favorite part of Golden Gate Park. You go here, and it feels like you are nowhere near a city at all. There are different sections for different plant life from all around the world, but that interests me less than the fact that there is so much peacefulness to be found in this park. It’s absolutely beautiful and it’s free. And you can literally spend hours in here.

• Japanese Tea Gardens – I wouldn’t say that I love this place, but I like it. If I’m spending any amount of time in Golden Gate Park during a cold day, I usually make my way over here to get some warm tea. If you get there late enough (close to closing) you can get in for free (although your tea will come in a Styrofoam cup and not an actual tea cup). The gummy candies sold in the gift shop are also worth picking up.

• The windmill and flower garden. I have no idea why this place reminds me of my mom but it does and so I love hanging out there for a little while if I end up at the west end of Golden Gate Park. This happens most often if I’m visiting Ocean Beach and / or the Cliff House / Sutro Baths area; I’ll stop in by the windmill before catching a bus back home.

• Speedway Meadows – There are free concerts and other events held here all of the time. You can’t even hear the music from the streets near the park but it’s in there, with plenty of room to spare to enjoy the activities. Totally awesome that we have this.

Should you go check out Ghirardelli Square if you’re visiting (or living in) San Francisco? I suppose it depends on how much you like chocolate and how fond you are of tourist attractions, but the short answer is that you should probably go there at least once. The grounds of the place are beautiful, the location is fairly easy to access and let’s face it, the chocolate is fabulous. But there’s an insider’s way to enjoy Ghirardelli Square and you should know it.

First of all, there are several different places that you can go to check out the chocolates of Ghirardelli Square. Your best bet if you want to see the most and get in and out decently quickly is to go to the store located just off of (west of) the Ghirardelli ice cream shop at the corner of North Point St. and Larkin St. Many people trying to avoid the crowds skip this spot because it looks like there’s a big line, but it actually moves quickly and the way that the store is set up is designed to push people along. So, go in and have your hand ready for the sample chocolate square that they’re going to offer you. Then just keep moving through. If you’re planning to buy a chocolate gift, you’ll be able to see everything easily and quickly and if you’re not, you can get your free chocolate and get going.

Secondly, you should get the ice cream at Ghirardelli Square. It’s worth it, whether it’s just the fudge sauce you eat or not. But there’s a better way to do this than what most people are doing. See, right next to that chocolate store is the main ice cream selling section. And you will always find a line here. Always. But, if you stick to the outside of Ghirardelli Square and go to the actual corner of North Point and Larkin, you’ll see another entrance. It’s the upstairs to this same location, and it also sells the full menu of sundaes and whatnot that you can get downstairs. Most people don’t realize this and therefore there is rarely a long line. When this is not true is on major holidays and on weekends in the summer; these are the obvious times not to go to Ghirardelli if you’re trying avoid the crowds.

How much looking around you do after getting your treats really depends on you. There are some neat shops in there. I have a friend who can get lost for hours in the woodcarving shop down below. As for me, I’ll usually just sit at the mermaid fountain with my ice cream and see whatever entertainment they’ve got going on for the day. On days when there’s none, the people are always fun to watch. But explore if you like; the old buildings have a lot of interesting things going on for them architecturally and the stores have stuff to see if you’re into that kind of stuff (high end tourist stuff, that is).

If not, make your way down to the water that’s south of Ghirardelli Square. This will put you at Aquatic Park which is one of the beaches of San Francisco. It’s a bay beach and you’ll see boats bobbing in the water, kids letting the waves chase them and perhaps someone swimming there. It’s rarely crowded but usually has some people. And it’s not a bad place to go to see a good mix of both locals and tourists being casual in San Francisco together.

Now that’s the way to do Ghirardelli Square.

Yes, there are places worth checking out at and around the Fisherman’s Wharf / Pier 39 area. Even if you are a local, there are things to be seen. But mostly, you’re going to find cheesy souvenirs and those black-and-white “escaped from Alcatraz mental hospital” outfits that I’m going to go ahead and hope you wouldn’t ever buy. So you want to make sure that you do enough of the tourist thing to say that you’ve been there but you don’t get stuck in the stores and sales down there. Here are 5 places to hit (and then get yourself away from) in the area:

1. Musee Mecanique – This is the only reason that I ever go to the Fisherman’s Wharf area if I’m not taking a house guest there to look around. In fact, the only times I’ve ever gone to the area alone, it’s to go here. Admittedly, that’s because I have an obsession with Ms. Pacman (on my old MySpace account, I listed “someone who could beat me at Ms. Pacman” under “who I want to meet” – I still haven’t). And this old arcade museum feeds that addiction for only fifty cents at a time. But it’s good for everything – a spot to show visitors, a place to play old games for a few hours with friends, a quirky date. You can stick with SkeeBall and pinball games or you can put your quarters into the strange old games that have been around since … probably before you were. Get photo booth pictures done to commemorate it.

2. Chowders – You have to get clam chowder in a bread bowl if you’re down in this area. There are only two places that I recommend getting it down there. The first is over at the street vendors that are right there at Fisherman’s Wharf, although I stay away from that area simply because the birds that scavenge around there annoy me too much to eat well there. So, instead, I go to Chowders at Pier 39. It’s totally cheesy and touristy, but it’s got cheap clam chowder compared to all of the other restaurants in the area. And they’ve got both the traditional white and the red. And they have fried veggies of all kinds.

3. The Sea Lions – Okay, I’m not saying that you should go over here all of the time just for fun. But you should go and see them to say that you’ve seen them. Think about it, in how many other cities does your local wildlife include sea lions as well as wild parrots and incarcerated bison? And really, the sea lions are a total laugh if you pay attention to them. They’re always trying to push each other off of the docks, they make the most ridiculous of noises and the way the parents treat the babies is terrifically amusing. You can say you’ve been to Pier 39 and you can see the view of Alcatraz while getting some real entertainment. It’s free.

4. The Bushman – He’s almost always down there. What you see in terms of street performance down there depends on your preferences. I, personally, thought the silver robots were great five years ago and wouldn’t stop now for much reason at all. Likewise, I’ve seen enough breakdancing so unless it’s amazing, I’m walking on by. But every single person I know pauses if they come across the Bushman because, despite the fact that this dude is basically famous, there are a whole bunch of tourists that don’t know the bush is about to jump out of them. And sometimes, he’s in a bad mood and gets annoyed with people who don’t tip to watch which, in itself, is pretty amusing. Seriously, though, if you see a show of any kind and you like the performance, it is worth your dollar to donate. Where else do you get entertainment for a dollar?

5. Sit by the water – Yes, really. It doesn’t matter whether you do it right here or you walk further west to Aquatic Park where there’s a bit of a beach. Take the time to take a look at the Bay. It’s a gorgeous place. The fog is magical. The bridge, Angel Island, and Alcatraz all make their marks in the landscape. When we are lucky enough to live (or visit) a place as beautiful as this, we should be smart enough to take the time to enjoy it.