50 Best Things to Do in San Francisco: A Local’s Guide

It comes in three versions so you can match it to your trip. Pick the half day for the city and the redwoods in one morning or afternoon, the full day to add a lunch stop and more time in Sausalito, or add the official Alcatraz ferry and cellhouse tour to turn it into the city’s two bucket-list stops in a single day. As a Certified Alcatraz Partner, we reserve those tickets for you ahead of time. Curious about ticket options first? Our guide to booking Alcatraz tickets walks through it.

Book Dylan’s Famous Tour with Muir Woods and Alcatraz

The Lombard Leap is a 90-minute highlights tour in our open-air van, built for a quick, fun overview of the city. You’ll wind through neighborhoods the big buses can’t reach and drive down the crooked block of Lombard Street, with photo stops along the way. If you’d rather keep the whole group private, see our open-air private tour options.

Book the Lombard Leap

The Ultimate Wine Country Tour is a small-group day trip from San Francisco into Napa and Sonoma. You’ll cross the Golden Gate Bridge, enjoy a hosted tasting at a boutique Napa winery, get two hours at historic Sonoma Plaza for lunch and shopping, then finish with a second tasting at a Sonoma winery. Transportation and both tasting fees are handled for you. Still deciding which valley suits you better? Our Napa vs. Sonoma guide and Sonoma vs. Napa breakdown cover the differences.

Book the Ultimate Wine Country Tour

Pier 39 is one of San Francisco’s most iconic waterfront spots, and one of the most fun. Beyond the sea lions, you’ll find fresh seafood, a bowl of clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, street performers, and the Aquarium of the Bay. With sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island, it’s a must-see for any first-time visit. Pier 39 sits inside Fisherman’s Wharf, so it’s easy to pair with a full afternoon on the water.

The Golden Gate Bridge is the one San Francisco attraction nobody skips, and the best way to see it is on foot. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge on the east sidewalk for amazing views of the city, the bay, and Alcatraz, or find a lower-key view of the bridge from the Marin side. It’s free, and the 1.7-mile span takes about 30 to 45 minutes one way.

Built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and never torn down, the Palace of Fine Arts is a domed rotunda and colonnade wrapped around a swan-filled lagoon. It’s one of the quieter icons in the city, good for a slow walk or a picnic, and it photographs well in almost any light.

Cross the Golden Gate Bridge, drive a little under an hour north, and you’re standing under coast redwoods that top out around 258 feet, some of them 600 to 800 years old. A flat boardwalk loop follows Redwood Creek through Cathedral Grove, so you don’t need to be a hiker to see the best of it. It goes quiet a few minutes in, the kind of quiet that surprises people this close to a major city.

Out along the Pacific at the western edge of the city, the San Francisco Zoo spreads over 100 acres and houses more than 2,000 animals, from the African Savanna to Penguin Island and the Lemur Forest. The Little Puffer steam train and the children’s zoo keep younger kids busy for hours.

Tucked inside Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Tea Garden is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, built for the 1894 Midwinter Exposition. Wander the koi ponds, arched drum bridge, and pagodas, then sit down at the tea house for a pot of sencha and a plate of mochi.

Golden Gate Park is worth a full day on its own. Beyond the tea garden, the park holds the California Academy of Sciences, the de Young Museum, the Bison Paddock, and the windmills out by the ocean, some of the best free things to do in the city.

San Francisco’s City Hall is a Beaux-Arts landmark, and its gilded dome stands taller than the U.S. Capitol’s. The history inside runs deep: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio married here in 1954, and it’s where Harvey Milk was assassinated in 1978, a turning point in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

The two hills at the geographic center of the city rise over 900 feet, and the view from the top runs from the Golden Gate Bridge across downtown to the East Bay. Drive up or hike it. Sunrise and sunset are the payoff, when the light goes gold and the fog spills over the western slope for one of the best views of the city.

Each of San Francisco’s neighborhoods has its own character, worth exploring on its own terms. Our complete neighborhood guide is a good place to start if you want the full picture before you dive into the list below.

The row of Victorian houses along Steiner Street, across from Alamo Square Park, has been a postcard since the 1890s and a “Full House” landmark since the ’90s. Climb the park’s sloping lawn for the classic shot, pastel rooftops in front, downtown towers behind.

San Francisco’s Japantown is one of only three historic Japantowns left in the United States, six blocks centered on the five-tiered Peace Pagoda. The Japan Center Malls hold matcha cafes, ramen counters, Daiso, and the Kinokuniya bookstore. Time your visit for April and you’ll catch the Cherry Blossom Festival

The Castro is the heart of San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community, marked by rainbow crosswalks and the neon marquee of the Castro Theatre. It’s a lived-in neighborhood as much as a landmark, cafes spilling onto sidewalks, the GLBT Historical Society Museum a block off Castro Street, and a history of activism that shaped the whole city.

The Mission is the city’s mural district and the home of the San Francisco burrito, with taquerias, coffee roasters, and Balmy Alley’s painted walls. Mission Dolores Park draws half the city on a sunny afternoon for the skyline view, and Mission San Francisco de Asís, the oldest standing building in San Francisco, anchors the neighborhood’s history.

The Lyon Street Steps climb from Cow Hollow up into Pacific Heights, past hedges and mansions that have housed tech founders and, historically, more than a few names you’d recognize, the stretch people call Billionaires Row. It’s a real stair workout, and the reward at the top is a straight view down to the bay. Film buffs will spot it from “The Princess Diaries” and “Zodiac.”

The Ferry Building on the Embarcadero is part food hall, part farmers market, part historic site. The 1898 building is a San Francisco landmark in its own right, and inside you’ll find local oyster bars, coffee roasters, and California food producers along San Francisco Bay.

Off the Grid gathers the city’s food trucks into rotating markets at Fort Mason and the Presidio, with live music and a park-picnic feel. Come hungry and graze.

Biking across the Golden Gate Bridge and coasting down into Sausalito is one of the best half-days in the city, mostly flat once you’re up top, and you can ferry back if your legs are done. Dylan’s Tours runs bike tours and rentals with regular and e-bikes, so the hills are optional.

Bridge to Bridge. A flat waterfront path from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge, past the Ferry Building, Pier 39, and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Hopper’s Hands. A roughly 9.6-mile out-and-back from Oracle Park along the Embarcadero and Crissy Field. At the base of the bridge, runners slap Hopper’s Hands, a sign honoring Ken Hopper, an ironworker who spent years helping people in crisis on the span.

Run the Bridge. The pedestrian walkway is 1.7 miles one way. The east sidewalk opens at 5 a.m. and closes around 6:30 p.m. in winter and 9 p.m. the rest of the year, and the gates are automatic, so check goldengate.org before you set out.

Lands End. A coastal trail with the Sutro Baths ruins, the Lands End Labyrinth, and clean sightlines to the bridge across the water.

Marin Headlands. Just over the bridge, this is where the classic postcard shot comes from, Battery Spencer looks straight back at the bridge and the skyline behind it for some of the best views of the bridge anywhere.

Fort Point National Historic Site is a Civil War-era brick fort tucked directly beneath the Golden Gate Bridge’s south end, off the Crissy Field waterfront path in the Presidio. It’s a historic site with one of the closest views of the bridge you’ll find, looking straight up at the span.

Boats leave the bay for the open Pacific to find gray whales, humpbacks, and, in the right months, blue whales. Gray whale migration runs December through May, humpbacks and blues May through November. San Francisco Whale Tours is a reliable operator.

A narrated bay cruise sails under the bridge and circles Alcatraz Island. For something more useful, the Golden Gate Ferry doubles as a scenic ride, connecting the city to Sausalito, Larkspur, and Tiburon.

The California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park puts an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum, and a four-story rainforest under one living roof. Across town at Pier 15, the Exploratorium is a hands-on science playground that’s as fun for adults as it is for kids.

At Fisherman’s Wharf, Musée Mécanique keeps 300-plus antique arcade machines running on real coins, presided over by Laughing Sal and her unsettling cackle. It’s free to walk in, cheap to play.

SFMOMA spans seven floors of modern and contemporary work, the de Young in Golden Gate Park pairs its collection with a free observation tower, and the Asian Art Museum holds one of the largest collections of San Francisco art and beyond, outside Asia. More in our guide to San Francisco’s museums.

Catch the Giants at Oracle Park with McCovey Cove out past right field, the Warriors at Chase Center, or the 49ers down in Santa Clara at Levi’s Stadium.

The city’s calendar is packed year-round, from the Cherry Blossom Festival to Carnaval to street fairs most weekends. Funcheap SF and SF Station track what’s on while you’re in town.

Presidio Tunnel Tops opened in 2022, a park built over the highway tunnels with lawns, kids’ play areas, and a front-row view of the Golden Gate Bridge. A short walk away, the Yoda fountain stands outside the Lucasfilm building at the Letterman campus. For more of what the Presidio has to offer, see our full Presidio guide.

Burke Williams in the Financial District runs a full treatment menu, Kabuki Springs & Spa in Japantown keeps the Japanese communal-bath tradition, and International Orange pairs massage with a rooftop deck.

Filoli is a Georgian estate in Woodside with formal gardens that shift through the seasons, tulips in spring, roses in summer, and a full holiday display in winter. Afternoon tea in the cafe is worth timing your visit around.

Treasure Island sits mid-bay off the Bay Bridge, with local wineries, a Sunday flea market, and what might be the single best straight-on view of the San Francisco skyline.

Yosemite is a long but doable day from the city, granite walls like El Capitan and Half Dome, waterfalls, and groves of giant sequoias. Check out our Yosemite and Giant Sequoias tour so you can skip the driving and the park-gate logistics.

Two hours south, Carmel is a storybook coastal town of galleries, fairy-tale cottages, and a white-sand beach, an easy pairing with the 17-Mile Drive and Monterey.

More trips within reach: Half Moon Bay and Pacifica for the coast, the Monterey Bay Aquarium two hours south, Santa Cruz for the boardwalk and redwoods, the Mystery Spot, Highway 1 down to Big Sur and Bixby Bridge, Stinson Beach, Mount Tamalpais, Hog Island oysters up on Tomales Bay, Safari West in the wine country hills, and Tiburon for the ferry to Angel Island.

Riding a San Francisco cable car is both a way to get around and an attraction in its own right, the last manually operated cable cars in the world. Take a cable car on the Powell-Hyde line for the famous drop toward the bay, or catch one at the Union Square turnaround. It’s one of the most popular things to do on any San Francisco trip.

For a fast, fun overview, the Lombard Leap is our open-air ride through the city’s landmark streets, Lombard, Coit Tower, and Chinatown, in about 90 minutes.

Waymo‘s driverless cars now run across much of the city, and hailing one through the app is a genuinely novel way to get around.

A Muni Day Pass covers unlimited buses, streetcars, the historic F-line, and cable cars for the day, the best-value way to move around if you’re bouncing between neighborhoods.

Rentable e-scooters are all over the city and handy for short, flat hops, though the hills will humble you fast.

For a first visit, start with the essentials: walk or bike the Golden Gate Bridge, ride a cable car, see the sea lions at Pier 39, and wander Chinatown and North Beach. If you have a full day to spare, cross the bridge to the redwoods of Muir Woods and pair it with Alcatraz. Those five or six stops cover the landmarks, the neighborhoods, and the nature, which is most of what people come for.

Three days is the sweet spot. Two lets you cover the city core and the bridge, and a third opens up a day trip to Muir Woods, Alcatraz, or wine country. With only one day, a guided tour is the way to fit the highlights in without losing hours to parking and logistics. Not sure which tour fits your trip? Our guide to choosing the right San Francisco tour breaks down the options.

There’s no direct public transit into Muir Woods, and every private vehicle needs a parking or shuttle reservation booked ahead. The easiest option is a guided tour that handles the park access and the drive over the bridge for you, like Dylan’s Famous Tour with Muir Woods. Renting a car means fighting for a small lot that fills by mid-morning on weekends.

Yes. The cellhouse audio tour, narrated by former inmates and guards, is one of the best of its kind anywhere, and the boat ride over gives you the skyline and the bridge from the water. The catch is that official tickets through Alcatraz City Cruises sell out weeks or months ahead in summer, so reserve early, or book a combo tour that includes the ferry so your tour of Alcatraz is locked in before it sells out.

September and October are the warmest, clearest months, after the summer fog and before the winter rain. Summer draws the biggest crowds and the thickest fog near the water, and spring and fall are quieter across the board. Whenever you come, pack a layer, the temperature swings hard between a sunny afternoon and a foggy evening.