San Francisco — Sights
Fog on the hills, cable car bells below
- Golden Gate Bridge — Aim for the day only the two red towers poke above the fog
- Alcatraz Island — Walk the movie-famous cellhouse with the audio guide
- Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39 — A pier where dozens of sea lions pile up on wooden rafts
- Lombard Street — A brick lane where cars zigzag down between flowerbeds
- Cable Car Ride — Hang off the running board of a ride dating back to 1873
- Painted Ladies & Alamo Square — Seven pastel Victorians with the downtown towers stacked behind
- Palace of Fine Arts — A domed temple across a lagoon, left over from the 1915 fair
- Twin Peaks — A hilltop where Market Street runs dead straight to the bay
- Union Square — Heart sculptures, Macy's, and the cable cars round the corner
- Chinatown — Through the Dragon Gate into North America's oldest Chinatown
- Ferry Building Marketplace — Bread, oysters and coffee under a clock tower; farmers' market on Saturdays
- Golden Gate Park & de Young Museum — A free tower with 360° views over the park to the ocean
- Sausalito — Bike over the Golden Gate, ferry back from this harbour town
- Napa Valley Wineries — A day of tastings at two or three wineries among the vines
- Stanford University & Silicon Valley — Stroll a red-tiled campus, then snap the big-tech HQs
- Lands End & Sutro Baths — Bathhouse ruins with the Golden Gate behind
- Exploratorium — A waterfront science lab you touch and spin
- Legion of Honor — A hilltop museum with Rodin and bridge views
- Coit Tower — Murals below, the whole city from the top
- California Academy of Sciences — Aquarium, planetarium and rainforest in one
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) — Modern masters under one roof, steps from Yerba Buena
- Mission Dolores Park — A sloping lawn, a skyline, and a Saturday to kill
- Baker Beach — A sandy mile with the Golden Gate behind it
- Japanese Tea Garden — Arched bridge, pagoda, and the oldest such garden in the US
- Wave Organ — Pipes in a jetty that hum with the tide