The Highlights of San Francisco: A City of Icons, Contrasts, and Enduring Magic

San Francisco is one of those rare cities that feels both instantly recognizable and perpetually surprising. Crammed onto a 7-by-7-mile peninsula, it crams together Victorian charm, cutting-edge technology, radical politics, world-class food, dramatic nature, and a persistent fog that somehow makes everything more romantic.

• The Golden Gate Bridge

No structure is more synonymous with San Francisco than the Golden Gate Bridge. Completed in 1937, its International Orange art-deco towers rise 746 feet above the churning Pacific, connecting the city to Marin County with a 1.7-mile span that still feels audacious almost ninety years later. Walking or biking across the bridge on a clear day is obligatory: the wind whips, container ships glide underneath, and the city suddenly appears like a miniature model behind you. On foggy mornings, only the tops of the towers poke through the mist—an image so cinematic it has appeared in everything from Vertigo to Star Trek IV. The nearby Battery Godfrey and Fort Point offer the classic postcard views, while the Welcome Center and the roundhouse café remind you that even this engineering marvel now has gift shops.

• Alcatraz Island

A 15-minute ferry ride from Pier 33 lands you on "The Rock," the former maximum-security prison that once held Al Capone, Robert "Birdman" Stroud, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly. The excellent audio tour—narrated by actual former guards and inmates—brings the cold cells, mess-hall riots, and 1962 Anglin brothers escape attempt to chilling life. Standing in D-Block or the solitary confinement cells, you can almost feel the damp hopelessness that made Alcatraz "escape-proof." The island also offers stunning 360-degree views of the skyline and surprisingly lush gardens planted by inmates and later restored by volunteers. Book tickets weeks in advance; they sell out faster than Taylor Swift concerts.

• Cable Cars & Steep Streets

San Francisco’s cable cars are the last manually operated cable railway system in the world and a National Historic Landmark. Riding the Powell-Hyde line from Union Square over Nob Hill, down past Lombard Street’s eight hairpin turns, and finally to Fisherman’s Wharf remains one of the great urban thrills. Yes, they’re touristy. Yes, the $8 one-way fare is steep. And yes, hanging off the running board while the gripman rings the bell and the car creaks up a 21% grade is pure joy. For a more local (and free) hill experience, tackle the hidden staircases: the Filbert Steps on Telegraph Hill or the Lyon Street Steps between Pacific Heights and the Marina.

• Neighborhoods That Feel Like Separate Cities

The Mission is the beating heart of Latino culture, covered in murals by Diego Rivera protégés and newer street artists responding to gentrification. Valencia Street hums with third-wave coffee, craft beer, and some of the best Mexican food north of the border—try La Taqueria’s carnitas or the vegan Oaxacan tlayudas at Tacos del Barrio.

Across town, the Castro remains the historic center of LGBTQ+ life, its rainbow crosswalks and the Castro Theatre’s mighty Wurlitzer organ a reminder that San Francisco legalized same-sex marriage before it was cool.

Chinatown, the oldest and most densely populated in North America, rewards wandering: buy barbecue pork buns from Good Luck Dim Sum, sip tea at Red Blossom, and climb to Coit Tower for panoramic views.

North Beach still channels its Beat Generation ghosts—City Lights Bookstore (founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) is a pilgrimage site, while Vesuvio Café next door hasn’t changed much since Kerouac and Ginsberg drank there.

• Food That Spoils You for Everywhere Else

San Francisco’s food scene is absurdly good. Sourdough bread owes its distinctive tang to local lactobacillus bacteria that have been cultured since the Gold Rush—don’t leave without a warm loaf from Boudin or Tartine. Cioppino (seafood stew in tomato broth) was invented here by Italian fishermen. Burmese tea-leaf salad, Vietnamese phở, and Dungeness crab cocktails are all part of the civic fabric. For fine dining, three-Michelin-star restaurants like Atelier Crenn, Benu, and Quince sit alongside $4 burritos that people will happily wait 45 minutes to eat. The Ferry Building Marketplace on Saturday farmers’ markets is foodie heaven: Hog Island oysters, Acme bread, Recchiuti chocolates, and Cowgirl Creamery cheese under one glorious roof.

• Parks and the Great Outdoors

Despite its urban density, San Francisco is laced with green escapes. Golden Gate Park—larger than Central Park—contains museums, Japanese tea gardens, bison paddocks, windmills, and hidden redwood groves. Rent a rowboat on Stow Lake or simply lie in the sun at Hippie Hill (still faintly smelling of weed on Sundays). Lands End offers rugged coastal trails with cypress trees, shipwreck views, and the camera-obscura at the Cliff House. Across the bay, Muir Woods’ cathedral-like redwoods and Mount Tamalpais remind you that world-class wilderness is 30 minutes away.

• Art, Science, and Counterculture

The de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the SFMOMA downtown hold collections that rival any city on earth—think Rothko, Warhol, and the largest assemblage of Frida Kahlo works outside Mexico. The Exploratorium at Pier 15 is the best hands-on science museum on the planet; adults secretly love it more than kids do. Haight-Ashbury still trades on its Summer of Love legacy, even if head shops now sell $80 tie-dye T-shirts. And every June, hundreds of naked cyclists remind everyone that this is still the city that gave the world Burning Man.

• The Fog and Microclimates

Karl the Fog (yes, he has his own Twitter account) is a highlight in itself. One minute you’re sweltering in the Mission; ten minutes later you’re freezing in a 15-layer hoodie at Ocean Beach. Locals give weather reports by neighborhood the way other people talk about sports scores. Mark Twain supposedly said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." (He probably didn’t, but the quote stuck because it feels true.)

San Francisco is expensive, congested, and occasionally smells like human urine in parts of downtown. It has struggles with homelessness and inequality that can’t be Instagrammed away. Yet the city retains a creative, slightly deranged energy that keeps reinventing itself—from Gold Rush saloon to Beat poet hangout to gay mecca to dot-com boomtown to AI frontier. The highlights listed above are only the beginning; the real magic happens in the intersections: eating dim sum after surfing Baker Beach, watching the fog roll under the Golden Gate while sipping Irish coffee at the Buena Vista, or stumbling out of a dive bar in the Tenderloin at 2 a.m. to find the skyline glittering like Oz.

In a country that sometimes feels homogenized, San Francisco remains gloriously, defiantly itself—hills, fog, radicals, tech bros, sourdough, and all. One visit is never enough.