Best Things to Do in San Francisco

San Francisco's big sights are spread around the edges of the city, and its best neighbourhoods are in the middle. This list mixes both, roughly in order of priority for a first visit.

1. Ride a cable car. The Powell-Hyde line has the best views, dropping down Hyde Street with Alcatraz straight ahead. The queue at the Powell and Market turntable can take an hour, so board further up the line or ride the quieter California Street line. The free Cable Car Museum on Mason Street shows the huge wheels that pull the cables under the streets.
2. Walk the Golden Gate Bridge. Out to the first tower and back is enough for most people. Our Golden Gate Bridge guide covers the sidewalk rules and the viewpoints.
3. Alcatraz. The cellhouse audio tour, narrated by former inmates and guards, is excellent. Book weeks ahead through the one official operator, as our Alcatraz guide explains.
4. The Ferry Building. An 1898 terminal with a clock tower, now a food hall of bakeries, cheese counters and oyster bars. On Saturday mornings the farmers market spreads around it.
5. Chinatown. Enter through the Dragon Gate on Grant Avenue, which is mostly souvenirs, then walk one block over to Stockton Street, where locals buy roast duck and dried mushrooms. In Ross Alley, a tiny factory still folds fortune cookies by hand.
6. North Beach and Coit Tower. Espresso at an old Italian café, City Lights bookstore where the Beat poets gathered, then up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower and its 1930s murals of Californian workers. Walk down the Filbert Steps through hillside gardens.
7. Lands End. A cliff trail along the city's north-west tip, from the ruins of the Sutro Baths to views of the bridge from the ocean side. Wild, windy and free.
8. Golden Gate Park. Bigger than Central Park, with the de Young Museum (its tower has a free viewing floor), the California Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden and a main drive closed to cars.
9. The Mission. Murals in Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley, Mission Dolores (the oldest building in the city, from 1791), a burrito on 24th Street and the lawn of Dolores Park with the skyline behind it.
10. SFMOMA and the Exploratorium. SFMOMA is one of the largest modern art museums in the country. The Exploratorium on Pier 15 is a hands-on science museum that adults enjoy as much as children.
11. Ocean Beach and Sunset Dunes. In April 2025 a two-mile stretch of the Great Highway along Ocean Beach became Sunset Dunes, a car-free park for walking and cycling. The sea is cold and the currents are dangerous, so don't swim.
12. Twin Peaks at sunset. The whole city laid out below you, when the fog allows. Don't leave anything in the car.

Two to keep short: Pier 39, where the sea lions lounging on the floating docks are the only reason to go, and the Painted Ladies on Alamo Square, a row of Victorian houses you'll recognise from television. Ten minutes each is plenty.