San Francisco Attractions

San Francisco is known around the world for its spectacular natural setting at the end of a narrow peninsula between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It's only about 49 square miles, but it packs an incredible array of great sights, and sites, for visitors and residents alike, making it America's most beautiful city and the Bay Area one of the most exciting and vibrant places to live or visit. Here are a few of the places you might want to explore on your trip to San Francisco.

Alcatraz
Under Federal jurisdiction since 1848, it was once America’s most notorious prisons. Now, part of the Golden Gate National Parks, it is San Francisco’s busiest attraction, as thousands of visitors take a ferry over to “the Rock” to hear the recorded story of the prison as told by guards and prisoners.
Angel Island
Angel Island is a California State Park located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.
Aquarium of the Bay
The Monterey Bay Aquarium officially opened on October 20, 1984. The ceremony began with an opening celebration including marching band parades, school floats, music and dancing, and finally ending with a huge fireworks display over the bay. Multiple education programs have been added throughout the years, as well as unique marine displays and marine animal rehabilitation programs. Today the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a world renowned research and environmental organization.
Asian Art Museum

The Asian Art museum of San Francisco is one of the largest Asian Art museums in the Western World, with exhibits that go back thousands of years!
AT&T Park
Home of the San Francisco Giants, Major League Baseball.
Cable Cars
Invented by a visitor who felt sad for the plight of the workhorses whipped into heart failure on the steep hills, in the era of the steam engine, an impossibly complicated mechanical contraption, like the universe’s largest grandfather clock, which still works more or less like it did in 1873, with the substitution of electricity for steam. Visit the drive house, barn and museum at Washington and Mason.
California Academy of Sciences

Founded in 1853, the California Academy of Sciences is one of the worlds largest natural history museums.
Castro
Known as the “Gay Mecca”, there are coffee shops and cafes, diners and casual eats in this “open” neighborhood.
Chinatown
San Francisco’s Chinatown is one of North America’s largest, oldest and most historic Chinatowns.
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco's City Hall opened in 1915 and is situated in San Francisco's Civic Center. At 94 meters high, it has the fifth largest dome in the world.
Cliff House
The Cliff House, a San Francisco landmark since 1863, hangs over the Pacific Ocean off of the Great Highway.
Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill
A narrow winding street, or a lot of steps, will get you to the top of Telegraph Hill. During busy summer weekends, the traffic waiting to park gets ridiculous. Why? It’s a great little tower full of Deco-era murals, but the view from the circular walk is the real reason.
Conservatory of Flowers

Located in Golden Gate Park, the Conservatory of Flowers, is a botanical garden which is home to many tropical plants and flowers.
De Young Museum
The de Young Museum integrates art and architecture in one multi-faceted destination.
Exploratorium

The Exploratorium is one of San Francisco's most interactive museums where you can discover all kinds of scientific phenomena. Most of the exhibits are created and developed on the site of the museum itself!
F-Line Street Cars
Someone had a great idea. Instead of buying new street cars or repairing the aging fleet, let’s invite the world to send us their run-down street cars and we’ll repair a diverse and intriguing fleet from around the globe. It makes a loop through Fisherman's Wharf on Jefferson and Beach Streets, follows the Embarcadero around past the Ferry Building, and then travels back and forth on Market Street to the base of Twin Peaks, at Castro Street. See if your city sent one!
Ferry Building
Once just a conduit for passengers coming and going, the Ferry Building has been renovated to become a destination in itself, in addition to being the launch point for several Ferry lines to points across the Bay. Now it is a beautiful living museum to San Francisco history, and an expansive mall of quaint shops serving delicious meals or ingredients to take home, and several large restaurants.
Fisherman’s Wharf
The home of food brought back from the sea for hundreds of years, Fisherman Wharf is still an active port for a large fishing fleet for local restaurants, and one of the busiest parts of the city. Alcatraz tours leave from Pier 33, Pier 39 is a shopping mall on stilts, and other tours and tourist attractions are located at Pier 41 and 43. The F-Line loops through Fisherman's Wharf and several bus lines, and 2 of the 3 Cable Car lines bring thousands of people to and from this San Francisco must-see.
Golden Gate Bridge
It was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world from 1937 until 1964. It was the safest construction project of its size on record, but it claimed the life of its advocate, cheerleader, and builder, Joseph Strauss, who died a year after its completion. Praised by many as the most beautiful man made structure of the modern era.
Golden Gate Park
An under-visited gem, Golden Gate Park is used by the local residents for running, boating, dog-walking, pick-up baseball and football games, picnics and parties. It is larger than New York's Central Park, and has about a million trees. On the eastern end, you will find 4 wonderful destinations at one bus stop. The DeYoung Museum is a great work of art in itself, holding many great collections from antiquity to modern.
Golden Gate Shipwrecks
Looking out over the water, a visitor can see three shipwrecks and the two treacherous outcroppings that lead to their demise.
Grace Cathedral
Grace Cathedral is the largest Gothic structure in the West, and the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the U.S. Grace Cathedral sits on the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco, on California Street.
Haight-Ashbury
There isn't much tangible evidence of the heyday of the hippies on Haight Street, but there are plenty of intangibles. Still an eclectic collection of shops and eateries, there are intangibles that give some of us a little nostalgia for those crazy times. You can still find used clothing and music, protest T-shirts, and natural food.
Japanese Tea Garden
The Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park is the oldest public Japanese garden in California, built in 1894.
Japantown
Japantown is home to concerts, horticulture and martial arts presentations, tea ceremonies, and the Spring Cherry Blossom Festival.
Lombard Street from Hyde to Leavenworth
Labeled the “crookedest street in the world” on the postcards, Lombard Street gives locals a chuckle when tourists are puzzled at how straight the rest of it is. The Hyde Street cable car stops at the top and the walk down is an incredible tableaux of close-up flowers and far away sights like Columbus Street, Coit Tower, the Bay Bridge, and beyond. At the bottom, you can keep walking downhill to Northbeach and the other cable car line.
The Mission
Stroll along Mission Street's wide avenues and you’ll be struck by the profusion of taquerias, pupuserias, produce markets, Salvadoran bakeries, beauty salons, cafes, thrift stores, and used book stores.
Monster Park
Monster Park, originally known as Candlestick Park, is the home of the American Football team San Francisco 49ers and a special monument for the city's history.
North Beach
The “little Italy” of San Francisco, evokes a feeling of romantic Italy with its cafes, restaurants and parks.
Oakland Bay Bridge
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects San Francisco with Oakland.
Painted Ladies
The Painted Ladies on Steiner and Hayes Street in San Francisco are a row of Queen Anne era Victorian houses, painted in multiple colors to draw attention to their element of design.
Palace of Fine Arts
The only structure from the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915 to “survive” the building boom that followed, it was allowed to deteriorate for 50 years. Rebuilt in 1965, and re-landscaped in 2006, it has returned to its previous glory, its exterior and grounds making great backgrounds for pictures, and its interior, holding the Exploratoreum, educating and enriching all who enter.
Palace of Legion of Honor
The Palace of the Legion of Honor, which is located at Land's End near the Golden Gate, was gifted to the city of San Francisco by Alma de Bretteville Spreckels. This magnificient attraction is open to the public six days a week, Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30 am - 5:15 pm.
Presidio
The Presidio served as an army post, for over 200 years, for three nations. The Presidio has been marked by many local and world events including earthquakes, military campaigns and World Fairs.
California Sea Lions at Pier 39
The Californian Sea-Lions first arrived on Pier 39 in September 1989, at the K dock. After refurbishment of the dock, there was no effort to discourage them from using the dock as a resting ground and by the end of the year, as many as 10 Sea-Lions could be seen from the pier. By January 1990, this number had grown to 150. Today, the Sea-Lions are a natural sightseeing attraction in San Francisco, and they are visited by thousands of people each year.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is one of the world’s most innovative museums of modern and contemporary art.
Sutro Baths
Former San Francisco Mayor, and entrepreneur, Adolph Sutro opened his privately owned Sutro Baths to the public as the largest indoor swimming pool establishment in the world.
Treasure Island
Not much happening there, but the views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate are unmatched, unless you are on one of the ferries.
Twin Peaks
The center of the city, where you can see the neighborhoods you’ve never been to, plus the more familiar ones you’ve already been to. And you can see the whole bay, the Ocean, Marin County, the Farallon Islands, and the rest of the San Francisco Peninsula.
Union Square
Planned to be a public square from the earliest days of pre-San Francisco Yerba Buena, its name was changed to Union Square in the run-up to the Civil War, as rallies supporting the “Union” (NOT the dissolution) were held there. Its current look is only a few years old, and now it is a fine, open platform from which to view live music and street performers, and relax with an urban picnic on a summer day. Surrounded by the biggest names in retailing, its name is applied to the neighborhood known for shopping, Cable Cars, hotel rooms and tourists, and dense pedestrian traffic.
San Francisco Zoo
The San Francisco Zoo houses more than 250 animal species and it is located at the South-West corner of San Francisco. Founded by John "Grizzly" Adams in 1850, who began the zoo with bears.