Walked all over San Francisco for last 4 days. Ask me anything.

tlm1959 wrote:

There is a lot to like about SF weather, restaurants, etc.

After spending several weeks there, I felt something was missing. I realized that there are very few children, and in fact, it is the most child-free major city in the US. It is very noticeable once you recognize the scarcity.

I suspect it makes SF a little bit harsher and colder place. Kids are a great mechanism for engaging one's community.

I didn't detect an absence of children, but it's not something I'd be too aware off. I can say that nearly every kid I saw was Asian. A few Latinos, but mostly Asians all over the place as far as kids go.

Harambe wrote:

mongacious wrote:

What I don't get is the scare you are referring to. They are mostly harmless, and easy to avoid. In San Francisco, or I suspect anywhere, one knows where they are. My point that I still hope to get across is - who cares? What does some relatively large amount of homeless people have to do with whether its an interesting city or not?

I'm sorry that all these posters can't convince you that the presence of poor people, especially when black or brown, is incredibly detrimental to quality of life.

Gigantic eye roll

It’s not that they are poor. It’s that they will aggressively wave a hypodermic needle in your face. Happened to me on a run and that’s when I decided to move after nearly 5 otherwise mostly good years in SF. I’ve lived all over the country and the homeless in SF are the most aggressive and dangerous I’ve encountered.

It’s also not fun watching one’s tax dollars go to waste on hypodermic needles for mentally ill people who aren’t getting the help they require. Or regularly hearing drug and other illicit transactions outside your apartment at 3 am (jk sometimes that was entertaining).

You’ll also notice that no one in their right mind wears open-toe shoes, sandals, or flip-flops there unless they actively want to contract a needle or poo-bourne illness.

The weather, food, and parks were awesome though. That’s why it’s so sad to see the city continually turn into a biohazard at the hands of terrible management.

not going to read all 6 pages, so apologies if already stated... but the City Pass is often a good way to save a few bucks and have a "destination" each day, though you'll still have plenty of time left over each day. Personally, as Montesquei (sp?) stated, skip the SF aquarium and rent a car to drive to monterey and do the aquarium there. I had a season pass as a kid growing up down the street, used to go once a week and never got tired of it... still go once every couple years and it's almost as good, every time.

as far as the OP, yes SF sucks in many ways but there's also ways to avoid the poopshow (pun intended), as many have pointed out. Enjoy the city, just don't live there, haha.

coach wrote:

I plan to take my family to San Francisco next year at this time (for about 8 days). We've never been there, any recommendations? Where to stay? Day trips if we dont rent a car? Do we need to rent a car?

Coach, while you can have a ton of fun just in SF (Fisherman's Warf, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Pier 39, cable car ride, etc.), if you and your family are up for a bit of traveling and have the time to do so, I HIGHLY recommend these things:

1) DO rent a car and head to Yosemite. ~3.5 hour drive from SF, so get up early and get over there! If you have never been there, it is well worth the trip, EVEN IF you just tour in the valley for the day. September isn't a horrible time to visit Yosemite...the crowds will be less, but the waterfalls won't be going. May and into early June would be ideal to see the waterfalls in all their glory. One of the best wilderness things I've ever seen was there...a mother deer protecting her baby deer from a coyote. I was visiting with my sister that day, and we watched the spectacle for a half hour. Eventually the coyote gave up and ran away.

2) DO rent a car and head south on Highway 1 (stopping along the way for scenic views), and target Monterey as your destination. Takes a little under 2 hours to get there from SF. 17-mile drive is terrific, but I tend to enjoy just the natural beauty and the ocean rather than the houses and golf courses. GREAT places to stop and head to the ocean to see all kinds of sea life. Great seafood in Monterey, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is fun too.

3) If you have the time and inclination keep going further south on Highway 1 to Big Sur. ~2.5 hour drive from SF. More of the same type of beautiful ocean views, but great if you love that kind of thing.

4)

- When I lived in the SF Bay Area, I worked as a writer for a magazine publishing company, and one of our regular advertisers was Roaring Camp in Felton, CA (so my wife and I got to go there and ride the train for free which we did a few times when guests came to visit us), about a 1.5 hour drive from SF. There, you can take a train and either do a 75-minute loop through the Redwoods in an uncovered train car (HIGHLY recommended), or take a 3 hour train trip to Santa Cruz (I never did that one). You might have to buy tickets in advance, so check that out before you go. If you have never seen Redwood trees before, it is life-changing.

In my opinion, the best places to visit around San Francisco are SOUTH of SF, so if it were me, I would book a hotel south of SF and take CalTrain (

) into the city on days you want to tour SF. Then, on the days you want to head south, your trip in the car will be a little less.

Some people like to head north of San Francisco to visit wine country. It's definitely an experience, but it's not the nature experience that the 4 things I mentioned above are, and I prefer nature experiences. We did a wine country tour once, and neither of us are big wine people (or drinkers really at all), but what that did was it allowed us to try a bunch of different wines side by side to see what it was we liked. I tend to like the red wines more, and The Lovely Mrs. Flagpole enjoyed the Zinfandels and Rieslings more.

Enjoy your trip!