San Francisco travel guide

Top 10 sights in San Francisco

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Dennis G. Jarvis · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Golden Gate Park

   A park of 412 hectares laid out from 1870 on bare sand dunes, twenty per cent larger than Central Park and entirely planted by hand. The de Young, the Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden and a herd of bison are all inside it, and JFK Drive is closed to cars.

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2. 

   2© Magnus Manske · CC BY-SA 3.0

   San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

   The first museum on the west coast devoted to twentieth-century art, opened in 1935 and expanded in 2016 by Snøhetta with a rippling white facade. The seven free ground-floor galleries and the living wall on the third-floor terrace need no ticket at all.

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   Lombard Street

   One block of Lombard Street on Russian Hill, where eight hairpin bends were cut into a 27 per cent grade in 1922 to make it drivable at all. Hydrangeas fill the beds between the turns; residents have repeatedly asked to close it to traffic.

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4. 

   4© druchoy · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

   A federal penitentiary on an island two kilometres offshore, holding Al Capone and Robert Stroud between 1934 and 1963 before running costs closed it. The audio tour is narrated by former guards and inmates, and ferry tickets sell out weeks ahead.

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5. 

   5© kitmasterbloke · CC BY 2.0

   USS Hornet

   An Essex-class carrier of 1943 that fought across the Pacific and later recovered the Apollo 11 and 12 crews from the sea. She is moored at Alameda across the bay as a museum, with an Apollo capsule mock-up and the quarantine trailer on the hangar deck.

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6. 

   6© en:user:Jamezcd · CC BY-SA 3.0

   The Castro

   The neighbourhood around Castro and Market, and one of the first openly gay districts anywhere, where Harvey Milk ran a camera shop and was elected city supervisor in 1977. The rainbow crossings, the 1922 Castro Theatre and the GLBT History Museum are all within two blocks.

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   California Academy of Sciences

   A natural history museum rebuilt by Renzo Piano in 2008 under a 1.1-hectare living roof of native plants, with an aquarium, a planetarium and a four-storey rainforest dome inside one envelope. Thursday evenings are adults-only, with a bar.

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8. 

   8© King of Hearts · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Fisherman's Wharf

   The old Italian fishing harbour on the northern waterfront, still landing Dungeness crab in winter and now the busiest tourist strip in the city. Sea lions have hauled out on the K-dock at Pier 39 since 1989, and the cable car turntable is at the end of Hyde Street.

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9. 

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   M. H. de Young Memorial Museum

   The de Young is San Francisco's museum of American art, wrapped in a copper skin. Its observation tower is free, and from it you can see Golden Gate Park and the bridge.

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10. 

    10© Robert Campbell · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Presidio of San Francisco

    A military post founded by Spain in 1776, held by Mexico and then the US Army, and handed to the National Park Service in 1994 after 218 years of continuous garrison. Its 600 hectares now hold Andy Goldsworthy works, a Disney museum and the best walk out to the bridge.

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Popular tickets & tours in San Francisco

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Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

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   1

   Haight-Ashbury

   The district around Haight and Ashbury streets, cheap Victorian housing that filled with students and drifters and peaked in the Summer of Love in 1967. The Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashbury still stands; the shops now sell records, vintage clothes and incense.

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   Muir Woods National Monument

   A 224-hectare grove of old-growth coast redwood twenty kilometres north of the Golden Gate, saved from logging in 1908 and named for John Muir. The tallest tree is about 78 metres and the oldest around 1,200 years; parking and shuttle must be reserved in advance.

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   3© Chris6d · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Coit Tower

   A 64-metre Art Deco cylinder of 1933 on Telegraph Hill, paid for by a woman who had chased fire engines as a girl and left a third of her estate to beautify the city. The lobby holds twenty-seven fresco panels of Depression-era California, painted in 1934 under the New Deal.

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   4© Photograph by Robert A. Estremo · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Mission San Francisco de Asís

   The sixth of the Spanish missions in California, founded five days before the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Its adobe chapel of 1791 is the oldest intact building in San Francisco and survived both the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes; the ornate basilica beside it did not.

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5. 

   5© Sanfranman59 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   USS Pampanito

   A Balao-class submarine of 1943 that made six war patrols and, in September 1944, pulled seventy-three British and Australian prisoners of war from the sea after sinking the ships carrying them. She is a National Historic Landmark moored at Pier 45.

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6. 

   6© Justin Beck · CC BY 2.0

   Sutro Tower

   A 298-metre three-legged transmitter finished in 1973 above Twin Peaks, the tallest structure in the city and hated at the time as an eyesore. It carries most of the Bay Area's television and radio, and appears out of the fog from almost every neighbourhood.

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   7© Ann Bartkowski / Dacreep at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Exploratorium

   Museum in San Francisco founded in 1969 by the physicist Frank Oppenheimer, with exhibits visitors work themselves. It moved to Pier 15 on the waterfront in 2013.

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8. 

   8© Fred Hsu (Wikipedia:User:Fredhsu on en.wikipedia) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Nob Hill

   The hill the silver and railroad barons built on in the 1870s once the cable car made it climbable, and where they lost almost everything to the 1906 fire. Grace Cathedral, the Fairmont and the Mark Hopkins stand at the top, along with the cable car museum below.

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9. 

   9© Daniel Schwen · CC BY-SA 2.5

   North Beach

   The old Italian quarter northeast of Chinatown, where Beat writers gathered around City Lights bookshop in the 1950s and Vesuvio next door. Espresso bars on Columbus Avenue still belong to the Ligurian families; Coit Tower is up the steps behind.

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10. 

    10© Aude · CC BY-SA 2.5

    Union Square

    A 1.1-hectare plaza named for the pro-Union rallies held on it during the Civil War, with a granite column marking Dewey's victory at Manila Bay in 1898. The department stores, theatres and the Powell Street cable car turntable surround it.

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