We had not visited San Francisco in 20 years to write a travel story, so we were quite overdue when we decided to go in January 2025. We had postponed a prior plan a couple of years ago when the downtown got some bad publicity because of homelessness and drug dealing, but knew city leaders since then have improved the situation greatly (something our hometown of Los Angeles can't claim).
The Moscone convention center is again attracting big events, tourists are packing the museums, and restaurants are thriving.
But that means that traffic isn't just congested, the one-way streets and few parking spaces on the street, as well as the fact that parking lots are expensive and often full, mean the first rule to get around is to use the mass transit system. This includes cable cars, street cars, the Muni Metro buses and light rail system, and BART's subway to get to more distant places (buy a Clipper Card to make this easy and save money). But if you insist on a car, Google's Waymo vehicles are smarter and less dangerous than any driven by humans.
Hotels are expensive, but so are SF B&Bs, which are usually not conveniently located and inadequate for all a visitor's needs. We chose a unique place to stay which is located on Market St., the city's main thoroughfare: Beck's Motor Lodge, located in the Castro District, the nation's pioneering LGBTQ+ friendly quarter, with lots of restaurants, bars, specialty shops, and the Castro Theatre with its mighty Wurlitzer organ that is played before every show. Beck's was a really great experience for reasons we explain in our full review: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/review-becks-motor-lodge-san-franciso-scott-s-smith-qlonc/
THURSDAY
We decided to take the fastest route that starts out on the I-5 North, but requires getting onto a side road for a while and later veering to Oakland, so we came (slowly) into SF from the east. The alternative is to take the more leisurely, lovely, and simpler 101 along the coast, by which we returned.
We had planned our agenda with the invaluable help of the city's SFTravel.com https://www.sftravel.com/ , which has extensive lists of things to do. But we were shocked to get an email on our way that the city tour we had signed up with for Fri. was cancelled, including our reservations for Alcatraz island. This is the prison where Al Capone and other major criminals had served their sentences and made famous by the 1962 largely fictional movie "The Bird Man of Alcatraz" (Robert Shroud was a bird doctor at Leavenworth, but did not have birds on the island). The tickets often sell out days in advance, so the first thing we did when we arrived was to call the only official provider of transport to the island, Alcatraz City Cruises https://www.cityexperiences.com/san-francisco/city-cruises/alcatraz/, and someone actually answered the phone and set up our replacement tickets for Saturday without our having to try to rebook online with our dysfunctional cell phone.
Our favorite museum last time was the Asian Art Museum https://about.asianart.org/
and it did not disappoint, featuring a wide range of artists in both the special exhibits and the permanent collection. The Japan section had examples of the ancient tradition of ceramics and a video demonstrating how modern artists utilize materials to create new pieces (see photo of contemporary example). There were also examples of the use of bamboo for baskets, 18th century tapestries and folding screens, 6th century art venerating the kami spirits of the native shamanistic Shinto religion, and the armor of soldiers. Korea featured 17th/18th century porcelain vases that reflected Confucian values of simplicity. China was represented by sculptures of Buddhist deities, Manchu armor, and hanging scrolls with calligraphy.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art https://www.sfmoma.org/ is of the nation's most respected collections of contemporary and 20th century art. Level 4 features contemporary sculpture and painting, especially abstraction, while 5 has a sculpture garden. We spent most of our time on Level 6, which had Yayoi Kusama's "Dreaming of Earth's Sphericity, I Would Offer My love," an infinity room of mirrors and colored lights. Our other favorite piece was in the German 1960s section, Sigmar Polke's "Untitled" (see MOMA photo), which shows a sorcerer conjuring a spirit in a magic circle, like an artist reaching into physical and potential realities to create art. He employed unusual materials like decorator fabrics, meteor dust, and rare minerals to blur the distinctions between the mundane world, maker and material, and fixed categories of art.
FRIDAY
We spent several hours at each of the two major museums on Golden Gate Park, which had plenty of parking when they opened at 10 a.m.
de Young Museum https://www.famsf.org/visit/de-young is a world-class museum for every kind of art from the classic masters of painting to innovative and experiential contemporary works. You should start with an audio tour on your phone and ask about docent-led ones. We loved the "Art and War in the Renaissance" section, including the "Battle of Pavia Tapestries," commemorating Roman Emperor Charles V's 1525 victory over French king Francis I, which took decades of artistic collaboration to produce. The museum's African section had especially fantastic ritual masks, such as the Elephant Society one of wood and cloth from early 20th century Nigeria (see photo). The exhibit and video about LGBTQ+ artists symbolically defying Uganda's harsh treatment by creating works out of rubbish was fascinating.
California Academy of Sciences https://www.calacademy.org/ is the ideal place to take whole extended families, from infants to grandparents to learn about every aspect of science. The California section is aimed at children of all ages who want an interactive introduction to everything from Indigenous knowledge and firefighting to the place of coral in the world and the life in swamps. Of course elsewhere there are dinosaurs and a clear depiction of evolution and why homo sapiens emerged from this. Everyone should try to schedule a presentation in the planetarium and the Steinhart Aquarium is worth waiting in sometimes long lines. We especially enjoyed the Rainforest dome, but gave up trying to take a picture of the butterflies (see photo).
We had planned to go to another art and history museum that is affiliated with the de Young in another location, the Legion of Honor, but found the traffic too difficult to make the effort.
SATURDAY
Alcatraz https://www.nps.gov/alca/planyourvisit/index.htm is managed by the National Park Service, which calls The Rock "the most infamous island in the world." Leaving from Pier 33 (you can park across the street or further away for cheaper options), the ship goes back and forth frequently, but you should plan at least 2 hours for highlights of the cell house and there is plenty to see in half a day if you can do some climbing or hop on the tram. The audio guide tells you about everything from the most notorious inmates and attempted escapes to the industrial factories and the American Indian occupation 1969-1971. Get the "Discover Alcatraz" brochure for $1 when you arrive. See the photo of a typical cell.
We look forward to our next visit, since there is so much more to do in San Francisco.