- Eleven things to know before
you go to San Francisco. I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions. I do travel guides that are
fun, informatively entertaining and I'm in San Francisco. What is San Francisco famous for? It's famous for the cable
cars that just passed by. In addition to being
famous for the cable cars, San Francisco is famous for fog. Fog all the time. It's also famous for the
Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, amazing architecture and Victorian houses. By the way, this is part of my series on the San Francisco Bay Area. I've got more areas about
cities and San Francisco Bay, including Napa and Santa Cruz. You'll find links in
the description below, or at the end of this video. So the first thing you need to know before you go to San Francisco is
just some general information about this city. First of all, San Francisco
has a population of 800,000. It is the forth most popular city in the state of California. It occupies a seven by
seven mile peninsula on the northern end of San Francisco Bay. It's kind of like a smaller,
more walkable New York City, only with a lot more hills but it's the closest you're
gonna get to an actual real city on the west coast and what
do I mean by a real city? I mean, one that you can actually take public transportation around
and you don't need a car. San Francisco was the
origin of the hippy movement in the 1960s, as well as the
LGBT civil rights movement. The Castro is San Francisco's
famously gay neighborhood and yes, public nudity is a thing here. But I will say, not everything
in San Francisco is perfect. San Francisco is plagued
by traffic congestion. Traffic is super awful here. Rents and property values are sky high. People pay through the nose
to live here and finally, there's also a pretty
significant homeless issue in the city and if
there's one neighborhood you might want to avoid, it's
the Tenderloin neighborhood. It's just next to Union Square. So just make sure you
watch where you're going, that you don't end up to be some place you really didn't want to be. The second thing to know before
you go is about the weather. I refer to San Francisco
as the foggy city. It's not foggy all the time but when it is foggy, it's really cold. Mark Twain had this
famous quote that he said, the coldest winter I ever spent
was summer in San Francisco, and when the fog comes in,
it cools down really quick. It can be 70 degrees fahrenheit
in one part of the city, but in the other part of the
city, where the fog rolled in, it can be 50 degrees fahrenheit
and really humid and wet, which makes it feel even colder. So I would say if you're
coming to San Francisco, make sure you dress in layers, so that you have jackets
that you could put on or you could take off, when the
sun and the fog come and go. The third thing to know
before you go is about food. San Francisco is a foodie city but what is San Francisco most known for? It's most known for sourdough bread and the mecca for sourdough bread is at Boudin Bakery here at Fisherman's Wharf. Boudin's been baking up
sourdough bread since the 1800s and I think the quintessential
food item in San Francisco is absolutely to get clam
chowder in a bread bowl. So clam chowder, really
popular here and don't you get it in a regular bowl, but get
it in a sourdough bread bowl. You get your clam chowder and your sourdough bread at the same time. At this particular
Boudin, they've got some flagship sandwiches that they
don't have at all of them. This one is a dungeoness crab melt, so it's basically like a grilled
cheese sandwich with crab. When you're here at Fisherman's Wharf, you'll find a lot more crab things and San Francisco's really
getting into the microbrew scene. A lot of micro breweries
so if you're into beer, pick up a local one while you're here. Anchor Steam, this is
made in San Francisco. You'll find tons of Boudin
bakeries all around the city, but the reason to visit this
one at Fisherman's Wharf is for two reasons. One, the bakery museum. They've got this whole museum about how sourdough bread is made and the history of sourdough bread. They show you these cool
little sourdough creatures that you make and if you're
wondering why you need to eat sourdough bread when
you come to San Francisco, well, it's because of the fog, and they've got this
exhibit here about the fog that says the fog actually
makes the yeast work better and so the sourdough bread
in San Francisco will taste unlike sourdough bread anywhere
else because of the fog. Hey and if you didn't buy any, well, they've actually got samples
right here so you can sample the sourdough bread as well. When you're in San Francisco, if you've never had In-N-Out Burger, you should definitely check it out. They have a location at Fisherman's Wharf and what's In-N-Out
Burger really good for? It's really good for burgers. Cheeseburgers, double doubles, hamburgers, fries, drinks and shakes. That's it. That's the entire menu. It is the best value for a burger, you are going to get anywhere. The menu's simple but I'll
point out because this is the only location San Francisco,
it can get quite busy. If you want to beat the crowds,
get here for an early lunch. They open at 10.30 so you
can get here before 11 am and then you don't have
to stand in the long line. The other thing you should
check out while you're here, if you like t-shirts, In-N-Out
Burger at this location sells a special Fisherman's
Wharf t-shirt you can pick up that's only available at this
In-N-Out Burger location. San Francisco also has a lot
of really good Italian food and if you're looking for
the mecca for Italian food in San Francisco, it is in
the North Beach neighborhood which is kind of known as the
Little Italy of San Francisco. It's roughly along Columbus Avenue, kind of where that bumps into Chinatown, but around here, the
lampposts, they've all got the green, white and red
for the Italian flag, so eat some delicious pizza and pasta. You know I can probably talk
about food for like two hours in the video, there's so
much to eat in San Francisco, but instead of putting
it all in this number, I'm gonna put it in some
of the future numbers so when we hit up Chinatown
and Fisherman's Wharf, more about food. You'll see them in those numbers. Hotels in San Francisco
can be quite expensive. San Francisco is a business oriented city, so there's a lot of
business travelers that drive the hotel rates way up. Well I'll tell you is if
you're coming for vacation or leisure, your best bet
might be to come on the weekend because the weekends don't
have any business travelers and so you'll find the room
rates to be a bit cheaper on the weekends than they are on weekdays. My favorite place to
stay in San Francisco, neighborhood-wise is this
neighborhood right here. This is Union Square. It's essentially the
heart of San Francisco. There's the West End right over there. There's a Marriott just in that direction. What I like about Union Square is if you fly into San Francisco airport, you can take the BART here,
the Bay Area Rapid Transit. We'll talk more about that a bit in the airports and the getting around section, but it's really well connected, this area, to the cable cars to the trolley, everything's super walkable from here so this is just a really
convenient location. My second and third favorite locations are the Embarcadero or the Financial District. I know a lot of people might
suggest Fisherman's Wharf, I do not recommend
Fisherman's Wharf to stay in. It just feels too touristy for me and the hotels really
aren't that nice over there. We'll talk more about Fisherman's Wharf in one of these follow on numbers. The fifth thing to know is about
getting into San Francisco. San Francisco has three major airports. San Francisco Airport, Oakland
Airport and San Jose Airport and we're going to take
them in that order. San Francisco Airport, also known as SFO, is probably the airport
that most people fly into San Francisco, is the major airport. It's 15 miles south of
downtown San Francisco. It is essentially a strip
of tarmac or runway, right along the San Francisco Bay. The reason why most people fly
into SFO airport is because this is where all the big carriers fly, the big international carriers fly, it's a big United hub, Star
Alliance, American and Delta, international ones. The problem with San Francisco
airport is prone to fog being right on San Francisco Bay, so there are often a lot of fog delays, but what I like about flying
into San Francisco airport is you can take the BART from there, the Bay Area Rapid Transit. It's kind of the subway or the rail. It'll bring you right
into the city center, it costs less than 10 bucks
and it takes about 45 minutes. The second major airport
is Oakland airport. Oakland airport is 25 miles
across San Francisco Bay, from downtown San Francisco. Oakland is a really good
option if you're flying Southwest Airlines, coming
domestically from the U.S. It's also a good option if
you want to avoid the fog because it's on the other
side of San Francisco Bay, it is not as foggy so Oakland
has a lot less delays. Also, Oakland is pretty good
if you're gonna be connecting your San Francisco trip to
Napa or Sonoma wine country because it's the closest
to Napa and Sonoma of the Bay Area airports. And the third major airport in the area is San Jose airport, FJC. San Jose airport is 60 miles
south of San Francisco, in the city of San Jose. San Jose airport is another good one if you're flying domestically. They do a lot of Southwest
flights but also a lot of international carriers have been adding service into San Jose, for all the people going
down to Silicon Valley and those high tech companies. San Jose is really great if
you're connecting San Francisco to trips to Monterey or Carmel
'cause that's down south and by the way, if you are renting a car, you could pick up a rental
car at one of these airports and generally drop it
off at the other one, because most of these three
airports are considered co-terminals and so you
typically won't be charged a one way rental fee, if you're picking it up
from one of these three and dropping it off at the other two. The sixth thing to know before you go to San Francisco is about
getting around the city and the most classic way
to get around San Francisco is to ride the San Francisco cable car. These cable cars have
been running the streets of San Francisco since 1873 and they still run pretty much
the same way they did before. They cost $7 one way to ride them. You can also get daily,
three day, weekly passes which might be a good deal if you're gonna ride them quite a bit but if you are going to
ride one of these cable cars and you should if you're
here in San Francisco, there's two ways to ride. One, you can ride inside the cable car, but two, you can stand on the outside and standing on the outside,
that is the way to ride them. These cable cars run six a.m.
to midnight, seven days a week but I will tell you if you
want to beat the crowds, come early because the
lines can get pretty long on this line. The other classic way to
get around San Francisco on these historic street cars, the best route for tourists is the F Line. It runs down market street, it'll take you from the
Castro to Fisherman's Wharf. In addition to historic street
cars, Muni also operates a network of light rail, there
are six light rail lines. They're known as Muni Metro. This, unlike BART, isn't
distance based, it's ride base. It's $2.75 per ride. By the way, if you wondered
where that music is coming from, I'm actually being
serenaded right back here by this guy playing the accordion. Another way to get around
the city is to take the BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit. It has five stops in the
city of San Francisco. Most of them run kind of through
the center on Union Square and Market Street. BART being Bay Area, that'll take you to the other parts of the Bay Area so you're going across the
Bay, down to the airport, BART is the way you're gonna get there. Fares on the BART, they
are basically per distance. The cheapest ride is two bucks and the most expensive
ride can be 15 bucks. The regular BART rider say unfortunately, they don't run often enough
and they are often delayed. One of the best ways to
get around San Francisco is to use your own two feet. San Francisco is a very walkable city, though the biggest
problem is that you can go from flat land to hills,
very, very quickly and that route that Google Maps gives you, well, what looks like a straight
line might really not be. And by the way, these
hills as you can see is actually a staircase here,
I'm gonna turn this around so you can see what I see. This hill is so steep, they've actually turned the
sidewalk into a staircase. The seventh thing to know is about POPOS. What's a POPO? It is a privately
owned, publicly open space. This is one of them
right here, but actually, there's a law in San
Francisco that causes all major developments to create these privately owned, public open spaces. They are not well-signed,
they are not well-marked but the developers and people
who operate these buildings need to create these spaces
to be open to the public. This is one of the best ones,
this is the one right next to the Apple store by Union Square
and the Grand Hyatt hotel. It's got this neat Love
sign, it's got tables, the Apple store employees,
they come out and clean them and keep the tables set up. Why is this great? This one's open 24/7, it's
got free wifi as well. One of the other coolest POPOS is the Transamerica Redwood Forest. Right behind the Transamerica building, there's this redwood forest in
the center of San Francisco. This one closes at 5.30
so right now, it's closed, that is why it's empty. You should definitely check out the POPOS while you're in San Francisco. Something pretty unique to this city. The eighth thing to
know is about Chinatown. San Francisco's Chinatown
is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest
Chinatown outside of Asia. It's about a mile long
and half a mile wide and it takes up 24 city blocks. There are 100,000 people
that live in Chinatown and Chinatown, San Francisco
is the most densely populated neighborhood, west
of Manhattan in New York City. Chinatown, San Francisco is kind of like a city within a city. When you're here in Chinatown, Chinatown has its own
culture, its own languages, two of its own hospitals. I mean, Chinatown is so
impressive in San Francisco, that there are actually
more visitors come to visit Chinatown than visit
the Golden Gate Bridge. When you're in Chinatown, make sure to get some
delicious Chinese food. The Chinese food here is really good. It is said that San Francisco, Chinatown is what essentially introduced
the U.S. to dim sum, so you'll find lots of dim
sum restaurants, tea houses, bakeries and one place you
definitely have to visit in Chinatown is down this little alley. This is Ross Alley and on this alley is the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie company. This is where the fortune
cookie in the U.S. was invented. They've been here since
1962, making fortune cookies, fresh off that factory line. You can get them in multiple colors, you can get them with chocolate, you can get custom names on the box, definitely stop by here. If you take a picture
or you take some video, make sure you give them 50 cents 'cause otherwise they don't make any money and they've said they might
have to go out of business because their rent's too high and people aren't buying
enough fortune cookies so make sure to support them. Other little interesting Chinatown fact, well-renowned actor Bruce
Lee was actually born in one of the hospitals here
in San Francisco, Chinatown. If you're looking for some tasty dim sum while you're in Chinatown,
check out Golden Saba Seafood. Why do I say so? I just ate there and had
some pretty good dim sum. What do I like about this place? Dim sum all day, so you can
get dim sum for dinner too. This is not the cheapest dim
sum but it was pretty tasty. The ninth thing to know
before you go to San Francisco is about Fisherman's Wharf. Fisherman's Wharf is
probably the most touristy neighborhood in San Francisco. I mean, I did mention
Chinatown has a lot of tourists that go there, more there
than the Golden Gate Bridge, but people live in Chinatown. Fisherman's Wharf. This is all a manufactured
tourist destination. It didn't used to be,
this used to be the center for fishermen in San
Francisco and actually, you can still find a little
spot in the middle of it where fishermen unload their
boats and actually work here in the middle of this
manufactured touristy place, but what's so cool about
Fisherman's Wharf is just one of San Francisco's iconic
neighborhood, it has this vibe, there's street performers,
there's lots of good food, so I do think you have
to make it down here, just don't expect it
to feel super authentic because there are a lot
of tacky souvenir shops. One of the places you
have to go see, well, I mentioned Boudin earlier, there's also an outpost
of In-N-Out Burger, I mentioned that earlier too, what did I not mention earlier? Well, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. This place been in San
Francisco for a long time. They make some delicious chocolates and actually if you just go in the store, they'll give you a sample
for free for just walking in. Definitely try their hot fudge sundaes. Their fudge is to die for. One of my favorite places
in Fisherman's Wharf is on historic pier 45,
it's the Musee Mecanique and you can call this an arcade but that really wouldn't
be doing it justice. This place is operated by
the Museum of San Francisco and it's actually a museum of old coin operated games through history. They have over 200 coin
operated games dating as early as the 1800s. This is a really impressive place and you will find coin
operated games, pianos and things like that, that
you won't find anywhere else and yes, they still operate on quarters, so bring your dollars, get your change, put your quarters in some of these things. Some of them you play, some
of them are just a show, kind of like the piano. In addition to clam chowder, actually all manner of seafood
is popular in San Francisco, but the mecca of seafood is
here at Fisherman's Wharf. Just across the street from Boudin, this is where all the
crab stands hang out, that's what they call them. Pretty much all these places
when crab is in season sell it. You can see some crab right here and they've all got these big boiling pots where you get one fresh
cooked, just for you. Crab, lobster, shellfish, lobster rolls and you can tell they like
seafood because this stand says, if it swims we sell it. Right across the street from the Fisherman's Wharf cable
car stop is The Buena Vista. The Buena Vista is the place that's famous for inventing the Irish coffee. Coffee, whisky, sugar and heavy cream. Altogether. A tasty drink. And if you don't believe
me, believe the plaque. America's first Irish coffee
was made here in 1952. So Fisherman's Wharf is
the most touristy part of San Francisco, although
the most touristy part of Fisherman's Wharf is this
place right here, pier 39, kind of the center piece
of Fisherman's Wharf, at least the touristy part of it. It is a two story
shopping center on a pier. There's shops, there's
restaurants, there's an arcade, there's an aquarium. Down at the end, there's kind
of a neat, two-story carousel but the really cool thing here at pier 39 are the sea lions that are
at the end of the pier. They're sort of on the
left side of the pier. There's been recorded as many as 1,700 different sea lions that live here. 1,700 sea lions. Come and see them, hear them, smell them, bask in all the sea lion glory. The tenth thing to know is about Alcatraz. Probably the most famous prison
in all of the United States. It's also been nicknamed the Rock. You can see it there behind
me why the rock because it looks like this prison
that's been built on a rock. There's only one way to get to Alcatraz and that's on a ferry, operated by the Alcatraz Cruises Company. Other companies advertise Alcatraz Cruises but they just float by the island. If you take one of them, you can't actually go on the island. You'll see it here when they
say things like view Alcatraz, you're gonna be viewing
it just from the boat. So if you actually want
to go on the island, you need to book tickets in advance. They often sell out a week
or more so book early, you can book them online. The eleventh thing to
know is about day trips from San Francisco so if
you come to San Francisco, there's some other great
places to go around the area. The first one is Napa, the famous wine country in California. There's this neat beach
town called Monterey. It has a world famous aquarium and then kind of in the middle, there's this beach town called Santa Cruz. It's a really classic
Californian beach town. So how long should you
spend in San Francisco? I'd probably say about three
nights in San Francisco and then you can do two days in Napa, you could do two days down
in Carmel and Monterey. He just wanted to say hey,
so thank you very much and so about a week, nine
days, something like that would cover, I think, the whole region and so if you wanted to go
to Santa Cruz or to Napa, you can click here to watch
some of my other videos on those destinations, you can find a link in
the descriptions below and I won't say goodbye because I'll see you
in one of those videos.
