Eric’s Favorite Offbeat Things To Do in San Francisco

My guests often ask me what I like to do when I’m not leading tours around San Francisco. The truth is, a lot of the things I like to do in my time off are the same things that I share with my tour guests! Here are ten of my favorite things to do here that you might enjoy too. They are all a little “offbeat”, just like me, and several of these places are included on my Fogcutter Small-Group San Francisco City Tour.

https://flic.kr/p/6qxd9c, photo by Doug Letterman

1. Have a tiki cocktail. Fogcutter Tours was inspired by the Samoan Fogcutter, a cocktail invented by Vic Bergeron at Trader Vic’s right here in San Francisco. It’s exactly what you need to bring the sunny vibes and get stoked for adventure on a foggy San Francisco day. The oldest of the old school places is the Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel. They have a volcano at the host stand, tall ship rigging over the dance floor, thatched roofs over the bar tables AND a band playing on a floating island in the middle of the restaurant! My favorite of the new wave places is Pagan Idol. They have dozens of rums, the drinks aren’t too sweet, and the staff boasts a bottomless wardrobe of Aloha shirts.

https://flic.kr/p/6vN6yr, photo by tannaz

2. Ride the Bus. Visitors should ride the Cable Car once (it was invented in San Francisco!) Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft are super easy to use (they were also invented here!) But the local bus and streetcar system (called “Muni” by locals) will get you anywhere in town you need to go AND let you see the city while you do it. To make things easy and cost-effective, get a multi-day bus pass. Another quick note: do not rent a car to drive around town. You will spend way more time and money on parking than you ever thought possible, and it will stress you out big time.

https://flic.kr/p/mjvBXi, photo by Eric Astrauskas

3. Drive down a crooked street. San Francisco has two of them! Lombard Street is right above Fisherman’s Wharf with beautiful views of the Bay, Alcatraz, and more. Vermont Street is a lot less scenic and a lot more out of the way, but it’s also the real “crookedest”. I sometimes take a detour when I am running errands, just so I can zip down this snaky street on Potrero Hill. On Easter Sunday, local thrill seekers even ride toy tricycles down Vermont street. I also frequently drive guests on my small-group city tour down Vermont Street on the way to the Mission District. It’s a tight squeeze, but it’s fun!

https://flic.kr/p/9navm, photo by John Weiss

4. Find “secret” views. Twin Peaks has the hands down best downtown skyline view in the City, and whenever the weather is clear I take my tour guests there. But one of the joys of exploring San Francisco is finding stunning views when you least expect them, and there are dozens of different peaks and parks that have amazing views of the skyline, the sunset and more. I especially like Jack Early Park above Fisherman’s Wharf, Tank Hill above the Haight, and Grandview Park in the Sunset.

https://flic.kr/p/4BpZQF, photo by rick

5. And to get to some of these parks, I prefer to walk up “secret” stairways! There are 48 hills in San Francisco, and there are 670 staircase streets to climb them. The longest of them, with 450 steps, and the most famous is the section of Filbert Street that runs from Sansome Street near the Alcatraz ferry up to Coit Tower. My neighborhood in Bernal Heights has the most stairways of any neighborhood. On tours, I frequently take guests to see the spectacular 16th Ave Tiled Steps. This stairway climbs the west side of Turtle hill and each step is decorated with mosaic tiles on its front face. Look at the stairs from the top and it looks like nothing special, but climb the stairway from the bottom and you will see a swirl of fish and sea creatures the whole way up. Mirrors embedded in the stairs reflect the flash of the sunset too.

https://flic.kr/p/2kUq14G, photo by vhines200

6. Roam the Sutro Baths. Imagine Roman ruins in a major American city, overlooking the mighty Pacific Ocean! When Adolph Sutro built the bath house named in his honor it could fit 10,000 people into its seven swimming pools under a glass roof AND it hosted restaurants, museums and a small zoo. It fell into disrepair and then burned in the 1960s and these days the ruins are open to the public. You can climb around the old foundations and even venture into a spooky tunnel that partially fills at high tide.

https://flic.kr/p/pMneCW, photo by Karlis Dambrans

7. Walk the alleys of Chinatown. I frequently take my tour guests to the Fortune Cookie Factory on Ross Alley - they make 10,000 cookies there every day, each one folded by hand. Whenever I am in Chinatown I like to take short cuts down the dozen alleys that run through the neighborhood. You can get away from the crowds on Stockton and Grant Street and find little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, art galleries, Taoist Temples and even a infamous crime scene.

https://flic.kr/p/dngZ1V, photo by Franco Folini

8. Experience the playful side of the City’s topography at one of our outdoor slide parks. San Francisco has lots of parks and playgrounds to enjoy, and several of them take advantage of the city’s natural terrain by building slides into the side of a hill! I love to take guests with kids to the Seward Street Slides (the original and best) but you can also find slides at Esmeralda Street in my neighborhood of Bernal Heights.

https://flic.kr/p/rApvyx, photo by amanderson2

9. Get off of Jefferson Street at Fisherman’s Wharf. A lot of locals avoid Fisherman’s Wharf, but I don’t! I am a member of the Dolphin Swim Club (not open to the public, sadly) and I try to get down there once per week. The endless rows of t-shirt shops and cheap souvenirs really aren’t my thing, but it doesn’t take much to ditch the crowds. After a swim I love the happy hour menu at Cappurro’s. I also like to drop in to the exhibition galleries at the Academy of Art University in the Cannery, and play the vintage video games at the Musee Mechanique.

https://flic.kr/p/5akFtG, photo by Steve

10. Ride a bike! You might not think a city with 48 hills was a great place to cycle, but there are several awesome rides that work around the hills rather than going over them. I ride for fun most weekends and run errands by bike. For fun rides, I often join the tourists riding along the Marina Green and across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, but on the way I like to stop at the Wave Organ. It’s an art piece made of old cemetery headstones that makes weird burps, gurgles, and hoots at high tide. Sounds strange when I write it that way, but trust me it’s worth a quick detour if you’re “biking the bridge” anyway.