San Francisco in Three Days

San Francisco in Three Days is a pretty reasonable task if you know how to do it right. San Fran is an iconic city. It’s the base and background for many of your (well mostly my) favourite movies and TV shows; Full House, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Five Year Engagement, 40 Days and 40 Nights, and so on. It’s hilly nature is one that’s not generally a quality of major cities and part of what makes it so unique. The city is also home to some of the most iconic American tourist sites; Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, their cable car system, to name a few.

When I travelled there two years ago (wow times flies) the only things I really new about the city were the cable cars, the three sisters houses and the Golden Gate Bridge. Having booked the trip fairly last minute I also didn’t do as much research on the destination as I probably should have. Either way the three days that I spent meandering through the city were wonderful.

The city is easy enough to get around on foot, although I literally walk everywhere.

We arrived in mid-September and the weather was warm enough although you could really notice a difference between San Francisco and our previous destination, Big Sur. Even though we had a rental car with us we didn’t want to navigate the city in a car so we parked it for the couple days that we were there and then walked everywhere.

Day 1: 

Our first day in San Fran was a beautiful one so we thought it would be best to head right down to the water. We explored Union Square first on our way down to the piers.

Union Square is the heart of downtown San Francisco, literally, there is a giant heart sculpture in the middle of the square. Surrounded by tall sky scrapers, most notably the Cheesecake Factory restaurant, this large square of concrete is home to a lot of interesting activities. Of the three days we were there I don’t think we saw the same thing twice. One day there was an outdoor Salsa lesson happening, another was a large outdoor roller blading / music show … I think you get the idea. Union Square also has a lot of amazing shopping around it. In fact it’s the third largest shopping area in the U.S.

From there we made the 20 minute walk down Market St. to start our walk along the Piers, starting right at Pier 1. As you walk through Sue Bierman park, you’ll have a great opportunity to buy little souvenirs and knick knacks from local artists. Pier 1 is home to the Ferry Building Marketplace, a giant white brick building with some shops and places to eat inside. It’s also a great place to use the washroom!

As you wander along the Piers, there are some obviously more notable than others. Pier 15 and 17 are home to the Exploratorium, a new very large science museum. We didn’t go inside because we didn’t want to spend more money or learn about science.

Pier 27 and 29 are home to the newer American Cup facility. The days we were there happened to also coincide with the American Cup event. I can’t say I’ve ever really been a big sail fan but it was cool to see and drew quite a crowd.

Pier 39 is definitely the most famous Pier as it’s home to quite a few tourist attractions including; the Sea Lions, beer and wine tastings, the Aquarium of the Bay, lots of entertainment and even more shopping. Pier 39 also has amazing views of Alcatraz.

As you reach the end of the Piers you’ll find the Fisherman’s Wharf. Make sure you’re hungry because there are so many amazing options for food. Nothing tops Boudin at the Wharf though. I’m a bit bias because I am absolutely obsessed with bread but I swear I have never tasted better bread in my whole life!

Once you’ve filled up at Fisherman’s Wharf make sure to keep walking until you hit Ghirardelli for some chocolate. I’m not sure what it is about this chocolate but it’s my favourite. The shop is really cool too!

After a big day of walking and exploring we made our way back to the hotel to change up and head over to the Cheesecake Factory for some dinner and amazing views.

Day 2:

I had three things I desperately wanted to see in San Francisco; the Painted Ladies, Lombard and the Golden Gate Bridge, everything else was just a bonus. So, Day 2 started out with a trek to the Painted Ladies. It was a beautiful walk through the residential streets of San Francisco. There were so many wonderfully unique homes, all built among the incredibly hilly streets it’s quite fascinating.

The Painted Ladies, or Three Sisters, sit across from Alamo Square park. Which you may recognize both from Full House! It was really cool to see the houses in real life. If you sit in Alamo Square Park you can get the iconic picture of the houses.

From there we made the long trek to Lombard Street. You really have to be committed to make this walk but as I mentioned before, I like walking. Plus one of my favourite things to do when I travel is to wander random streets to get a sense of what the housing and life would be like living in that city.

Lombard Street is a bit unassuming as you walk up to it from the top. It really just looks like any other street, until it doesn’t. There are very steep stairs on either side that people can walk down. The thing I found crazy is that people lived on either side of this street. Walking down the steps you were walking basically on someones doorstep. Definitely something I would recommend doing.

Our last stop for the day was Chinatown. To be quite frank normally this Chinatowns are cool to walk through but not always something of note for tourists but there’s something different about this district in San Fran. The lanterns hanging above the streets were beautiful and the streets seemed less busy or overwhelming. We really just walked through but I did enjoy the trek.

Day 3: 

Of course, the last and final day was spent going to the Golden Gate Bridge. Ambitiously at first we decided to walk through the Golden Gate park first. It was certainly a nice walk but really big, you could pretty much spend the whole day there. Which evidently we almost did.

We also didn’t realize that to get to the Golden Gate Bridge from the park you also have to walk through Mountain Lake Park. This is seriously no easy feat. It took us ages and we got lost a few times. By the time we made it out we were practically on the highway, tired, hungry and with incredibly sore feet. This made it hard to really enjoy the views of the bridge but we did manage to get a few pictures.

There you have it, an itinerary for San Francisco in three days. We did spend an extra day and made our walk to Sonoma Valley for a day but that’s for another post :).

Did I miss anything? What were your favourite spots in San Fran?