ONE DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO

If you only have one day in San Francisco, it will be hard to decide what to you want to do and see.

When you travel to San Francisco, you’ll realize how spread out the city really is. Actually, there are 36 neighborhoods in San Francisco, some of them divided into smaller districts.

If you are spending a few days there, it will be easier if you concentrate on a different area each day.  This way, you won’t wear yourself out too much.  That being said, we still ended up walking 20km on average per day. Call us crazy!

San Francisco Tip: If you plan to travel to San Francisco during the Summer and want to visit Alcatraz, you’ll need to book your tickets at least 2 months in advance.  I had looked at the tickets and decided to purchase them 1 month prior to our trip. Unfortunately, everything was booked for the whole 5 days we were there.  You can learn more about where to purchase tickets HERE. Blondie Bear was so disappointed that we couldn’t go to visit it.  However, you can somewhat make up for it.  Find out how in our article Day trip from San Francisco.

Below is what we did in one day on foot in San Francisco, but you can also look at our itinerary for Day 2 and Day 3 for inspiration. Use the Bart from where you are staying to get to your first stop and then only use it to get back to where you came from at the end of the day. This is a good way to save some money.

Areas covered: Chinatown – Coit Tower – Fisherman’s Wharf

Our day one of our family travel to San Francisco was focused on its northern part.  It will probably be the highlight of your trip if you are traveling with kids.

Stop 1-Ferry Building (Bart:  Embarcadero)

As part of our first stop of the day we swung by the Ferry building. It’s a neat place to walk around and looks like a farmer’s market located inside a revamped ferry building.  In Montreal, we have something similar known Marché Jean Talon.

Blondie Bear went to taste the free food from the different vendors.  My kids are like that, always going up for some free food which makes it look like I don’t feed them.  Blondie Bear tasted all the different olive oils that Stonehouse California had to offer. We bought some spice mix there because even Big Boss liked them.  Our personal favorite is the Napa Valley Blend, perfect for our Sunday Night Spaghetti sauce. We recommend trying some if you ever go there and they do have a website but only deliver in the US.

Stop 2-Chinatown

After working up an appetite at the Ferry Building, we finally headed towards Chinatown for some Dim Sum at City View Restaurant.  Thankfully, we got there relatively early, around 11:30 a.m allowing us to beat the lunch rush hour.   There were a lot of reserved tables already, luckily they had one available for us. Yes, it does get crowded and fast, but I believe it closes at 3 pm. We really enjoyed the food, it was not overly priced, and the service was good.  Blondie Bear really enjoyed the duck with a bun which he helped himself to a second service.

San Francisco’s Chinatown is said to be the biggest in the world and was established in 1848.  Even if you’ve been to others, this one is really worth checking out.  It continues to retain its own customs, places of worship, and identity.  Tourists mostly enjoy going there for the food and trying out some Dim Sum.  San Francisco’s Chinatown food scene is considered to be the birthplace of Americanized Chinese cuisine according to Wikipedia.

After our own tasting of Dim sum, we walked through Chinatown and up its hills to head towards the Cable Car Museum.  I personally enjoyed the walk through this neighborhood, one of the best Chinatowns I have seen so far.  Was it the hills, the colors, the sounds? I don’t know what it was exactly…probably all of the above.

Stop 3- Cable Car Museum

I had two happy boys there. The museum is not only FREE but also nicely explains the whole history of the San Francisco cable cars and how they function.  It was neat to see the cables actually functioning for the cable cars in use.  If you have time to spare, this is worth a detour before hoping on one.

Stop 4- Coit Tower

We made our way to the tower by going through Chinatown and North Beach.  On our way there, we stopped by Jack Kerouac’s Alley (not much to see) and City Lights Bookstore (heaven).  The bookstore was recommended in our Lonely Planet guide book and it didn’t disappoint.  Admittedly, I get a kick out of old bookstores, so I can easily be swayed.  Unfortunately, I never have the time to just wander around one but Blondie Bear and I each found a book to bring home.  However, the neighborhood didn’t seem very lively.

We stopped in Washington Square Park hoping to spot some parrots (ACCORDING TO THE GUIDE BOOK, TWICE MENTIONED!).  Sadly, none were seen.  We did see a lot of homeless people, scarce grass, and a beautiful church.  

So pretty much you can just skip this part and keep on walking up Telegraph Hill and take the steps to the Coit tower...Ouch…that was kind of rough, especially from the long walk from the day before. Despite all the walking, we had already that day, this was well worth it.  You can get a 360 degrees glimpse of the city from there.  We tried to spot the Golden Gate Bridge but it is a bit far and it was under some clouds (as usual).  We didn’t go up the tower as you had to pay (NO THANK YOU).

Stop 5- Filbert Steps

We took the Filbert steps to head down towards the Piers.  We were glad to go down them and not up. It gave us a great opportunity to admire the city view while going down.  People actually own homes along the steps.  It’s a very charming and cozy area with garden front houses but I could never live there with the hill and steps and carrying groceries….nope.

Stop 6- Musee Mécanique (Fisherman’s Wharf)

Our next stop on our travel list of the day in San Francisco was the Mechanical Museum on Pier 45.  We did however stop by Pier 39 to see if there were some Sea Lions. Sure enough we saw a couple, whoot whoot!

The Musée Mécanique which is the actual name was recommended by a friend of ours and it was also mentioned in our Lonely Planet. This did not disappoint. Thank you, Camille! Free to get in, fun for everyone.

There you will find all kind of old games from the 20’s and up costing anywhere between .25 cents to 1$ a game. The boys and even I had fun. Big Boss tested his strength of course and Blondie Bear enjoyed boxing and getting a foot massage. There was some kinky stuff as well, but we didn’t try them.

Next to the museum there is a submarine and the Liberty Ship from WWII which you can visit. You can’t miss it as it has a topless woman on top which Blondie Bear easily spotted. The cost is 20$/adult and 10$/child but we skipped that since we had another WWII sightseeing planned for our Hawaii trip (see article Once upon a time travel in Hawaii).

Fisherman’s Wharf is a very lively area but too touristy for my taste. You can spot the Golden Gate Bridge from there and have access to a very small beach. In my opinion, it is worth a stroll but that’s about it.

Stop 7- Cable Car (Powell-Hyde turnaround)

Our final stop which was also part of getting back to our Airbnb was the Cable Car. After all this walking, riding the Cable Car seemed a fun way to get to the Bart station Powell Street and end on back to North Berkeley.  Unfortunately, we had to stand in line for 1 hour to hop on.  It is to be expected and we were fortunate enough to have good weather while waiting.

If you want to skip the line and are traveling alone or with 1 other person you can try to hop on at one of the stops on the line. That only goes for the original cable cars that are open all sides.  Otherwise, you have no choice but to stand in line at either end.  

The cost of the ride is 7$/person, one way, with no hop on hop off.  We took the Powell-Hyde line, sat where we wanted on the left side up front with Big Boss standing out.  I wanted to catch a glimpse of Lombard Street. Yeah, that did not work out at all.  We were on the right side alright but at the top of the street which defeats the purpose.  In order to really see it, you need to be at the bottom. Anyways, we saw the cars struggling to go down it and that’s about it.  I don’t know why anyone would want to drive there as it seems more of a nuisance than a joy ride.

Stop 8 – Union Square

We got off at Union Square which is close to the Bart Powell Street station, not to see the high-end retail stores but to catch a glimpse of a Frank Lloyd Wright building.  Located in an alley off Union Square look for Maiden Lane.  It was neat to take a sneak peek of this unsuspicious building from a well-known architect. That was our off the beaten path element of the day.

So that was our first one day in San Francisco. Hopefully, this overview will have helped you figure out what you can see in San Francisco in one day or make you want to hang out a little longer there. If you need travel tips for San Francisco, we got that covered in Once Upon a Time Travel to San Francisco.