Where to Stay in San Francisco, California

What is San Francisco known for?

San Francisco is known for its hills, its fog, and the cable cars that climb them. The city sits at the heart of the Bay Area as the cultural centre of northern California. Its museums run deep: the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art holds a major modern collection, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco gathers works from across the continent, and the Exploratorium turns science into play on the waterfront.

Lombard Street draws crowds to its switchback curves, and Coit Tower crowns the hills above the bay. Sea air runs through all of it.

What are the main landmarks in San Francisco?

San Francisco's landmarks span its hills and its shoreline. Coit Tower stands on the ridge above the bay, and the switchback block of Lombard Street draws walkers down its curves. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco anchor the galleries, while the Exploratorium fills a pier with hands-on science.

History lines the water. The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park keeps its old ships, the San Francisco Cable Car Museum houses the machinery that hauls the lines, and Mission San Francisco de Asís survives as the city's founding church.

What is the history of San Francisco?

San Francisco began in 1776, when Spanish colonists founded a mission and a presidio at the tip of the peninsula that guards the bay. Mission San Francisco de Asís, the adobe church raised in that first year, still stands as the oldest building in the city. For its early decades the settlement stayed a small outpost on a windswept, sandy shore.

The gold rush changed everything in a single generation. Fortune-seekers poured through the harbour toward the diggings, and the sleepy port swelled into a boom town of wharves, banks, and hillside streets almost overnight. The great earthquake and fire of the early twentieth century levelled much of it.

The city was rebuilt at speed on the same steep grid, and cable cars were strung up the slopes to master the hills, a system the San Francisco Cable Car Museum still runs from its powerhouse. Waves of newcomers from across the Pacific and beyond settled the quarters, giving the districts their distinct character. Old Saint Mary's Cathedral and Coit Tower survive from those building years.

The fog never left. The hills never flattened.

Where is San Francisco?

San Francisco occupies the tip of a hilly peninsula in northern California, where the Pacific Ocean meets the bay. Water wraps the city on three sides: the open ocean to the west, the bay to the east, and the strait that joins them at the northern gate. Steep hills rise across the built-up land, and the streets climb and drop over more than forty of them.

Water rules the setting. The Bay Area spreads out around the shores beyond, and Coit Tower marks one of the highest ridges near the water.

What is the climate of San Francisco?

San Francisco has a cool, dry-summer climate governed by the Pacific Ocean at its door. Summers stay mild rather than hot, and the famous fog pushes in through the gate on summer afternoons to blanket the western hills. Winters are cool and wet.

The season's rain falls mostly in the cooler months, greening the parks before the dry stretch returns, while the ocean keeps the temperature even the year round. Frost is rare across the peninsula.

How do you get to San Francisco?

San Francisco is one of the main gateways to the West Coast. Its international airport lies south of the city on the bay shore, handling long-haul and transcontinental flights. A regional metro links the centre to the wider Bay Area and runs under the bay to the East Bay towns, and long-distance trains reach the region through connecting services.

Ferries cross the bay. Within the city, the cable cars, streetcars, and buses climb the hills, and highways feed the peninsula from the south along the shore.