The Best Places in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

A Japantown hotel where the lobby's 19-foot Douglas fir ceilings and open pipe shelving make the place feel more like a very well-curated living room than a hotel. The design splits the difference between Japanese and Scandinavian, which sounds like a thesis project but works. Rooms get dark gray walls hung with calligraphy and modern Japanese art, a clear step up from the obligatory Alcatraz watercolor. Cozy without being precious about it.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

One of the few surviving pre-earthquake Queen Anne mansions in the city, this 12-room boutique hotel is more cabinet of curiosities than traditional lodging. Stained glass, intricate woodwork, Italian marble, and original Louis Icart paintings fill the common areas, and no two guest rooms are alike, some charmingly, some quirkily so. Condé Nast Traveler named it among San Francisco's best hotels.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

The Boardroom is a North Beach sports bar that seems to have more screens than anywhere else in the neighborhood, yet the walls hold surfboards and skateboards instead of signed jerseys, with slushy machines standing in for a trophy case. It feels closer to a casual meet-up than a game-day shrine, so you can show up without a team allegiance. On Monday Night Football the wings drop to 50 cents each, and the honey garlic is the move.

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

Brass lighting and graphic fabric break up the white walls at this design-forward Mid-Market hotel, which is doing its best impression of a nearby SFMOMA annex. The 236 rooms lean minimalist, softened by wood surfaces and deep soaking tubs, with double-paned windows keeping the neighborhood's noise at bay. Higher floors pull in proper skyline views, and the minibar runs on local snacks rather than the usual sad peanuts.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

Underdogs Tres is a casual Mexican spot in the Inner Sunset that moonlights as a sports bar, which explains why the margaritas keep arriving for people hoarse from yelling at a television. The menu sticks to tacos, burritos, and quesadillas, with one standout: a crispy tortilla tucked inside a soft one, buried in guacamole. Come in whatever you wore to work, and maybe bring a throat lozenge.

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

Valley Tavern is a neighborhood sports bar in Noe Valley with a back patio split into tiers, each with its own picnic table and TV, so every group gets the feel of a private box. When San Francisco fog ends the outdoor plan, the freshly updated interior has U-shaped booths angled toward big screens, which makes watching a game feel a bit like sitting in a very casual theater. It's on the Infatuation's list of sports bars.

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

Yancy's is an Inner Sunset sports bar that looks like an antiques fair and a pool hall had a child, minus the pool table. What you get instead is a row of well-lit dart lanes, a wall of TVs, and stained glass lamps doing their best against the faded carpet and a patina of dust. Chips in the corner are the whole kitchen, and the drinks are cheap and strong enough that the decor starts to look intentional.

1. The Infatuation The 18 Best Sports Bars In SF

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Navy blue walls, exposed brick, and brass fittings that leave no doubt you're sleeping in a converted cannery on the waterfront, this hotel at Fisherman's Wharf leans hard into its nautical setting without quite tipping into theme-park territory. Bay-facing rooms look out at the Golden Gate or Alcatraz, depending on your tolerance for existential contemplation. Cable cars, Ghirardelli, and the Hyde Street Pier are all walkable from the front door.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The carved oak mantle behind the bar holds more bottles than most people have seen in one place, which tells you what kind of bar Blackbird is before anyone says a word. It's a long, narrow neighborhood drinking spot in the Castro, with wood-planked walls, blood-red banquettes, local art for sale overhead, and a pool table tucked behind wrought iron at the far end. Serious spirits list, no pretense.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A rooftop patio tucked near the 10th-floor elevators, easy to miss if no one tells you, is the kind of detail that keeps Hotel VIA from feeling like just another sleek South Beach property. The 159 rooms lean into the urban-loft look, cream and grey with bedside tablets running everything, though the walls stay bare. Ask for a King Street-facing room if you want Oracle Park framed in your window, because the alternative is a brick wall.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

Mission Bay sits between Oracle Park and Chase Center, which tells you something about who's sleeping here on weekends. LUMA is a 299-room hotel where the design leans hard into art and culture, so the lobby doesn't feel like a sports-fan crash pad even when it kind of is one. The new Central Subway puts Union Square and Chinatown within a short ride, making the neighborhood feel less remote than the address suggests.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

The ceiling is woven from the staves of 300 bourbon barrels, which tells you everything about where Rickhouse's priorities lie. This whiskey bar in the Financial District is styled as an old-school saloon, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of bottles behind the counter and a library ladder to reach the top shelf. A back room holds a second bar and a hayloft gallery for looking down, literally, on everyone else.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Twelve rooms, each named for an LGBTQ+ hero, with portraits and color-saturated walls that make the minimalist furniture feel like a straight man at a drag show. This boutique hotel sits squarely in the Castro, close enough to the bars and restaurants that you'll need the private terrace to decompress between rounds. Condé Nast Traveler put it on their San Francisco hotel list, which tracks for a place this specific about its own personality.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

A motor lodge in Presidio Heights that traded the freeway aesthetic for sea-glass green walls and mid-century side tables. The Laurel Inn is a small hotel on a quiet residential stretch, close enough to the Presidio trails and Sacramento Street boutiques to feel genuinely local, far enough from downtown to actually sleep. Some rooms come with kitchenettes, which suits anyone staying long enough to stop pretending they'll eat every meal out.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

The name comes from a bourbon cocktail on an old Range menu, which is the kind of origin story that tells you exactly what kind of bar this is. Gun-metal grey walls, bare wood floors, and 70s utilitarian furniture give Dogpatch's Third Rail a chill it takes a drink or two to shake. A neighborhood cocktail bar that doesn't perform warmth, and regulars seem to prefer it that way.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The vintage jukebox leans Glenn Miller and Rat Pack standards, which tells you everything about what kind of night Tosca Café is selling. This old-school North Beach cocktail bar has been around forever, all dark wood and faded glamour that a sympathetic restoration polished back to a shine. Come late, order something simple, and let the room do its thing. If the playlist sounds like your grandparents' wedding, you'll fit right in.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A Beaux-Arts building that used to be the city's main library now holds one of the largest Asian art collections in the Western hemisphere, spanning India, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and beyond. Pottery, weapons, calligraphy, snuff bottles, and a fully reconstructed Japanese tearoom share space with a standout Chinese bronze collection. The redesigned galleries organize the sprawl around 15 anchor masterpieces, which helps considerably.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A neighborhood shop in the Sunset that stocks handmade home goods, locally printed graphic tees, and vintage finds sourced from local makers and the occasional road trip. It has the feel of a very good flea market find without requiring you to actually dig through one. The shirts are designed and printed in San Francisco on US-made blanks, which is either a detail you care about deeply or proof that you do now.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A long strip of sand tucked beneath the Presidio's bluffs, with the Golden Gate close enough to feel like a backdrop someone forgot to take down. The surf looks inviting and is genuinely dangerous, so most people stay on dry land and enjoy the view, which is the point anyway. Fog rolls in more often than sun, so dress for it. The Sand Ladder at the north end connects to trails along the bluffs for anyone who wants to turn a beach walk into a hike.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

Fluted columns, plush banquettes, and a hand-painted dance-hall mural above a mahogany bar: Bix has been doing Great Gatsby glamour in a Gold Street alley since forever, and it has no interest in updating the brief. The cocktail menu plays it classic, which suits the room, since no one comes here for novelty. The crowd tends to dress for the occasion without being asked, which tells you most of what you need to know.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The ferry to Sausalito leaves from Fisherman's Wharf, which means you start in the loudest possible version of San Francisco before the engine kicks in and the city quietly peels away behind you. Blue & Gold Fleet is the bay's main ferry operator, running routes to Sausalito, Oracle Park, and Chase Center. The crossing itself is the point: Coit Tower shrinking, the water coming up over the bow, the skyline doing its slow goodbye.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Renzo Piano gave this natural history museum and aquarium a living roof planted entirely in native California greenery, which feels appropriate for a place that houses a rainforest, a planetarium, and a penguin colony under one roof. Kids can sleep over beneath the stars and wake up next to the fish tanks. Adults get Thursday NightLife events with DJ sets and full run of the exhibits, which is a more interesting Thursday than most.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The oldest Chinatown in North America sprawls across 30 dense blocks, and it rewards wandering on foot more than any map can promise. Tin How Temple sits quietly on a third-floor walkup, incense thick in the air while neighbors light candles and pray. A few streets over, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory folds cookies by hand amid whirring machinery. The lanterns and neon signs are as good as advertised, which almost never happens.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The Poetry Room upstairs has a sign inviting you to sit on the floor, which tells you everything about the kind of bookstore this is. City Lights has been a Beat landmark forever, the place that published Ginsberg's "Howl" and survived the obscenity trial that followed. Today it still publishes its own titles, leaning toward poetry and politics, alongside a well-stocked general floor that rewards serious browsing.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Beach Blanket Babylon ran here for 45 years, which is a long shadow to step out of. Club Fugazi has done it by turning the room into something acrobatic and immersive, with tiered table seating that keeps things intimate even when the energy runs high. The bones of a grand old North Beach theater are still very much there; the production just doesn't treat them like a museum exhibit. Good date night, good out-of-towner night, good "I forgot San Francisco is fun" night.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The mahogany bar dates to 1906, which means it survived the earthquake and a few other things San Francisco would rather not discuss. Comstock is an old-school cocktail bar in North Beach, all wicker ceiling fans shaped like steamboat paddles, vintage drink signs, and a piano someone actually winched up to the balcony so the music drifts down. Pickled eggs and rye toast handle the eating. The martinis have a following.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The 25 Best Meals For Under $15 In SF
3. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

A walking food tour that threads through Japantown for a couple of hours, stopping at restaurants, grocery stores, and family-run shops that most visitors walk right past. Small groups eat, drink, and hear the neighborhood's stories from guides who are plainly obsessed with the place. Japantown reads quiet from the outside, but that changes fast once you're in.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The International Orange paint, chosen partly because it makes the bridge visible through San Francisco's famous fog, is the first thing you learn at the Welcome Center before walking across. You can drive it, walk it, or rent a bike and pedal over to Sausalito for lunch. San Francisco City Guides runs free walking tours if you want the engineering backstory delivered by someone who finds suspension cables genuinely thrilling.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A drum circle can materialize next to a serene Japanese garden on the same afternoon you pedal a boat past ducks on Blue Heron Lake, which is more or less how Golden Gate Park operates. The California Academy of Sciences anchors the cultural end, with a living rainforest and an albino alligator named Claude. The 1914 carousel still spins its painted lions and dragons to carnival music, and the park band has been playing free summer concerts here since forever.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The Gothic Revival cathedral atop Nob Hill has two labyrinths, a 7,466-pipe organ, and behind-the-scenes tours that venture into spaces most visitors never see (the fine print notes heights and tight passages, which is either a warning or a selling point). Soaring arches and enormous stained glass windows do the heavy lifting architecturally, while a packed calendar of music and community events keeps the place feeling lived-in rather than merely visited.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The corner of Haight and Ashbury still draws people who want to feel the ghost of 1967, but the neighborhood has long since grown into its own thing. Painted Victorians sit alongside vintage shops, record stores, and cafés where nobody is in a hurry. The proximity to Golden Gate Park means an afternoon here tends to drift pleasantly sideways. Come for the browse, stay for the walk.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The coastal redwoods here top 250 feet, and standing under them has a way of making whatever you were anxious about feel appropriately small. This 558-acre national monument northwest of San Francisco holds one of the last ancient redwood groves in the Bay Area, with about six miles of trails winding past Cathedral Grove and along Redwood Creek. Serious hikers can push into adjacent Mount Tamalpais State Park when the trees aren't enough.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Columbus Avenue moves at the pace of a neighborhood that has been arguing, pleasantly, about whether to have another espresso since the Beat poets were still alive. North Beach is San Francisco's Italian quarter by heritage, literary enclave by reputation, and genuinely pleasant afternoon by default. Sidewalk cafés, old-school red-sauce spots, and City Lights bookstore orbit Washington Square Park, with Chinatown a short walk when you need a change of scene.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The dugout smells exactly how you'd imagine, and standing in it during a behind-the-scenes tour of Oracle Park is a small, strange thrill even for people who don't follow baseball. The San Francisco Giants' waterfront stadium runs guided tours year-round, covering the field, press box, and the World Series trophies. The pregame add-on gets you in before the gates open, which is when the place actually feels like yours.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The gripmen still turn these cars by hand at the turntable, which is the whole point. The Powell-Hyde line is the last manually operated cable car system anywhere, and riding it feels less like transit and more like clinging to a slowly tilting porch. Standing on the running board while the car crests a hill makes a strong case for handrails. Most riders are tourists, which you also are, so just lean into it.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A former Army post turned National Park, the Presidio is the kind of place where eucalyptus groves give way to cliffside overlooks, historic bunkers, and a walk along Crissy Field that ends directly beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Andy Goldsworthy's natural installations are scattered throughout, the Tunnel Tops park has lawns and food trucks for easy afternoons, and the Tennessee Hollow Trail winds through a restored wetlands thick with birds.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Moroccan tile, velvet banquettes, and flickering lanterns set the scene in a former speakeasy beneath the Marrakech hotel. Mentalist and magician Jay Alexander runs weekend-only shows in the 35-seat theater, blending mind-reading, human lie detector bits, and sleight-of-hand with enough comedy to keep the skeptics from squirming. The evening opens with close-up magic over drinks before moving into the main show, which is as interactive as it sounds.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The Snøhetta-designed expansion gave SFMOMA a half-block-long living wall of native plants and a rippling fiberglass facade meant to echo the Bay, so the building makes an argument before you're even inside. The modern and contemporary collection runs deep, and the museum store is genuinely its own destination, stocked with San Francisco landmark chess pieces and Lichtenstein-inspired ceramics. Clear a full day.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A 150-foot Ferris wheel on the Fisherman's Wharf waterfront, lit by a million LED lights and very aware of the London Eye comparison. Each of the 36 climate-controlled gondolas holds up to six people, and a single ride runs about four rotations, giving you unobstructed sightlines to the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the hills stacked behind the city. Clear nights are the obvious move.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A former highway reclaimed from cars and handed back to the wind, Sunset Dunes is a two-mile coastal promenade running along San Francisco's western edge with the Pacific sitting right there the whole time. Public murals mark the route, Outer Sunset cafes are steps away, and the mood is somewhere between a long exhale and a Sunday with nowhere to be. Bring a stroller, a bike, or just good shoes.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The collapsed concrete walls of an old saltwater bathhouse sit right at the Pacific's edge, flooded and open to the sky, looking less like San Francisco and more like something Rome left behind. Hikers and photographers make the pilgrimage, especially around sunset, when the still water turns the ruins into a mirror. The caves along the shore offer the best angle if you're here for the photo, which, be honest, you probably are.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. AAA Approved
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Hit List: New San Francisco Restaurants To Try Right Now
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The copper bar catches the afternoon light in a way that makes you want to order a Bloody Mary before you've even sat down. Zuni is a bi-level California bistro that's been a fixture on Market Street forever, shaped like a triangle and decorated like someone with actual taste. The wood-fired chicken for two, served with a warm bread salad, is the dish regulars have been quietly hoarding for decades.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

A wood-stone oven dominates the back of this cocktail bar on Valencia, turning out pizza while the bartenders run a tight menu of drinks built on a few well-chosen flavors rather than a paragraph of modifiers. The room hits that sweet spot between lively and unpretentious, with filament bulbs over the bar and a crowd that looks like they found the place before it was a thing, even though everyone has found it by now.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Bare cement walls, a rope-strung ceiling, and Edison bulbs doing almost nothing to warm the place up: Churchill is a neighborhood cocktail bar that leans into its chill rather than fighting it. Early-90s hip hop keeps things honest, the cocktails are carefully made, and the bourbon-spiced nuts are the kind of detail that earns loyalty. Car headlights sweep through the windows as drivers take the Market Street turn, which adds a bit of unplanned theater.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Concrete floors, steel girders, and a smoking area the size of a small parking lot set the tone at this Tenderloin cocktail bar. The utilitarian look is clearly intentional, the sort of space that can survive a rowdy Saturday without complaint. A chalkboard cocktail of the month keeps things moving, and the menu spans pisco punch to rum-and-port builds with house-made Swedish punsch. Not where you go to catch up quietly, but volume was never the point.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Every room faces the water at this 33-room boutique hotel perched over the bay in Sausalito, a ferry ride from San Francisco for anyone who's decided downtown has enough concrete. Decks, fireplaces, and spa bathrooms fill the larger suites, and even the modest rooms get big windows framing the bay rather than a parking structure. Muir Woods and Stinson Beach are close enough to justify staying a few nights.

1. Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco

The mahogany back bar has been here since the Wild West era, and Elixir wears that history without trying too hard. It's a proper neighborhood dive on the Mission-Castro border, the kind where dog walkers fill the stools by late afternoon and nobody opens a cocktail menu. A dartboard in the corner, sports on the TVs, and regulars who clearly consider this their living room, just one with a liquor license.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A top-floor hotel cocktail lounge perched above Powell Street, the Starlight Room is essentially a finishing school that graduated half the notable bartenders in San Francisco, Tony Abou-Ganim and Jacques Bezuidenhout among them. The room got a significant makeover not long ago, all plush red furniture and gold accents, which makes it feel like old-school glamour with a fresh coat of ambition.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

The floor tilts so sharply that the table legs have been sawn down just to keep your drink from sliding off. This ancient saloon, built from whaling ship timbers and barely changed since forever, sits in the middle of a modern plaza like it missed the memo. Jack London drank and wrote here, then name-dropped the place seventeen times in "John Barleycorn." Order something simple and let the lean do the work.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The original redwood paneling dates back forever, but Philippe Starck's redesign layered in an illuminated Venetian bar top, a floor-to-ceiling light-box back bar, and plasma screens set in classical frames that slowly animate the portraits hanging in them. A Martini in hand when a painted subject blinks at you is a specific kind of San Francisco evening. It's a cocktail bar that reads as a grand room first, a drinks destination second.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Leather booths, wood paneling, and casual taxidermy give this cocktail bar the feel of a gentlemen's club that decided to relax a little. It sits inside Tyler Florence's Wayfare Tavern, and the bar downstairs splits the room between cocktails and food. Local lore insists a gangster is buried somewhere in the foundations, which does make the old-fashioned taste slightly more interesting.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide