San Francisco | Viator Travel Blog

[contest] Win 2 SF Helicopter + 2 Academy of Sciences Tickets!

20. October 2009

[Editor's note: The contest is now closed! Thanks again for entering, stay tuned and we'll announce a winner soon.] We're giving away two free tickets on a San Francisco helicopter tour plus two free tickets on a behind-the-scenes platinum tour of the California Academy of Sciences. We are asking everybody who enters the contest one simple question. Why YOU?

Hipster’s Guide to San Francico’s Mission District

4. September 2009

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Hipster’s Guide to San Francico’s Mission District

With his first public reading of Howl on Fillmore Street in 1955, Allen Ginsberg brought the Beat Generation to life. He, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassidy, Gary Snyder, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti left a mighty mark on The City By The Bay. And while the neighborhoods and temperament of San Francisco have changed in many ways, that rebellious, creative, do-it-yourself spirit is still very much alive. You just need to look for it.

Viva la Summer: San Francisco

28. August 2009

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As part of Viator’s celebration of summer 2009, we’re pointing a spotlight at top summer destinations around the world. This week’s featured destination is San Francisco. As always our first order of business: we’re pleased to honor our Viva la Summer traveler of the week. This week it’s Eduardo S. from the USA. He submitted a photo of himself and his daughter taken on a Muir Woods & Sausalito day trip from San Francisco. We love the smiles and the tall trees - the redwoods of Northern California are truly amazing if you've never seen them up close.

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge: Musings on Beauty & Death

30. July 2009

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San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge: Musings on Beauty & Death

When I was a kid I owned a book called This is San Francisco. It was essentially a child's large-format guidebook to the city, with illustrations of cable cars, sea lions, dungeness crabs, Chinatown, Willie Mays, and other highlights that, to most children and out-of-towners at least, sum up the city. My awareness of the Golden Gate Bridge, its international orange towers disappearing into the oblivion of a July fog, began with this book. From that point on, even after I was grown and had my own apartment in the city, I tended to view San Francisco through vermilion orange–tinted glasses.

Behind the Scenes at the California Academy of Sciences

14. July 2009

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Behind the Scenes at the California Academy of Sciences

The first time I went to the newly re-opened California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco I didn’t feel like I got the most out of my experience. On the plus side, I skipped the line outside with my pre-bought ticket and I saw the aquarium and the living roof, but I didn’t go in the rain forest and I didn’t see the show at the planetarium. And the reason I didn’t do those things is that the line inside for them, while well managed, was long, like an hour long.

San Francisco: Weekend Getaway

24. June 2009

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Welcome to San Francisco, that exotic city of hills where east meets west, high tech lives with crunchy granola and bohemian culture births movements and culture known around the world. The Beats, the Hippies and the Summer of Love flowered here as well as music from the Grateful Dead to The Dead Kennedys. The cities fabled attractions are seen on countless postcards and TV programs; Fisherman’s Warf, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge and the famed cable cars. But we’ve done the tourist trail on previous trips. This time we’re exploring neighborhoods.

Muir Woods & the Redwoods

23. March 2009

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Standing in the middle of Muir Woods it's a little hard to believe that San Francisco -- and I mean downtown San Francisco -- is just 20 minutes away, over the Golden Gate bridge. It's so eerily quiet in this stand of old-growth redwood trees, you may as well be a thousand miles from civilization. That's probably why people find it attractive; like standing on a beach with raging surf, the force of nature here is overwhelming, and all your concerns and worries are quickly put into context.

San Francisco’s Academy of Sciences

12. February 2009

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Do you have kids? I have one. His name is Emmett. He's nearly three years old. He loves penguins. And fish. And butterflies. And snakes. And jellyfish. And alligators. Most of the time we only get to experience these things in books. Which is why I was super-duper excited to check out the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Why I Loved My San Francisco Helicopter Tour

3. February 2009

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I've lived in San Francisco most of my adult life. (Cue nostalgic music and violins.) Somehow I'd lived here all these years and never seen SF from above. You get a hint of the beauty when you fly in or out of SFO airport and are lucky enough to have a window seat. So I signed up for one of our San Francisco helicopter tours. I loved it. Here's why.

Alcatraz Confidential

16. January 2009

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When I was 11 years old (nearly 20 years ago), in May of 1989, I took my first tour to Alcatraz Island. My elementary school was a two-hour drive from San Francisco, and this was our big field trip of the year, Alcatraz and the San Francisco Zoo. In retrospect I think that part of the reason we went to Alcatraz and not say, an art museum, was perhaps meant as a cautionary tale.