Let's Go San Francisco On a Budget

From the Let's Go series.

If California is a state of mind, then San Francisco is euphoria. Welcome to the city that will take you to new highs, leaving your mind spinning, your taste buds tingling, your calves aching, and your optic nerves reeling. Though it's smaller than most "big" cities, the City by the Bay more than compensates for its size with a personality that simply won't quit. The dazzling views, the daunting hills, the one-of-a-kind neighborhoods, and the laid-back, friendly people of SF add up to create a kind of charisma not to be found anywhere else. The city manages to pack an incredible amount of vitality into its 47 square miles, running from its thriving art community and bustling shops, to the pulsing beats in some of the country's hippest nightclubs and bars. Everyone finds something to love here.

By California standards, San Francisco is steeped in history---but it's a history of oddballs and eccentrics that resonates more today in street culture than in museums and galleries. The lineage of free spirits and troublemakers started back in the 19th century, with the smugglers and pirates of the Barbary Coast and the '49ers who flocked here during the mad boom of the California Gold Rush. As the last stop in America's great westward expansion, San Francisco has always attracted artists, dreamers, and outsiders. In the 1950s came the Beats---brilliant, angry young writers who captured the rhythms of be-bop jazz in their poetry and their lives. The late 60s ushered in the most famous of SF rabble rousers---hippies and flower children, who turned on one generation and freaked out another by making love, not war.

The tradition of free spirit continues. Anti-establishment politics have almost become establishment here, as rallies and movements continue to fill the streets and newspapers. The gay community emerged in the 70s as one of the city's most visible and powerful groups. At the same time, Mexican, Central American, and Asian immigrants have made San Francisco one of the most racially diverse cities in the United States. And then in a wave of mid-90s, computer-crazed prosperity, young computer workers ditched the bland suburbs of Silicon Valley for the cooler breezes of San Francisco, with upstart Internet companies infiltrating the forgotten spaces of lower-rent neighborhoods. For a while, the Frisco fight was old-timers and hippies vs. dot.commers but when the Clinton-era and the national surplus went the way of the dodo, high-end yuppification calmed down a bit. Like so many chameleons, San Francisco is changing with the times, but fortunately, some things stay the same: the Bay is foggy, the hills are steep, and tourists are the only ones wearing shorts.

Regularly: $16.99  Now: $13.59  Save $3.40 (20%)

LG5915    Let's Go San Francisco On a Budget                    $13.59

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