Alison Bing - Lonely Planet San Francisco (City Travel Guide)

Over 15 years in San Francisco, Alison has done everything youre supposed to do in the city and many things youre not, including falling in love on the 7 Haight bus and gorging on Mission burritos before Berlioz symphonies. Alison holds degrees in art history and international diplomacy respectable diplomatic credentials she regularly undermines with opinionated culture commentary for radio, newspapers, foodie magazines, and books, including Lonely Planets California, USA, Coastal California, California Trips, San Francisco and San Francisco Encounter.

Alison coauthored the Neighborhoods and Excursions chapters, and wrote the Shopping and Eating chapters.

Roll out of bed and down Haight St for a coffee. Check out whats new/old in vintage fashion, what classic CD someones ex vindictively sold at .

John A Vlahides lives in San Francisco. He co-hosts the TV series Lonely Planet: Roads Less Traveled, on National Geographic Adventure. He is also co-founder of the California travel site 71miles.com. John studied cooking in Paris with the same chefs who trained Julia Child, and is a former luxury-hotel concierge and member of the prestigious Les Clefs dOr, the international union of the worlds elite concierges. He spends free time singing with the San Francisco Symphony, sunning on the nude beach beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, skiing the Sierra Nevada and touring California on his motorcycle.

John coauthored the Neighborhoods and Excursions chapters and wrote the Drinking, Nightlife, Arts, Sports & Activities, GLBT and Sleeping chapters.

Sherpas probably wont be necessary, but you should still come prepared for high adventure in the hills of San Francisco. With 43 hills stretching the imagination and the calf muscles, this town will leave you breathless keep a few bucks handy for the cable car. Otherwise, you dont need all that much cash to have a good time here: there are free events, street fairs, concerts and parades throughout the year, and plenty of cheap eats and boutique bargains to go around. But if youre here to splurge, San Franciscos top-notch dining establishments, art galleries and hotel-top bars will lighten your load as surely as Miss Piggot and her thieving barmaids did to their customers nightly during the Gold Rush only these days, youre less likely to wake up on a ship bound for Argentina with a skipper barking at you to swab the decks.

Red velvet ropes and black-tie dress arent San Franciscos style: entry to SFs hottest restaurants, clubs and events is almost always open to all on a first-come, first-served basis, though a feather boa may come in handy. Youll want to reserve ahead online, especially in summer, for film festivals and theater, or dinner in the citys trendiest restaurants. With so much to do, the challenge is not overbooking; this is one city where spontaneity is well rewarded.

Little-known fact: the Summer of Love actually kicked off here in January of 1967, and once youve spent a chilly summers day in San Francisco youll understand how the hippies mightve gotten confused even without the help of hallucinogens. Entire June days are spent shivering in a fog bank, with temperatures hovering around 55F. Determined picnickers huddle over their barbecue grills in Golden Gate Park, while just across the bay, tanned Berkeley locals are rocking their Birkenstocks without socks. It would hardly seem fair, except for the many street fairs and nonstop parades that make San Francisco in summer the place to be, and worth the high-season hotel rates.

Early fall is the best of all possible worlds in San Francisco, when summer really arrives (never mind the calendar), neighborhood street fairs are still in full swing, Californias seasonal cuisine is at its flavor-bursting best and hotel rates unaccountably drop. By October, Wine Country cools off enough at night to appreciate a peppery zinfandel and a Calistoga mud bath. Most of the year the consistent San Francisco forecast makes easy money for local meteorologists: a high of about 55F to 70F during the day, with fog burning off in the morning and rolling back into town in the late afternoon. Tote a sweater or coat at all times, or youll be forced to commit the ultimate San Francisco fashion crime and sheepishly sport one of those $12 fleece pullovers with the Golden Gate Bridge embroidered on it.

Professional paraders, raging exhibitionists and homecoming queens of all kinds wont want to miss the glut of annual street fairs that kicks off with Pride month (known elsewhere as June) and ends with the gleeful partying skeletons of Da de los Muertos in November. However, if you must come in the rainier, chillier months from December through to March, dont despair, because theres still plenty to celebrate, both indoors and out: dance-along Nutcracker Suites, tiny-tot kung-fu classes marching in adorably inept formation in the Lunar New Year parades, throngs rocking Astroturf jackets at public art gallery openings, and the improbable incessant blooming of Golden Gate Park. Not-to-be-missed events are listed below.

www.sfdineabouttown.com

Over 100 of San Franciscos best restaurants offer set-price lunch and dinner specials with local seasonal treats, including Dungeness crab cakes galore.

415-820-3907; www.sfindie.com

Cinephiles binge on over 100 indie films, documentaries, animated films and short films over two weeks in early February.

www.noisepop.com

Winter blues be gone: discover your new favorite indie band and catch rockumentary premieres, crafty concert gear and rockin gallery openings at get-to-know-you venues; third week of February.

415-986-1370; www.chineseparade.com

Chase through town the 200ft dragon, lion dancers, toddler kung-fu classes and frozen-smile runners-up for the Miss Chinatown title, as lucky red envelopes and fireworks fall from the sky like a February drizzle.

415-661-2700; www.sfstpatricksdayparade.com

Since 1851, the luck and libations of the Irish have been liberally enjoyed in SF in mid-March. Renegade paraders ditch the official route and leap on booze trolleys with revelers whose entire vocabulary seems suddenly reduced to Erin Go Bragh! and Woo-hoo!