- musée mechanique
- if you're in the financial district, check out the old pacific stock exchange (pre-hipster fixie movie Quicksilver with Kevin Bacon was filmed here!) it is now a gym. chuckle at that thought.
- buena vista cafe (ridiculous irish coffee, get bombed so you can handle tourists)
- sfmoma de young/park/beach/cal academy
- twin peaks
- walk around SOMA, where most startups live; majority are in square bounded by [Market, 1st, Folsom, 3rd]
- do not walk around where new Twitter HQ will be; you will step on human feces, and it is next to one of the biggest peepshow theaters
- bike the golden gate bridge, down to sausalito, ferry back
- walk around haight/ashbury, stare at/down hippies, turn down mushrooms (well, maybe..)
- eat in h/a if the mood strikes you
- go to alamo square park, reenact ending shot of opening credits to Full House
- do not try to get to the golden gate bridge unless you have a lot of time and resolve, or a car. i tried taking the bus to the bridge when my parents visited, and it was like a 2.5 hour round trip, with about 20 minutes at the bridge
- walk ~8 blocks east, across divisadero, to the lower haight. drink at toronado
- bring cheap beer to mission dolores park, hang out with hipsters, buy questionable baked goods (or weep that crackdowns have curtailed their sales), eat at pizzeria delfina, get ice cream at bi-rite
- eat pizza at tony's in north beach (little italyish neighborhood)
- feel like the largest person on planet earth walking through chinatown, buy questionable paraphernalia
- if you like coffee: blue bottle, four barrel, ritual, sightglass
- eat kasespaetzle at schroeder's, drink 80oz boot of [light] beer
- eat anywhere in the mission or hayes valley specifically, i'm a huge fan of Phat Philly, which has both seitan and tofu whiz cheesesteaks. this may not matter to you
- good food ethnicities in the mission: mexican (el toro, tacqueria cancun, or pancho villa preferable) do not eat in fisherman's wharf, except possibly at boudin, if you really want to
- most places in SF are very veg-friendly. check them out online first if you have time. there are a few veg-specific places, like millenium, herbivore, cha-ya, and cafe gratitude (in order of decreasing awesomeness), but by and large, they're unnecessary unless you're super-mad at getting a veggie burger or side salad every place you go at home.
- ice cream at [again] bi-rite, or humphrey slocombe
- drink at house of shields [financial district] with successful startups, bender's [mission] with other startups
- drink/eat at:
- 21st Amendment [must], SOMA
- Rogue Pub, North Beach
- Other brew pubs are eh