In Summer 2012 I went to San Francisco, USA.

I’d always wanted to visit San Francisco as it seemed like an interesting place, but never got around to visiting. However, every year Apple hold a WWDC conference for software developers in San Francisco – as I had been developing an iPhone and iPad App for my full-time job, they agreed to pay for my ticket to the conference – which was as good an excuse as any! I extended the stay at my own cost to go for 2 weeks even though the conference was only 5 days, so that I could explore the city afterwards.

I arrived in San Francisco Airport in the middle of the afternoon to be met by massive queues in customs. I’ve been to some pretty busy airports, but nothing ever this bad. The queue was literally from one length of the arrivals terminal to the other, it took about 4 hours to get through.

After managing to pass through customs, it was time to get to the hotel. I was staying at the Orchard Garden Hotel on Bush Street (this wasn’t why I booked it, but it is one of the most eco-friendly hotels in the US). My friends often make fun of my complete lack of direction. I was travelling alone for this holiday. I think nobody thought this was going to go well. However, I’d already researched a lot how to get from the airport to the hotel, and got there no problems at all using the BART to get to the nearest station, then walking to the hotel.

However, this meant I got cocky. I had booked a night-time guided tour over the Golden Gate Bridge at about 8pm that night. It was about 4pm, I had 4 hours which seemed like plenty of time. I’d already managed to get from the airport to the hotel without any problems. Armed with my new-found exploring skills, I decided to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge rather than get public transport – how hard could it be? I walked up from my hotel towards the Sea, no problem at all, I could see the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge on my right, which meant I knew the Golden Gate Bridge was to my left – my smugness increased.

So I started walking. After about 20 mins walking I could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance! I’d done it! I’d just keep walking towards it, through Fisherman’s Wharf which I knew was on the way – I’d probably even have time to stop for a drink there – I’d reach the bridge in plenty of time for my guided tour that started at 8pm.

Yet – no matter how long I walked, the Golden Gate Bridge remained in the distance. soon it was 5pm, then 5:30pm, then 6pm – the bridge was still pretty far in the distance. For some reason, I carried on, I walked through Fisherman’s Wharf, realising that I didn’t have time to stop. The bridge was still in the distance. I was still optimistic however, I still had 2 hours left! So I carried on walking – I had literally no idea where I was going, I hadn’t researched it at all, I just though I’d be able to see the bridge and walk towards it.

Soon it was 7pm, and it started to dawn on me that my friends taking the mick out of me constantly for my complete lack of a sense of direction were probably very justified. I was now quite far out of Fisherman’s Wharf, away from any popular routes, there seemed to be no taxis driving past, no buses, I was abroad so couldn’t use Google Maps on my phone, and my tour was in an hour. The bridge was still in the distance, and to make matters worse, I suddenly realised that I had been walking along the coast, and bridges don’t start level with the coast – they start inland and higher up! I had no idea how I was going to get there, I needed to find a taxi in a residential area with no busy roads and no taxis.

I panicked and started backtracking away from the bridge back towards Fisherman’s Wharf. I walked for another 30 mins and didn’t see a single taxi – now it was 7:30 and I was further away from the bridge than I was at 7pm! I had no choice but to keep wandering around hoping for a taxi. Then at about 7:45 – just as I had given up hope and started to plan my route back to the hotel – a taxi appeared out of nowhere with it’s light on! I pretty much jumped out infront of it, it slammed on it’s breaks so quickly that the car behind nearly went into the back of it. I’d done it!

It was only then that I realised I had got into a Taxi and now had to tell him where I wanted to go (as convention pretty much dictates). I had no idea where I wanted to go. I wanted to walk across the bridge, I don’t know how you do that, whether the visitor center was at the base, or the top, on the left hand side or the right hand side. All I could say to the Taxi driver was “can you take me to the Golden Gate Bridge so I can walk across it, and could we please get there in less than 5 minutes” (it was now about 7:50pm, my tour started at 8pm). He looked at me like I was mad. I clarified, that I think there was probably a visitor center and could he take me to there. He did, and to his credit he sped so fast he did get me there in less than 5 minutes. I gave him a nice big tip and joined my tour group to walk across the golden gate bridge (the irony was that it was a walking tour).

By the way, having walked to the Golden Gate Bridge, you’d have thought I’d learn my lesson and get a bus back to the hotel afterwards. But no, that would be what a sensible person would do – someone who had planned his trip, both there AND back. I had done neither. I did at least find a bus back, and got on it – but smug-mode started again, and I got off the bus too early and ended up in the exact same situation as I had been in 3 hours prior – a residential area with no knowledge of bus routes, no taxis, and much closer to the bridge than the hotel. I asked a near-by dogwalker how far away I was from Union Square (near my hotel). “Oh wow – quite far!” was her reaction. Damn. I gave up and decided I’d already done so much walking that day, I might as well go the full whack, and just ended up walking all the way back to my hotel.

When I got back to my hotel, I checked on Google Maps to see how far the route I had taken was – out of interest. It was about 7 miles each way. 14 miles total, plus 1 mile over the bridge. This was after waking up at 6am (UK time) that morning, a 10 hour flight, then a full day in San Francisco. I slept easy that night.

Having learned my lesson, I quickly went to the T-Mobile shop the next day and bought myself a local sim-card with unlimited data so that I could use Google Maps whenever I needed. This was a life saver!

Also the next day I went to a baseball game at the AT&T Park between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers. What an experience! I had booked into the Club Level seats which gave access to a separate bar and nicer seats, but still cost less than a ticket to most football matches in England. The Americans did their thing of singing the national anthem, while I sheepishly kept my head down not knowing any of the words. Then the game began. It was a great atmosphere, both sets of fans sat amongst each other rather than being separated, the weather was beautiful and the beer (yes baseball fans are responsible enough to be allowed to drink during games, unlike football) and the fresh breeze from the bay kept me cool. I’d read on the internet that it was worth trying the Garlic Fries. Here’s my tip – DON’T. I had assumed they would be mainly “fries” and the garlic would be secondary, an assumption that turned out to be entirely wrong. After trying a few, I couldnt take any more – there were no bins around though, so I had no option but to put them under my seat – providing a nice smell of garlic for the rest of the game. I wish I could tell you the score, but I didn’t really have a full idea of what was going on. The Giants lost though, I know that much.

The following day the conference started – so this took up the majority of the next 5 days. There’s not much interesting to report, other than getting to be in the crowd at the launch of the Macbook Pro Retina, and for once feeling like the least mac fan-boy around. I also went to a presentation by JJ Abrams – which was fancinating. I met a few great people there too.

After the conference ended, the days were mine again. I took one of the famous Cable Cars down to Fisherman’s Wharf. They travel at about 15 miles an hour, and if there are no seats left you hang on the outside. It’s surprising how fast 15 miles an hour feels when you’re hanging on the outside! Particularly as I was on the road-side of the car, meaning lots of “breathing in” when anything particularly wide started coming in the oposite direction!

I arrived with my life intact (just about), and looked around Fisherman’s Wharf. Some good attractions in Fisherman’s Wharf are the USS Pampanito (a second world war submarine that has been preserved and for a small entry fee you can go inside where everything has been kept in the same condition as when it was decommissioned), and the Musee Mecanique (one of the world’s largest privately owned collection of coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines – it’s fascinating to see all these machines in one place, and really makes you feel like a kid again!)

I stopped and had something to eat in Boudin Bakery where they’ve been making bread since 1849, and still use the same starter yeast-bacteria culture it developed during the California Gold Rush. I had some Tomato Soup in a bread bowl – very nice! So nice, in fact, that on the last day I even bought some of the bread to bring back home.

I started walking back from Fisherman’s Wharf back to the hotel, and stopped at Pier 39 on the way back. Pier 39 is an entertainment area, with a Hard Rock Cafe, a carousel, plenty of food areas, tourist shops. It’s all a bit fake and touristy, but if you walk right to the end you get some great views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Carousel also looks very pretty at night. In fact, I’d definitely recommend going in the evening and watching sunset from there.

I also snuck up one of the nearby hotels (a better hotel than mine!) and headed through one of their fire-escapes (un-alarmed!) without being spotted to dangle my camera off the end and grab some photos and a video of the san francisco skyline at sunset.

The next day I visited the San Francisco Cable Car Museum. I had always seen the Cable Cars running down the extremely hilly streets on TV programmes and films, and never really considered how they work or why they were called Cable Cars. As it turns out, there is literally a cable that runs all the way from one end of the line to the other end underneath the street, constantly moving, through various pulleys to guide it up and down the hills. If the cable breaks they have to stop the whole system. To go forward, the cable cars literally “grip” onto this cable through a gap in the road, which then pulls them along, and to go faster they grip tighter, or vice versa. The Cable Car Museum is in the building that houses the motors that pull this cable through the street (in the photo in the gallery above, you can see the motors pulling the cables along, with a big sign above each one saying what street the cable is for), so it was really interesting to see.

After that, I went on a helicopter tour around San Francisco. The tour lasted around 30 minutes, and went around all the obvious sights such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, as well as some scenery around San Francisco, and the city skyline such as the Transamerica Pyramid. We also did the cliched (but extremely fun!) fly under the Golden Gate Bridge.

After the helicopter tour I got dropped off on Golden Gate Promenade (the beach on the east side of the bridge, closest to the city). I walked along the promenade on the beachfront along-side the sea, up to the base of the bridge, then climbed the steps up to the bridge itself, and walked along the bridge right to the other side and back. I definitely recommend doing this. Even if you don’t walk along golden gate promenade beach front, definitely walk across the bridge and back. When else are you going to get a chance?!

The next day I had my first trip to Alcatraz (I had booked a day tour and a night tour) – this was the day tour. If you want to go to Alcatraz, book ahead on the website first! There are hardly ever any tickets left with less than about 2 weeks notice, so don’t assume you can turn up and book a ticket for while you are there. I had only booked a night ticket before I arrived, but decided I wanted to visit during the day too, and I did manage to find a joint ticket that went to Alcatraz and Angel Island, although this was about twice the price and availability still wasn’t great (although only a few days notice instead of weeks).

So although I wasn’t really that bothered about going to Angel Island, it was part of the ticket and I couldn’t go to Alcatraz during the day without it. Angel Island State Park is an island just a bit past Alcatraz. When you arrived, you get off the boat straight onto a tour-bus (in the same sort of trolly-bus style as the busses you get around universal studios etc.). It was interesting, and very picturesque and beautiful, but I think I would have preferred to walk around on my own time.

After Angel Island, we got back on the boat to Alcatraz. What can I say about Alcatraz? It’s Alcatraz! You already probably know exactly what it looks like, and the history. I was slightly disappointed by how busy it was though, and that the tour was just an “audio-tour” with a headset that you wore as you walked around. It did feel far too touristy during the day. I hung around until it closed at about 6pm to catch some last minute photos without other tourists covering the photos. I wouldn’t recommend going during the day though – book an evening tour (I had booked an evening tour a few days later, and it was much better).

The following day, I went to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park by taking the tram from my hotel (I had finally started getting the hang of public transport). It was a bit focussed towards children (and I have no doubt children will love it), but was still interesting – it had an aquarium, a rainforest, planetarium, earthquake simulator and plenty of other exhibits.

Outside of the academy is the Golden Gate Park, however, which is like Central Park in New York – but bigger. 20% bigger. You could spend days walking around here, but I spent just a few hours – looking around the surrounding areas of the Chinese Tea Garden. It’s definitely worth at least a few hours in Golden Gate Park.

I got back to Pier 33 to go on my evening tour of Alcatraz. I can’t even explain how much better this was than the day tour. They’re advertised as “Alcatraz Night Tour” but start in the early evening meaning the sun sets while you’re on the island, and the cells inside the main cellhouse slowly descend into darkness while you’re there with the sunset coming through the windows (worth a trip alone). The trip even starts off better, as the boat takes you on a full-circle of the island before dropping you off to give you a proper view, instead of taking the direct route to the dock as the day-trip does. The audio-tour still rears its ugly head, but proper guides are also on-hand to give you proper demonstrations of things like opening and closing the cell doors, and while I was there they also opened up the infirmary (which was incredible and gave some fantastic photos). I can’t say this enough – don’t bother with the day-time Alcatraz Tour, go on the night tour! I really got the feeling that the day-tours were about shoving as many people around the island as you could, whereas the night tour was more relaxed, interesting, and seemed less touristy.

On my second-to-last day I took a bus-tour around the city to experience anything I might have missed. This was on a Gray Line tour that departed from Fisherman’s wharf, cost about $25 and was on a very cool open-top bus that was themed to look like a cable car. The tour-guide was knowledgable and funny, and I know bus tours aren’t everyones cup of tea, but this one was definitely worth it.

Finally, it came to my last day. I decided to hire a car to explore the areas of the city that public transport couldn’t get you to. I drove down the famous bendy Lombard Street – I wasn’t exactly sure what the point was, but I saw people queueing up to do it when I’d been there earlier in the week (the queue was at least a couple of blocks), so I thought it’s worth doing it just to say I had! I did it first thing in the morning so there was no queue at all (in fact, I went down it twice!). Then I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (it’s about a $5 toll for a return trip), over to Hawk Hill on the North Side – in my opinion getting to drive over the golden gate bridge was worth hiring a car for alone.

Hawk Hill had breathtaking views of the bridge, and had the advantage of almost nobody being around due to really needing a car to get up there. I really recommend hiring a car or getting up Hawk Hill in some other way, to see the view from the various lookout points there.

I satisfied the nerdiness inside of me by then driving up to Silicon Valley to have a look at Apple and Google HQ’s. Apple HQ was surprisingly welcoming with a corporate shop that you could visit and buy apple branded merchandise such as pens, tshirts, mugs etc (the only place in the world you can buy legitimate apple branded merchandise). Just outside Apple HQ in Cupertino was BJ’s Restaurant too where they brew their own beer and do great food, so I stopped and had a pint and something to eat.

Google HQ wasn’t quite so welcoming. I pulled up outside, then saw a massive van with Security written on the side, I also couldn’t find anywhere that looked particularly welcoming to visitors – so I decided to not even risk getting out of the car.

On the way back to drop the car back at the rental company, I decided to make one last trip – to Twin Peaks. They’re two hills about 922 feet in the centre of the city, and give great views. It’s another place that’s best visited with a car, but worth doing if you can!

Then, it was one more sleep at my hotel, then time to make my way back to the airport the next day and come home!

I had a great time in San Francisco and hope to go back one day, maybe for another conference (it’s as good excuse as any for going!) or for another look around California. I had been concerned before I visited about whether 2 weeks might be too long for somewhere that only really had the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz as big tourist attractions, and whether I might run out of things to do. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

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