San Francisco & Outside Lands
 

I'm thinking about going to Outside Lands in SF at the end of August. I'd like to add a few days to see the city. What's not to miss? Any experience with hostel stays?

Have you been here before? And what kind of thing do you generally like to do?

At Fisherman's Wharf, I'm generally pretty fond of Aliottos.

You should probably also check out Chinatown.

The Disney Store is long gone from Union Square but I suppose it's still worth going just to walk around there. If you like shopping.

Golden Gate Park has some great stuff. A good science museum, lovely gardens, a windmill... I recommend renting bikes if you can.

See Beach Blanket Babylon. Hug Snowflake.

...these are two highlights from our last visit.

I have not been there before. I prefer non-touristy stuff, musicy things, and arty things.

Kid in tow or adult fun?

No help on the musicy stuff. Plenty of good art museum and if you like to dive right into the local scenes plenty of dense gallery areas that can be cruised.

Most of the touristy stuff (Fisherman's Wharf, Presidio, Chinatown, etc.) is worth doing at least once (except maybe Fisherman's Wharf, I probably wouldn't point anybody in that direction until their second week in town; sooner if they really like sea lions).

If you like seeing local instead of tourist, I'd recommend one of the "walking San Francisco" books. Lots of good neighborhoods to just walk randomly and see what you see.

Well, Fisherman's Wharf is good for a meal. Better than recommending it for sightseeing.

When is the Disney Family Museum opening up? That'd be worth going if it were, but I suspect it won't be opening till fall.

Yes, Fisherman's Wharf is good for a meal. But there are many parts of town that are better for a meal unless you specifically want to eat crab on the sidewalk.

Something mousepod brought us to when we were there that was a unique thing to see was the Musee Mechanique at Pier 45. It's a warehouse full of vintage coin operated mechanical arcade machines. Animated music boxes, creepy fortune telling machines, mechanically animated dioramas of excutions. All restored and operable. Really nifty place.

Excellent suggestion, GD. If I were taking you around my old stomping grounds, we'd do a a walking tour of Victorian SF.

We'd have tea at the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park. You can still do that, right?

We might have a crab cocktail on the street by Fisherman's Wharf. We'd skip the shopping down there. Instead, we'd go to Chinatown (Grant Avenue, U.S.A., San-Fran-cis-co!) with 10 bucks in our pockets to blow on stuff and have dim sum for lunch. When my kids were in elementary school, we did exactly that. They still talk about how.much.fun.stuff. they could buy in Chinatown for $5.