San Francisco at the fog line: the small American city on the hills

It’s 6:52 a.m. on the Land’s End trail at the northwest tip of San Francisco, and the fog is doing what San Francisco fog does in June — sitting in the bay, completely covering the Golden Gate Bridge except for the top of one tower poking through, like a small red lighthouse in a sea of grey. Two seals are barking somewhere offshore. The Pacific is grey-green and cold. A jogger overtakes me; she has been running this trail every morning for fifteen years, she will tell me when we end up at the same coffee place at the bottom.

Why I keep coming back

San Francisco is the small, hilly, fog-bound, food-rich, architecturally weird city at the tip of the peninsula that has, over twenty years, been simultaneously the centre of the global technology industry and the centre of various American urban crises. The visible city — the cable cars, the Victorian houses, the Golden Gate, the rolling fog — has been more or less stable. The political and economic conversations around it have changed considerably.

I keep coming back for the geography. Few cities concentrate so much terrain into so small a space. The walk from the top of Nob Hill down to the Embarcadero is a 180-metre vertical drop. The view from Twin Peaks, on a clear evening, is one of the great urban panoramas.

Where to base yourself

The Mission for the central food-and-coffee neighbourhood energy.

Hayes Valley or Lower Pacific Heights for the calmer central residential walking.

The Marina for the bay-side, slightly preppy waterfront.

The Sunset for the cool, foggy, beach-adjacent residential, classic city version.

Avoid Tenderloin and adjacent areas for accommodation; well-known and ongoing urban issues.

What to actually do

Walk the Land’s End trail. Free, on the western edge, with the bridge views and the wave-cut cliffs.

Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. 2.7 km each way; the pedestrian sidewalks are on the east (city) side. Best in the morning before the wind comes up.

Visit SFMOMA. The expanded contemporary collection is one of the great Western American museums; allow half a day.

Spend an afternoon in Golden Gate Park. The 4-km park west of the city; the Japanese Tea Garden, the de Young museum, the Conservatory of Flowers, the buffalo paddock (yes, there are bison).

Take the cable car once. The Powell-Hyde line ends at Ghirardelli Square; the route up Hyde Street is the famously steep section. US$8 single, cash-tolerant.

Eat dim sum in Chinatown. Yank Sing is the upscale option; Good Mong Kok Bakery the cash-only walk-up.

Visit the Ferry Building Market. The renovated 1898 ferry terminal at the Embarcadero; Saturday morning farmers’ market is the largest in the city.

Walk Telegraph Hill and climb Coit Tower. The 1933 tower at the top of Telegraph Hill, with murals inside and the view of the bay; the climb up the Filbert Street steps is a city signature.

Where to eat

San Francisco’s food culture is in many ways the most influential in the US over the past 30 years.

State Bird Provisions — Dim-sum-cart-style serving of Californian small plates; reservation required. Tartine Bakery — Bread and pastries; the institution. Mister Jiu’s — Modern Cantonese in a heritage Chinatown building. The Slanted Door — Modern Vietnamese, the original of an East-Asian-California genre. Zuni Café — The roast chicken with bread salad; old-school SF. Foreign Cinema — Reliable Mediterranean-California; movie screens in the courtyard. Burma Superstar — Burmese, the tea-leaf salad; cash and queue. Coffee at Sightglass, Saint Frank, or Ritual.

When to come

September and October are the warmest, clearest months — the famous late-summer Indian summer in the Bay Area.

April–June is the green spring, occasionally foggy.

July–August is the foggiest summer — the famous Mark Twain (apocryphal) line about San Francisco summer being colder than its winter is essentially correct.

Practical notes

• Visa: ESTA.
• Money: Card universally.
• Transport: Walkable in the central city. The Muni system (cable cars, streetcars, buses) plus BART for longer hops. Uber and Lyft were both founded here and are dominant.
• The hills: A San Francisco walking day involves significant climbing. Wear shoes.
• The weather: Layers. The fog comes in fast and the temperature can drop 5°C in 15 minutes when it does. A windproof shell is non-negotiable.
• Public safety: The city has had visible challenges around homelessness, drug crisis, and property crime in recent years. The standard urban precautions apply, particularly around the Tenderloin, parts of SoMa, and the Mission’s outer edges at night.

A final thought

San Francisco is the small American city that has, in this decade, become a recurring case study in the American urban-policy conversation. The technology wealth, the housing crisis, the post-pandemic downtown emptying — all are visible to a thoughtful visitor and all are ongoing.

What I have continued to find rewarding is the city’s particular combination of small-scale geography, large-scale Pacific views, weird-and-specific food culture, and the residential fabric of Victorian-painted houses on impossible hills. The cliché image of the city is mostly correct. The harder realities of contemporary urban life sit alongside it.

Four nights minimum. Pick neighbourhoods to walk. Eat at the small places. Take the cable car once. Walk the bridge. Watch the fog come in over the bay at 6 p.m. Stand on Twin Peaks at dusk. The city is small enough to know after a week, large enough to keep returning.