Last but not least, my favourite town ever, not only in the United States, but in the whole world: San Francisco!

The city is a great mixture of a world metropolis, a sea port and a multicultural cohabit. Directly located at the Pacific Ocean, the town on the peninsula was founded in 1776 and accommodates 808,976 inhabitants. It is mostly known for the Golden Gate Bridge, a suspension bridge over the San Francisco Bay. In fact, there are a lot more things worthwhile seeing in this superb city.

If you intend to visit the United States one day, make sure you don’t leave out San Francisco… You should see and feel this lively town, especially in the summer months, as Mark Twain expressed it:

‘The coldest winter I’ve ever spent was a summer in San Francisco’

He is totally right in affirming that when visiting the city, you should not forget to always take a sweater with you, even if it is a sunny day.

What you should absolutely do when you are there for the first time

is to make a sight-seeing tour to get a global overview over the city. Moreover, the tour also takes you to the Golden Gate Bridge and to the other side of it, where for example Sausalito, a cute waterfront village, is located.

When I went on the sight-seeing tour for the first time it was very nice to get quickly to the different stops, like Fisherman’s Warf, Coit Tower, China Town, Financial District or the Lombard Street, the most crooked street in the world. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to pay  the $30 for the tour another time, when a friend accompanied me to San Francisco.

Fortunately, we were there exactly three month after I had made the sight-seeing tour for the first time and as I noticed there that the driver didn’t pay any attention to the ticket we were supposed to show at the bus entrance, I just showed my old ticket again, even if it was no longer valid.

I know, shame on me! But whatsoever, it did work!

Another less ‘criminal’ recommendation that I would like to make is a sea boat tour: you could either go sailing with a skipper, for example from pier 40 with ‘Rendezvous Charters‘, and sail across the San Francisco Bay and under the Golden Gate Bridge, which is a windy, but very worthwhile sightseeing experience.

Or you take the boat at Pier 39 to the notorious jail island Alcatraz, where the entrance fee and audio guide are free, but the boat tour costs about $26. As to my experience, it is probably the best, if you plan nothing special for the rest of the day after having been to Alcatraz, because I found the audio guide tour so fascinating, but at the same time saddening that I was deeply affected more than I had thought and afterwards I just wanted to opt for a calm afternoon program.

I hope my recommendations will help you to explore San Francisco and make you love it as much as I do!