Always wanted to visit San Francisco.. but can't?

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
.....well through the magic of youtube, you can go on a 49 mile scenic drive... total length of the video is 3 hours 33 minutes...

49 Mile Scenic Drive is a designated route in San Francisco, California that takes you through some of the city's most iconic landmarks and neighborhoods. The route was established in 1938 as a way to showcase the city's beauty. Over the years, the route has changed many times. Today, the route starts and ends at City Hall and takes you through famous neighborhoods such as Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, Nob Hill, and the Presidio. The route is marked by blue and white seagull signs, making it easy to follow (most of the time). The 49 Mile Scenic Drive can be completed in around 4 hours.

• San Francisco City Hall • Civic Center Plaza
02:04 Larkin Street • Little Saigon • Geary Street
10:49 Japantown • Post Street
16:27 Lower Nob Hill • Union Square
21:20 Grant Avenue • Chinatown • California Street • Nob Hill
26:53 Washington Street • Clay Street • Chinatown • Kearny Street
34:31 Columbus Avenue • North Beach • Grant Avenue • Lombard Street • Mason Street
41:07 Fisherman's Wharf • Jefferson Street • Ghirardelli Square
49:43 Bay Street • Fort Mason • Marina Boulevard • Marina Green
56:38 Marina District • Palace of Fine Arts • Chestnut Street
1:01:42 Presidio of San Francisco
1:09:33 Fort Point • Lincoln Boulevard
1:20:43 Sea Cliff • Legion of Honor • Outer Richmond
1:29:26 Great Highway
1:46:11 Lakeshore • Lake Merced Boulevard
1:54:27 Sunset District • Outer Sunset
2:03:10 Golden Gate Park
2:23:22 Parnassus Heights • Inner Sunset • Laguna Honda Boulevard
2:32:53 Portola Drive • Market Street • Twin Peaks • Eureka Valley • Castro District
2:44:55 Dolores Street • Mission Dolores • Dolores Heights
2:51:18 Cesar Chavez Street2:59:08 3rd Street • Dogpatch • Mission Bay
3:06:48 Lefty O'Doul Bridge • Oracle Park • Embarcadero • Ferry Building
3:16:35 Financial District • Washington Street • Battery Street • Salesforce Transit Center
3:24:11 SoMa (South of Market) • Howard Street • Moscone Center • 9th Street
3:33:20 Larkin Street • San Francisco City Hall • Civic Center Plaza



Start your visit here.. and enjoy
 

We visited San Francisco a couple of times, before Big Tech moved in and decimated all the quaint store-front businesses. It was fantastic! We now have friends that live right outside the city but when we last visited they didn't even take us into San Francisco proper. They said it just isn't that interesting and lively anymore.

Thanks for the memories!
 
seadoug said:
We visited San Francisco a couple of times, before Big Tech moved in and decimated all the quaint store-front businesses. It was fantastic! We now have friends that live right outside the city but when we last visited they didn't even take us into San Francisco proper. They said it just isn't that interesting and lively anymore.

Thanks for the memories!
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My daughter has friends in Fremont.. whom she visits every few years and they do the same..they don't bother visiting San Francisco when she goes over there no... but she did enjoy her first visit when they visited Chintown
 

I have been to San Francisco many times as it’s only 3.5 hours away. It’s a beautiful city with so much to see and do. The last time I was there was in 2018 and the homeless population had exploded and the city was so dirty.
 
S.F. You are not missing much. It's not a big cold deal there.
You drive around in a few steep hills, look at 100-year-old boxes
on a tiny lot. Really get real, drive to the Redwood Forest and
Live your dreams. SF is just by a Deep Harbor. Surely its all going
To Alaska in the next 1 million years. It's a sinking of stuff !

I don't dislike S.F. it is just a place by the sea with Hills, Bridges and ?
Can't find parking place in N.Y. or Chicago either. I'm sorry if you
bought into all the Hype. Big Cities suk!
 
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Jackie23 said:
I enjoyed seeing this video and watching for places I've been too, the last trip there we stayed in the Embarcadero area directly across the street from the Ferry building...I think all large cities have a homeless problem, it's a beautiful city.
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Yes all large cities have a homeless problem but there's has exploded. It’s sad but it’s much worse and the city has gotten to be incredibly dirty with garbage on the streets and sidewalks. The governor moved all the homeless out when world leaders were coming to the city so that should tell you how bad it’s become.
 
Jackie23 said:
I enjoyed seeing this video and watching for places I've been too, the last trip there we stayed in the Embarcadero area directly across the street from the Ferry building...I think all large cities have a homeless problem, it's a beautiful city.
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it's especially nice when I upload these videos for people who have already visited, but maybe not for a very long time....
 
I flew in and out of San Francisco (SFO) probably over a 100 times. I really enjoyed the challenge of landing a Boeing 767 in SF. On my layover days, I would rent a car and drive for miles north and south of the city, including places like Napa Valley, San Jose and Cupertino, or as some call it, Silicon Valley, but walking through Sausalito on a Sunday afternoon was very enjoyable. Looking at all the paintings was sometimes incredible. A few times, I would drive over to Lake Tahoe and then onto Reno. I always wanted to ski Tahoe, but never had enough time.

My favorite area was Monterey and the cities and towns all around it.
 
First time I went to San Francisco I drove into town, parked and got out of the car and had a woman slam onto the pavement right next to me, she had jumped from an overpass. Aside from an obviously broken ankle she appeared uninjured but kept crying out to let her die. Fortunately there were plenty of people around so she started receiving aid right away.

Overall it's a very unique city.
 
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Like being in another world compared to the rest of California. Obvious reasons it is considered one of the great cities of our world and attracts large numbers of foreign visitors.

At certain times of year I visit The City. Easy for me to park for free in places that are relatively safe as have done my map homework. And plenty of places where homeless are few. Over the last year there has been a crackdown on drug use and homelessness. A new mayor just began his term that is keen to change things.

Much crime has come from those driving from across the bay in Oakland and Alameda County. But just like they were preying on we down in Santa Clara County that is coming to an end as Automated License Plate Readers, aka ALPR, are being set up all over the SF Bay Area despite years of the ACLU and libertarians monkeywrenching attempts to install such. In my own suburb cretins are now being nailed regularly.
 
I visited S.Francisco in my twenties, for job training. I was there for a week in the summer. I really enjoyed it. Did experiments in the lab at a university where several Nobel laureates had worked. I remembered how cool and windy it was. I enjoyed walking the campus of the university. Never been back since.
 
Just viewed the first 30 minutes of the long 240 driving video. Will need to view the rest when I can allocate more time and do so on my 24 inch 4k laptop's external monitor. As someone also with a YouTube channel but rather a simple free one, I was interested in the video presentation style.

My impression is it is well done, recommended, but could be improved. Better than most other of these types of videos. Wisely, was driven at midday on a non-foggy sunny day, so building shadows are minimal. It is 4k using a wide mode field of view in order to adequately show full width street views. However, that does distort how such looks versus if one were actually in a vehicle driving that route.

I have the same wide distortion issue with my snow skiing videos that requires lens choice compromise between normal angle of view showing too narrow but accurate and wide showing enough, distorting. Such makes near elements much greater in extent while making more distant elements further away and shorter. Same issue with photography.

Given its very hilly terrain using the wide camera lens, driving those streets is much steeper than such appears and will be rather scary for any unfamiliar person. Many times on approach at flat cross streets to steep street downhills, one cannot see what is beyond untill last moments what appears to drop off a cliff into space.

He does nicely have a significant jump to index with static images below the video frame in YouTube's Description field. So one can easily view just parts at a session. There are many traffic light stops of dead time where he might replace for say one second, the driving video with a magnified street map indicating where he is on that official city route. Otherwise it tends to be a bit confusing as the route changes 360 degrees by necessity so often.

Most like the terrific street audio that makes me suspect he is using a recent GoPro model like I have. Might have wisely been captured on a Sunday or holiday as traffic is unusually light.

Although I visit several times each year, and even lived downtown most of one year after USAF discharge in 1970, I am familiar with but tiny amounts of what is there, especially its tourist attractions, shops, restaurants, etc.

It is one of the most difficult and dangerous sensually overwhelming cities to drive within due to being crowded with other vehicles, often narrow one way streets, a constant array of street signs, transit vehicles, temporarily double parked commercial vehicles, and residents everywhere walking about. I'm very good at safely carefully driving there but that does take intense visual focus and pre-trip route planning. Very easy to lose one's intended route and then have to stop and look at paper maps.

When visiting, my usual strategy is to locate a safe place to park for free that requires pre-trip using its complex residential parking zone and parking meter maps and then use its vast mixed public transportation system plus walking just like its residents.
 
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David777, I’m glad to hear that some places in San Francisco have been cleaned up. Because of living so close I used to go once a year for 3-4 days. I was so disgusted the last time I was there in 2018 that I haven’t been back.
 
ohioboy said:
I like that Tony Bennett song "I left my wife in San Francisco".
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I doubt if he would sing that song today and mean it. SF has taken a deep dive from the majestic city it once was. I used to enjoy the cable car rides from Fisherman’s Wharf downtown to Market Street. Watching the workers turn the cable cars around on Powell Street was always interesting.

Going up or down Hyde Street included some great views of the “City By the Bay.” You could see Alcatraz and Lombard Street, which I walked up the street using the steps. Yes, it actually has over 200 steps. I also drove it just to say I did it. I had a pilot friend that owned a condo on Union Square and another friend that owned a condo on Nob Hill. Speaking of Nob Hill, there was a hotel that had a revolving restaurant on top of it. At night, it was a very beautiful sight looking down and over the Bay Bridge that went from San Francisco to Oakland.

I have a painting by Thomas Kinkade that supposedly shows him riding his motorcycle on top of Lombard Street. (I am trying to take a good picture of our’s hanging on the den wall, but the frame is actually a dark mahogany and it keeps showing a blonde frame. oK, the blonde part is not the frame, but the insert around the picture before it’s put into the frame.) It’s not a great picture because I am using an older model of iPad. The newer editions have a better camera. I guess I need to go shopping.

If you look very closely to the lower left, you will see a man on a motorcycle. Kinkade stated that he painted himself on the cycle riding down Lombard Street.

IMG_0678.jpeg
 
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David777 said:
Over the last year there has been a crackdown on drug use...
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That's good to know. I visited in 2006 and walked around Union Square after dark unafraid. My sister visited in 2016 and went back to her hotel room late afternoon after witnessing people shooting up, defecating and worst of all, men were explicitly propositioning her teenage daughter in Union Square.

As to driving in SF, I didn't find it difficult.
 
David777 said:
Just viewed the first 30 minutes of the long 240 driving video. Will need to view the rest when I can allocate more time and do so on my 24 inch 4k laptop's external monitor. As someone also with a YouTube channel but rather a simple free one, I was interested in the video presentation style.

My impression is it is well done, recommended, but could be improved. Better than most other of these types of videos. Wisely, was driven at midday on a non-foggy sunny day, so building shadows are minimal. It is 4k using a wide mode field of view in order to adequately show full width street views. However, that does distort how such looks versus if one were actually in a vehicle driving that route.

I have the same wide distortion issue with my snow skiing videos that requires lens choice compromise between normal angle of view showing too narrow but accurate and wide showing enough, distorting. Such makes near elements much greater in extent while making more distant elements further away and shorter. Same issue with photography.

Given its very hilly terrain using the wide camera lens, driving those streets is much steeper than such appears and will be rather scary for any unfamiliar person. Many times on approach at flat cross streets to steep street downhills, one cannot see what is beyond untill last moments what appears to drop off a cliff into space.

He does nicely have a significant jump to index with static images below the video frame in YouTube's Description field. So one can easily view just parts at a session. There are many traffic light stops of dead time where he might replace for say one second, the driving video with a magnified street map indicating where he is on that official city route. Otherwise it tends to be a bit confusing as the route changes 360 degrees by necessity so often.

Most like the terrific street audio that makes me suspect he is using a recent GoPro model like I have. Might have wisely been captured on a Sunday or holiday as traffic is unusually light.

Although I visit several times each year, and even lived downtown most of one year after USAF discharge in 1970, I am familiar with but tiny amounts of what is there, especially its tourist attractions, shops, restaurants, etc.

It is one of the most difficult and dangerous sensually overwhelming cities to drive within due to being crowded with other vehicles, often narrow one way streets, a constant array of street signs, transit vehicles, temporarily double parked commercial vehicles, and residents everywhere walking about. I'm very good at safely carefully driving there but that does take intense visual focus and pre-trip route planning. Very easy to lose one's intended route and then have to stop and look at paper maps.

When visiting, my usual strategy is to locate a safe place to park for free that requires pre-trip using its complex residential parking zone and parking meter maps and then use its vast mixed public transportation system plus walking just like its residents.
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Try driving in London or in Rome.......now that's difficult
 
If you ever go to San Francisco (be sure to put some flowers in your hair, just kidding), but you really need to go out to Fisherman’s Wharf and see the many sea lions on Pier 39. I think that’s also where you get the tickets for the boat ride out to Alcatraz. Also, be sure to go to Ghirardelli’s. They make a double chocolate brownie sundae that will definitely fill your tummy. There is also a restaurant in the heart of the Wharf that serves a clam chowder in a bread bowl. The bowl is edible, but I think it’s made out of sourdough bread, which isn’t to my liking, but the chowder is very good,

I saw an older man pick a half eaten bowl of chowder out of the garbage can and started eating it. I walked up to him and offered to buy him a fresh bowl with a drink, but he wouldn’t even give me an answer. I think he was saying, “Mind your own business.”
 

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