Inside SF
Make the most of SF!
The San Francisco Scoop
For locals who want to experience San Francisco like a visitor and visitors who want to experience San Francisco like a local.
The San Francisco Scoop is designed by us to take you inside SF, whether you’re visiting or you live here. From current-affairs inspired articles on California history, to our suggestions on the best things to do in SF every month, via inside information on authentic experiences and events, we give you the essential scoop on the Bay Area.
And if you’re a visitor looking for more specific information related to your trip here, such as locations at which famous movies have been filmed, to a list of the best family activities in San Francisco or how to navigate the city using public transport, don’t forget to check S.F. Info.
San Francisco In Film Noir
Noir as a genre was really birthed in San Francisco, in 1922, when short stories by a writer called Dashiell Hammett began being published in literary magazine The Smart Set. It wasn’t known as ‘Noir’ at the time, these were considered to be, more or less, just pulp crime stories. But Hammett had worked as…
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The Great Fire & How It Changed SF
The Great Fire is one of the most cataclysmic moments in the history of San Francisco. In many respects it’s the big “before and after” event here. Some buildings survived – the St Francis Hotel, the Flood Mansion, the Fairmont Hotel and the Ferry Building were amongst the few – but so much of the city was…
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San Francisco’s Founding
If you look at a map of the West Coast of the U.S. it seems logical that there would be a port in the Bay Area. It’s far and away the best natural harbor between San Diego and Seattle, so it seems entirely natural – almost ordained really – that San Francisco exists. However, like…
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Old Chinatown: Crime & Vice
San Francisco has the oldest Chinatown in the U.S. and one of the oldest in the West. Chinese first began moving to the city in 1849, as news of “Gam Saan” (Gold Mountain) spread around the world and reached China, firing the imaginations of thousands of young men who were struggling after years of prolonged…
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How The Gold Rush Created San Francisco
On May 12, 1848, Mormon pioneer and businessman Samuel Brannan walked onto Portsmouth Square, shouting “Gold! Gold from the American River!”, while holding aloft a phial full of gold flakes. He hadn’t discovered the gold and he never attempted mining it, but it fired the starting gun for the great California Gold Rush. He owned…
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Maiden Lane: From Brothels To Boutiques
Today Maiden Lane is an upscale, boutique-lined, pedestrian street running east off Union Square, notable chiefly for its gates and for being the home of San Francisco’s only Frank Lloyd Wright designed building. However, the narrow, quiet, street has a scandalous past as one of old San Francisco’s main red-light districts, in the late nineteenth…
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‘Big’ Alma: From Poor Nude Model To Rich Art Patron
In the center of Union Square, on a very high column, is a statue of Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory. If you read the inscription at the base you’ll find that it’s dedicated to Admiral George Dewey, the victor of the Battle of Manila Bay of 1898, in the Spanish-American War. Big deal, you…
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Haight-Ashbury: Summer Of Love, 1967
Background In the mid-1960s, San Francisco exploded with a counterculture movement. A tremendous spontaneous expression of youthful enthusiasm, loving life, allied with opposition to the Vietnam War, attracted an estimated 100,000 young people to San Francisco. More than ten years earlier, in the early 1950’s, another counter-cultural movement, also against materialism and conformism, called the…
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The Fatty Arbuckle Scandal & St Francis Hotel
St Francis Hotel Long before the Fatty Arbuckle scandal the St Francis Hotel opened in 1904 on Union Square, built as an investment vehicle for Charles Crocker’s grandchildren. Crocker was one of the ‘Big Four’ that had dominated San Francisco in the nineteenth century and, although he had died ten years before, his enormous mansion…
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How Maya Angelou Changed San Francisco
For Black History Month this article will highlight the influence of one of our most famous former inhabitants, Maya Angelou, and show the indelible mark she left on San Francisco. Angelou was born in St Louis, Missouri, but while still young her family moved to Oakland and in 1944, aged just sixteen years old, she…
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The Original Chinatown: San Francisco
A “Chinatown” is defined as an ethnic enclave of people of Chinese background, that is outside China itself. From the 1830’s onwards a large, and growing, number of them have popped up all over the world, in cities like New York, London, Los Angeles and Melbourne. The oldest in the Western world is considered to…
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A Short History Of Nob Hill
San Francisco is one of many cities around the world that claim to be built on seven hills (for some reason it’s always seven), going back all the way to ancient Athens and Rome. In our case the ‘The Seven Hills of San Francisco’ are Telegraph Hill, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Rincon Hill, Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson and Lone Mountain or Mount Sutro. At…
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Berkeley, Oakland & Alameda: The East Bay
Berkeley, Oakland and Alameda, the San Francisco-facing parts of the wider East Bay region, have a lot of attractions and things to see and do. They’re also popular places to stay for visitors to the Bay Area, since they’re reasonably well-connected to the BART and SF ferry systems, as well as being a short hop…
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Bicycling In San Francisco
San Francisco has a lot of great opportunities for getting out on two wheels (or more), powered by legs and lungs. It’s true the city, and wider Bay Area, is pretty hilly, but there are ways to avoid them, if you prefer (and no one would blame you for that – our hills are often…
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The Mission: Murals, Movies & Great Food
The Mission District is a very well-known neighborhood in San Francisco. It’s popular for a number of reasons: it has some of the best restaurants in the city (it was the birthplace of the Mission Burrito after all), it’s a Mecca for clubbers and others wanting to have fun, it’s home to one of the…
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The Castro: The Little Big Neighborhood
The San Francisco neighborhood known as the Castro is one of the most famous in the city. It was one of the birthplaces of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the U.S. and was where Harvey Milk, the gay-rights activist and politician, began his career. It’s also a very picturesque and historic part of the city,…
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North Beach: Historic, Cultured & Fun
North Beach is one of San Francisco’s most storied and picturesque neighborhoods. It’s chiefly known nowadays for being our ‘Little Italy’ and most visitors want to see it while they’re in the city, to eat at one of the many Italian restaurants and cafes that line its streets. It was also the west coast epicenter…
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A Day At Fisherman’s Wharf: Cafe’s To Carousels
Almost everybody visiting San Francisco is going to make a trip to Fisherman’s Wharf at some point. It’s our Times Square or Hollywood Walk of Fame. However, like those other attractions, it can be a little underwhelming for the visitor – too many tourist traps and well… tourists. Nevertheless, again like the aforementioned icons, a…
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How To Ride SF Cable Cars & Trams
One of the first things that pops into most people’s minds when they hear the words “San Francisco” is an image of a cable car. It’s considered an indelible element of the city. Many visitors coming here already want to take a ride on one, to experience some of its romance. And why not? They…
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San Francisco’s Barbary Coast Today
Barbary Coast was the name given to a neighborhood of San Francisco, more or less encompassing Pacific Avenue (then known as Pacific Street) between Montgomery and Stockton Streets, from the 1860’s to the early 1900’s. Roughly bound by today’s Chinatown, North Beach and the Embarcadero, the area was infamous for the easy availability of almost…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In June
June marks the official beginning of Summer and it’s also LGBTQ+ month, so SF Pride has to take (ahem) pride of place in our line-up of the best things to do in SF in June. Nevertheless, there are plenty of other good options for events and activities in the Bay Area. From street festivals, to…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In May
With the advent of May Spring slowly starts to turn into Summer. This is a great time to be in San Francisco as the days get warmer and longer, and there are some really cool events happening in San Francisco this month. There’s Cinco de Mayo, the Bay to Breakers run, Giants games and Carnaval.…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In April
“San Francisco in the Spring” may not have the ring that “Paris in the Spring has”, but it is a great time to be in the Bay Area. Weather’s getting warmer and a little more predictable, and there are – as you might expect – a lot of things to do here. We could have…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In March
As San Francisco continues its strong start to 2023, events are popping up all over the Bay Area, like flowers pushing their heads up as Spring arrives. This month’s is quite a well rounded list of the best things to do in SF in March, it includes sporting events, St Patrick’s Day shindigs, stargazing, adults-only…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In February
February is a surprisingly good month in SF for events, there’s the Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, Sexplorations, beer and comedy festivals for God’s sake, NightLife AND numerous other things going on. It may only be the second month of the year, but we’re not hanging around in San Francisco, we aren’t wasting time –…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In January
There are a lot of great events coming to San Francisco this month. Christmas and the New Year don’t slow down the city by the bay! There are cultural celebrations, art exhibitions, comedy shows, film festivals, and there’s a long-distance run (followed by hot chocolate, natch). Writing this list can be hard, but that’s what…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In December
Christmas is officially coming, the goose is getting fat and the tree has been put up. Once you’ve done all the food and gift-shopping, you’re probably going to want to go out and have a little festive fun. But what, exactly, are you going to do? Well, wonder no longer because we have this list…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In November
The nights are getting darker earlier and Christmas is drawing near. What are the best things to do in SF in November? We bring you this list of our recommendations so you can make the most of your time this month. From Turkey Trots to Craft Fairs, via some big sports matches, we have it…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In October
October, for most people here, means Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos. As you would expect there are a ton of those events happening this month in San Francisco. However not everybody wants to do a Halloween themed event, and certainly not every event, so I’ve included a range of events in this list of…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF In September
September is perhaps the best month to be in San Francisco weatherwise. It’s about the warmest it ever gets here, the weather’s just a tiny bit more predictable, and when the Bay Area is like that you just have to make the most of the opportunity. With the objective of helping YOU make the most…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF, August 2022
August is a great month to be in San Francisco, it’s usually warm, the weather’s just a tiny bit more predictable, and here in the Bay Area you just have to make the most of those opportunities. In pursuit of helping YOU make the most of said time we’ve put together this list of the…
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10 Best Things To Do In SF, July 2022
There are always a ton of things happening in the Bay Area during the summer and as “things gradually go back to normal” that means lots of events this month. From marathons to murder mysteries, via nights at the museum and mermaids, we’ve brought you the ten best things to do in SF in July…
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