San Francisco’s tourist pitfalls

Today, I present a segment (with some really handsome shots by Matt Crum) about all the ways to make San Francisco, which is already a good-value city for vacations, into an even better value.

One of my books is a guide to San Francisco, which is barely still for sale. I don’t think you should necessarily rush to buy it, because it may be the most plainspoken guide to San Francisco ever written. I sort of tell people things are not as exciting as they’re cracked up to be. On The Haight: “You’re more likely to meet slumming rich kids from the suburbs who have discreetly parked their Beemers a few blocks away than you are to meet any actual hippies.” And I proclaim the vagrant-plagued Tenderloin “a national shame.”

Oops.

I do think it’s true. But as it turns out, people don’t always want the unvarnished truth in their guide books. They want a li’l bit of cheerleading.  Framed this way, though, in a helpful how-to video, navigating the mistakes of San Francisco becomes much more appealing.

This originally ran (in a much shorter version) for a website that is now in website heaven.