One of San Francisco's greatest assets, in my opinion, is its compact size. It is a world-class city, but you could literally walk from one end of it to the other in a few hours (assuming you were wearing good boots, of course!).
When you are ready to give your feet a rest, however, a good public transportation system is waiting to take you anywhere in town for a buck (cable cars are $2).
Now, I must confess, I am a rare person in my admiration of MUNI, the local bus and rail system.
Locals don't like MUNI because they're trying to get to and from work on it, and apparently MUNI timetables are more guidelines than actual schedules.
For me personally, I usually just show up at a stop and, sure enough, before too long a bus or train rolls up. On Halloween this year, for example, when I was looking for a cab in the lower Haight at 2 a.m., in the pouring rain (the odds were not in my favor, to put it mildly), a bus came along. Desperate, my friend and I started to get on, until we realized we only had a $20 bill (exact change only on MUNI, of course). The bus driver waved us on anyway, and it turned out she was going within a block of where we needed to be. So I love MUNI.
MUNI's website is also very good, so I'll leave it at that for now. Check back here in the future for a rundown of the cable cars, vintage train lines, and other useful routes.
Cabs are another option, albeit an expensive one. The city may be small, but it can take almost as long to get across it in a car as it does on foot! A ride from the Sunset (far West) to the Embarcadero (far East) will set you back about $15, but a much shorter trip, say from the club district South of Market (SoMa) up to Fisherman's Wharf could easily cost just as much because of downtown traffic. Also, cabs are scarcer than sober club goers after closing time in the SoMa district. Call for one from the club before you leave!
If you don't have a car and decide to venture out to other parts of the Bay Area, you will probably do so on BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System.
In future months I'll cover some other areas of interest, such as Berkeley and Oakland. Until then, I can assure you that there is absolutely no reason for you to go to Contra Costa County (on the Pittsburg/Bay Point line). Trust me on this.
Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our North America Insiders page.
