Your dad who just discovered craft brewing. Your artist friend who is perpetually broke. Your cousins from Ohio who can’t wait to get their hands on some legal weed. They’re all coming to visit you—luckily, not at the same time. And they’ll want to experience San Francisco in a fresh way, so your go-to itinerary has got to go.
San Francisco is arguably one of the best cities for walking in the world, and there’s a walking tour for every type of visitor (and most locals). From guided showcases of street art to locally led brew and “bud” crawls, these walking tours cover the most iconic neighborhoods with their own twist.
Mission Mural Tours for Your Broke Artist Friend
For the cash-strapped visitor who craves art, try a mural tour instead of a museum. Community-based Precita Eyes Muralists has helped create and preserve the city’s murals for 40 years, which makes them the go-to experts for the Mission.
On the Classic Tour, a local muralist will guide you from 24th Street to color-soaked Balmy Alley and the digital exhibition at Galería de la Raza, discussing the history and context behind works that tackle human rights, cultural pride, revolution, gentrification, and police brutality. You’ll end with a deeper appreciation for the neighborhood and its Latinx roots as well as the complexities of mural planning and creation. If art history is more your thing, check out the History Mural Tour.
Time and distance: 2 hours and 15 minutes; 6 blocks
Price: $20; discounted tickets are available for students, seniors, youth, and SF residents who are at the door an hour before the tour begins
For more mural walks, San Francisco City Guides also offers a free Coit Tower Mural Tour, where you’ll see landscapes and scenes from Depression-era California created by 25 different artists.
Walking Tours for Niche Historians
San Francisco City Guides has a tour (or three) to keep any historian happy, whether they’re into architecture, art, nature, cinema, or crazy tales of San Francisco’s past. With up to 18 options offered daily, San Francisco City Guides covers nearly every nook and cranny of San Francisco — including often overlooked neighborhoods, such Glen Park, the Dogpatch, and Japantown.
Film buffs should definitely take Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco Tour for highlights (and behind-the-scenes drama) from the movie Vertigo. Architecture lovers will dig the Downtown Deco Tour, which points out roaring-twenties-era skyscrapers and office buildings you may pass every day without noticing.
Time and distance: usually 1.5–2 hours; the distance varies depending on tour
Price: free; donations welcome
A Drag-tastic Tour for Spectacle Seekers
History doesn’t have to be boring, dahling. On the Drag Me Along Tour, you’ll follow countess Lola Montez, a 19th-century Irish entertainer, as she tells tales of high times and disrepute on the Barbary Coast. From duels to affairs to ancient cures for STDs, Montez (a.k.a tour guide and historian Rick Shelton) has plenty of riveting stories to share about gold-rush-era San Francisco. The tour stops are riveting as well and include a hidden tunnel in North Beach and Chinatown’s oldest Taoist temple, where you can have your fortune divined.
Time and distance: 2.5 hours; 2 miles
Price: $30 per person
A Beer-Drinking Tour for People Who Are Over Pub Crawls
Attention, beer nerds or anyone who enjoys learning about history while drinking. Check out SF on Tap for tasting stops at craft breweries and beer bars, as well as nuggets about history and legends. Each tour includes three stops and samples of up to four beers per venue. You’ll also get snacks (think flatbread and fries) to help soak up the booze.
Big Sippin’ in SOMA and Celebrate the Haight include access to breweries that are usually off-limits to customers. For example, on the Haight tour, you’ll go underground at Magnolia Brewery to visit their subterranean facilities.
Time and distance: 4 hours; 1.5–2 miles per tour
Price: $89 a person, which includes all the beer and some snacks
An Old-School Walking Tour for Foodies
Foodies are in for a treat with Local Tastes of the City Tours’ guided North Beach and Chinatown tours, which feature equal parts neighborhood history and tasty eats. Instead of trendy cruffins, you’ll try time-tested treats, such as arancini made by Vince and Frankie Balistreri at Palermo, a North Beach staple. Other delicious tour partners include Victoria Pastry, which has been making cannolis and tiramisu since 1914, and Chinatown’s Eastern Bakery, famous for its freshly baked lotus mooncakes.
Time and distance: 3 hours; 7–8 blocks
Price: $59 a person, which includes all the food and drinks
A Cannabis-Inspired Tour for the Weed Curious
Just because someone wants to smoke a bowl doesn’t mean you have to sit around Dolores Park all weekend. Green Guide Tours provides a legal, educational cannabis experience.
On the company’s Bud Crawl, you’ll visit three downtown dispensaries, where you’ll have a chance to sample and purchase goods with the help of expert guides. You’ll also get special guest discounts at the dispensaries. From stoners to baby boomers interested in medicinal CBD, Green Guide guests run the gamut. There’s also an interactive iPad experience, which covers legal marijuana’s history — and future — in San Francisco and beyond. The experience includes photographs from the personal collection of Dennis Peron, who led the cannabis-legalization movement in San Francisco for decades and partnered with Green Guide to design their tours.
Time and Distance: 2–3 hours; under a mile
Price: $29 per person
A Civil Rights Tour for Activists
If you’re a protest-before-brunch type, you’ll appreciate the Cruisin’ the Castro Tour. Honored as San Francisco’s first legacy-business tour company, Cruisin’ offers a two-hour tour focused on the past, present, and future of LGBTQ+ civil rights.
You’ll learn about the Castro’s origins and Harvey Milk’s role in making it the gay capital of the world. You’ll visit the site of Milk’s former camera shop and the Rainbow Honor Walk, where famous LGBTQ individuals, such as James Baldwin, Frida Kahlo, and Tom Waddell, are honored with bronze portraits. While you walk, company owner and guide Kathy Amendola, a longtime member of the neighborhood’s LGBTQ community, will share stories about her friends and neighbors.
One of the most impactful tour stops is the Pink Triangle Park and Memorial, a remembrance to victims of homosexual persecution by the Nazis. You can pay tribute by taking a rose-quartz stone, which serves as a reminder for you to share love and pride wherever you go.
Time and distance: 2 hours; under 1 mile and handicap accessible
Price: $28 per person, and free for children under the age of five
