Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet San Francisco (City Guide)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Yet again Lonely Planet has produced a very readable and useful guidebook. I bought this for a 5-day trip to the Bay area and was never at a loss for information. The 16 color maps at the back were extremely helpful: one of the biggest problems I have with guidebooks like Fodor's is that they often have confusing maps which can really get you confused and lost, whereas here any idiot like myself can find his way around easily. I also really liked the walking tours, of which there are five - Barbary Coast, Beatnik-Hippie, Chinatown, North Beach and Skyscraper - all of which have their own maps as well. The excursion chapter covered Oakland and Berkeley plus Marin County and Napa Valley and some sites south of San Fransisco. As always there was the typically well-researched chapters on accommodation, food, entertainment and shopping. Furthermore, the history chapter gave a good introduction to all of San Fransisco's past and present - the gold rush, earthquakes, the counterculture, gays and more.

A great travelguide for a beautiful city.

After using many Lonely Planet guides abroad, I felt there must be some valuable information about my own city. I bought this book to have as a reference when I had friends visiting from out of town (especially if I needed to send them out on their own!) but have used it for so much more. The restaurant recommendations and even suggestions for sightseeing have surprised me and I have even learned a few things I didn't know. Perhaps it is so good because it was written by the Lonely Planet staff in Oakland (right across the Bay from SF)- these guys know their stuff! Well organized and thorough, I recommend this to natives and visitors alike.

This is the first Lonely Planet guidebook that I have used extensively. I live in Northern California, and was looking for a book with decent maps, phone numbers, and descriptions of restaurants, hotels, and other attrations in San Francisco.

This guidebook provides all of this and more. It includes walking tours, features on unique aspects of San Francisco history and culture, and great maps. Having been to San Francisco several times before, this book opened my eyes to a few places I hadn't been and nudged me away from the areas I usually spend time in when visiting San Francisco (Union Square and the Theatre District).

I disagree with the reviewer who said that the maps were not very good -- they are excellent considering that they are inside of a small guidebook. In fact, this is the primary reason I purchased the book -- I misplaced the map I used when visiting San Francisco and the Bay Area. When I saw the excellent maps in this book, I opted to get it instead of getting a stand alone map.

I also disagree with the reviewer who said the book is skewed toward gay and lesbian culture. The Castro district gets the same level of attention as any other neighborhood in the city.

If you are someone who is visiting San Francisco for the first time, I highly recommend this book. Even for those (like me) who have visited, but don't live in the Bay Area, the book is an excellent resource.

I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to guidebooks. I don't believe that there is one-size-fits all guidebook, and when I travel, I get an arsenal of books and select the top three to use on the road. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I needed no other guidebook to San Francisco! As a general rule, Lonely Planet guides are the most compact and info-packed books on the market, and this guide is unparalleled. It fits neatly in any purse or backpack and the only add-on I would recommend for your trip is a detailed Muni bus route map.

Even without a detailed map, this guide can get you all around the city. Every attraction, restaurant, and hotel is listed indexed and numbered on a half dozen neighborhood maps in the back of the book. There's no need for detailed directions because the maps allow the traveler to plan their own route.

The attractions? Wow! You get all your essential tourist hot spots, plus info on alternative forms of sports and recreation, hidden shopping sites, stores which have house cats or dogs, free wine and cheese at poetry readings, theater reviews, upscale/campy adult entertainment, and much more. San Francisco is well-known for dining options, and this book has the most listings of any guidebook. Nightlife is given extensive coverage, so that anyone can find sites of interest, from late-night coffee shops to Latin dance clubs to sports bars. Of course, a site such as City Search can augment your search for good eats and nightlife.

The book can be read in a number of ways. It offers a week full of suggested itineraries which make a great starting place. The reader can also search by neighborhood or by type of excursion desired, and complete public transportation information is provided. The guide even offers limited information on side trips outside the city proper. A complete index to all attractions, hotels, and restaurants is included.

Don't travel without the Lonely Planet, especially when visiting San Francisco.

Being very disapointed about the Lonely Planet guide to my own city (Amsterdam) I was quite sceptical about this guide, but it's great. It has helped me find nice places, good food and has helped have a great week in San Francisco. I never use the hotel-information supplied by Lonely Planet, but the rest of the information was correct, and the hunderd of sidelines the writer takes make the book a joy, even now I am back home.

I travel a lot and a Lonely Planet book of my destination is always in my carry-on. This SF book was very helpful for my sister and I who recently went on a 'girls shopping weekend' up there (from the L.A. area). We did manage to find all the great shops (thanks to the 'Shopping' section) and then have time for some sightseeing on the side. All the directions, maps, addresses, opening times, admission costs, etc. were accurate and precise. The transportation maps are especially helpful in a city like San Francisco where a rental car is not only not necessary but can definitely be a burden (not much parking!). The book also provided interesting facts about historical sites such as Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. I recommend this book to anyone who is traveling to San Francisco whether it be for a weekend or a month or anywhere in between. There is enough stuff in this book to keep you busy, I promise! And it's very easy to use and has a nice Index in the back where everything is possible to find =)

I'd never been impressed with Lonely Planet guides until I read this one. It's a pleasure to read, thorough but selective, has reliably good taste in its choices, not wasting too much time on the boring or obvious. It's also the first guide I've ever noticed having its own distinctive authorial voice--striking, unusual, sometimes funny. For example, a description of a local fish dish, sand dabs, which are "eager to leap into your mouth and commend themselves to your body. They are California making love to your mouth." Or this description of a gritty neighborhood: "Like the interlocking fingers of a pair of hands folded in prayer, the Tenderloin insinuates itself into neighboring Union Square." Not sure if this stuff is meant to be taken seriously, but it's refreshingly different reading for a travel guide. It's the best SF guide I've found, far preferable to the full of oversights and haphazard taste of selections in Time Out's guide. Some minor oversights. For example, I can't find any specific mention of Muir Woods, despite a section devoted to the general area.

Depending on what kind of traveller you are, you opt for different guides. I like Lonely Planet because they are sturdy, jam packed with information (which is important when space and weight are factors), and fairly thorough. This Lonely Planet is no exception.

Lonely Planet is based in Oakland. This is about San Francisco. One thinks they ought to get this one right, out of any other guidebook. The information is spot on. The tone is decidely liberal. This has been critisized in other reviews, but I think it is important since it reflects the attitude of the city. Yes, San Franciscans think exactly that way.

The tone of the book is the tone of the people. So if a reviewer don't like the tone, they ain't gonna like SF. If they've visited SF and have not met this liberal attitude, I would ask what 4 star glass cage they insulated themselves in.

The maps... oh, minus one star for the maps... There are decent maps for each neighborhood, and one pull out map in the back. BUT... I would expect this guidebook to be on par with the Washington DC guidebook wherein all the maps are conveniently in the back in one place, and everything is cross referenced easily. You read it, it tells you what map, what page, and what site number. Flip to that map, bingo. See it on the map, theres's a page reference. Flip to that page, bingo. This one keeps you flipping and turning without the benefit of the cross referencing. Gggrr... Normally I'd let it slide, but this is Lonely Planet's backyard!

So all in all an accurate and useful guidebook. Information is accurate, maps aare decent. Worthy of the LP label.

Loved seeing the city of San Fancisco after reading about the local neighborhood haunts. Lonely Planet has long been my first choice of Travel Guides. This one was good, although it lacked some of the overall insights that I have liked in other LP guide books, and had some of the poorest photography ever edited for such a scenic city.

I recommend the guide books suggestion of renting a mountain bike and taking in the sites of Golden Gate Park and heading out to Salsalito via the Golden Gate Bridge and taking the ferry back into town.

I used this guidebook for my first visit to San Francisco and liked where it took me. I just moved here and needed to acclimate. I think it's geared more for younger tourists that are less set in their ways. I wanted to see more than just San Francisco and used the Golden Gate Trailblazer to fill in places to hike around. They were a nice duo to carry around. After two weeks, I'm finally getting the hang of it and less dependent on the maps.