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San Francisco is a city that is pretty well known for its eco-friendly efforts. There are a lot of green things going on here. There is more than just a general mindset here that you should try to be kind to the earth. San Francisco is truly cutting edge in its adoption of being green. [...]
San Francisco is one of the least fun cities in the world to drive in but one of the best cities in the world in which to be the passenger in a car. That is because the streets are narrow, curvy and difficult to navigate which can be stressful for you if you’re the driver. [...]
Halloween in San Francisco is an interesting holiday. On the one hand, this is a city where nearly every resident has a closet filled with costumes that are used at various events all throughout the year. These people often outdo themselves at Halloween which makes San Francisco a terrific city for people who really want [...]
How we save half or more on our rental cars with five easy steps.
In downtown San Francisco near Union Square, bathrooms – much less clean ones are very hard to find. But Macy’s in downtown San Francisco has been voted one of the best restrooms in the USA. When it’s time to go – it’s time for Macy’s San Francisco!!!
New for 2010! Take 15% off SuperShuttle in every major city they serve (confirm details) until March 15, 2010. Online use discount code GSALE at suppershuttle.com/garagesale.
Check out our San Francisco airport shuttles here for full pricing and service reviews.
It’s basically a Craigslist for parking spaces. You can make a quick buck renting your driveway or garage, and big parking lots downtown list too. You pay on the site, and then print out a voucher for your parking.
What we like about Gottapark is that it reveals a lot of “underground” parking that wouldn’t normally exist. The guy who lives next to Union Square, who rents out his garage; a big empty lot; and many other very weird options. If you want to be a little planful in a place where it’s smart too (very crappy parking) – it can make parking in San Francisco a little easier.
When we searched for parking spaces around “very popular” locations like Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square and Embarcadero Center — the ease of comparing prices *BEFORE* you go is amazing. GottaPark makes it super easy to figure out the best price / location before you are driving around in traffic. Check it out – especially if you are headed to a popular spot like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
Our new photo contest allows your work to be widely shared and win up to a $100 top prize. Check out the full rules and details for the San Francisco photo contest here.
Hotwire research by city shows that most hotel rates are down 25%-30% from the same month last year. This is a huge drop and it is giving much better prices for San Francisco hotels that we are seeing at all of our reviewed properties. You can check reviews and information on San Francisco hotels at sfTravel.
Covering the San Francisco hotel industry, we see a lot of prices North of $200, and even “bargains” in the $150 range. When we saw our readers increasingly booking a basic, value hotel – we wanted to share it.
The Opal Hotel is right on Van Ness in San Francisco and thankfully a bit away from the Union Square tourist traps. Its a basic, older hotel – but with good quality rooms and service. Right now – they are regularly selling rooms for under $75 and we expect that to continue with the US recession.
Check out Opal Hotel and their ridiculously low rates.
Alcatraz has always been one of San Francisco’s most loved attractions. The combination of a beautiful boat cruise out to a desolate island – with a troubled history attracts millions of visitors per year. The limited capacity of the boat tours has unfortunately created an after-market for the tickets that is leveraged by tour companies looking to make a quick buck. Shown below is one of many examples we’ve found on the internet. Our advice: watch out, and make sure you are buying your tickets from the direct source for Alcatraz tickets so you don’t get ripped off.
AlcatrazCruises.com – Day Tour – Adult Ticket – $26 (Official Vendor for Alcatraz Tickets)
AlcatrazTickets.com – Day Tour – Adult Ticket – $41 + a $3.95 “processing fee” per order.
Looking through both sites, we found no differences in what you would receive for your money – you’ll just be paying more at the “reseller” ticket vendor. Make sure you buy your Alcatraz tickets early, in advance, and directly from the official ticket / boat company.
There are also numerous “bundled” tours which combine a basic bus ride with the Alcatraz tour to make it more difficult to compare the price. Same concepts apply – and many of the bus tours are rushed affairs which make it difficult to enjoy your day.
San Francisco abounds with high priced tour bus companies that prey on lazy tourists. If you want to be carted around to some busy tourist sites – the charter buses can be convenient – if pricey.
But San Francisco wants to help you get the best discounts and has launched a very unique public bus service for just $7 “all you can ride” per day.
*Update* – The Culture Bus is no longer operating.
The Culture Bus is from the City of San Francisco and directly targeted at helping visitors see the most interesting sites including most of the largest museums and all of the attractions at the huge Golden Gate Park. To be fair, the bus doesn’t go to Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, and other of the more challenging sites for tour companies — but its convenience to the Union Square hotel district can’t be matched.
One of the best ways to get discounts on your trip is by avoiding rental cars in San Francisco, and the hideous parking fees that will accompany your drives. The Culture Bus is a cool new way to save money and see the best museums in San Francisco.
If you want amazing deals on hotels, without getting just “cheap hotels” – Priceline is an interesting tool. Priceline has great deals, but you don’t know what hotel you’re going to get with the “blind” bidding process. A number of sites help you narrow down these predictions and even understand the general level of bidding prices on Priceline for a given market. The sites have been around for years, but exist “undercover” since they move into a grey area of subverting the channel segmentation that allows Priceline to offer excess hotel inventory at lower prices. We’ve used the sites and saved regularly 65% or more from the posted hotel rates at major brand hotels including Marriott and Doubletree. Check it out for your next trip – if you can take a bit of randomness with your hotel selection – Priceline “prediction” sites help to narrow that down considerably and set the lowest possible bid.
As a publisher of San Francisco hotel reviews for many years, we found recent news stories pelting Yelp including San Francisco’s East Bay Express to be very interesting. News outlets including the New York Times and LA Times are considering whether there is any relationship between being a Yelp.com advertiser and getting great reviews on the site. We’ve generally found Yelp recommendations to be better than a “blind walk in”, but always view review sites with a jaunted eye. Several San Francisco businesses reported troubling incidents between the advertising sales staff of Yelp.com and what reviews they might / might not receive. Many reports of the connection of advertising sales with reviews continue in San Jose at this news link.
We’ll be clear – accurate, real reviews are what make the Internet so valuable. Whether the Yelp stories are true or not – it only emphasizes how important it is to separate editorial content and business sales operations for web publishers.