San Francisco - Introduction 

The Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco behind   San Francisco Transamerica Building

San Francisco is one of the world's most exciting cities, and a popular destination for many travellers. It's known for the scenic Golden Gate Bridge, for the former prison island of Alcatraz, for the heritage of the earthquake and the Flower Power era, and for the striking modern buildings in the city centre right next to Chinatown. Cablecar trams run up and down the steet city streets made famous in the film "Bullitt" back in 1968.

There are many walks to be enjoyed around the city streets, taking in the urban scenery and views across the Bay. There are several large parks within the city where you can take a hike as well.

But probably few visitors realise that also within easy reach is some excellent hiking in the countryside and hills, accessible by rail or bus - the Bay Area has a terrific public transport system including BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains. You don't need to travel all the way to Yosemite National Park to enjoy some wonderful scenery (although you can do that too, and we'd welcome stories from anyone who's been there).

The pages listed below feature contrasting walking stories covering the city centre, the Golden Gate and some of the hills nearby.

There's plenty of room for any other San Francisco walks that members of Walking Stories would like to submit!

As the hillwalks were undertaken in 1997 without a digital camera, there are only a few photos posted after scanning. If you have any great pics of the area, how about sharing them with the rest of the world via Walking Stories?

Also, some of the details are a bit sketchy - the hillwalks were 8 years ago now. I'd been in Berkeley for a week learning about scenario planning, of all things, and as it was my first visit to the West Coast I'd added on a couple of days at the weekends, to adjust to the time difference and have time for some sightseeing. This was one of those Excellent Decisions you sometimes make in life. Four extra days, three great walks and a day seeing round the city in wonderful autumn weather. Can you think of many better scenarios?

Submitted by Andrew Llanwarne

Stories

(To order the stories by name, date, country or type click on the appropriate heading)