How To See San Francisco Like a First Timer

Image created using Midjourney by Heather Atles, sex therapist and BrokeAss favorite.

So you’ve lived here long enough to develop a routine and now you want to break out of it. What if you’re strapped for cash and you forgot why you work so hard to stay here? It’s more common than you think. One possibility is that it’s time for new memories, so I’ve thought up some cheap ways to see San Francisco like a first timer.

Take a different bus route.

Unless you live along its roughly 40-block route, the 2-Sutter is one of those MUNI lines you sort of forget exists. The inbound fork, destination: Embarcadero, runs along Post Street not far from my building. Still, the 38 runs even closer, and I’m a creature of convenience. The 38 terminates at the Transit Center, four blocks from the Ferry Building where I had lunch last week. Walking back, I noticed the 2-Sutter stationed at what turned out to be its first outbound stop on Steuart and Market. Sutter Street-to-home equals half the distance from waterfront-to-Transit Center. I’d never taken the 2 from downtown before, so of course I hopped on.

The 30 is one of SF’s busiest lines, running straight through the heart of Chinatown. Courtesy Shutterstock.

It enters the skyscraper-walled canyon at the foot of Market and follows the street up to Market and Sutter. The right turn onto Sutter takes you into the still-beating heart of San Francisco’s OG Financial District. It made me glad to see all that striking post-1906 Art Deco still bustling with an admiring if smaller crowd. I hadn’t seen this side of the city before. Daylight glinted off windows I was gazing into for the first time. Crossing Kearny I caught glimpses of the fifties looking back at me: streamlined façades and stucco storefronts, atomic-age fonts and neon signs weeping rust. 

Busy valets and airy boutiques signaled proximity to Union Square and I pictured generations of San Franciscans riding this line home from work. The bus still lives in my head as the 2-Clement because that’s where it belongs and has since the line’s inception. A relief valve for the crowded 38 and 1-California, it linked Chinatown to the city’s other, lesser-known Chinatown. The 2 looks different today. Now it doesn’t run down Clement Street at all. 

Spend time in the diametric opposite of your neighborhood.

A friend I should visit more often lives in the Sunset just south of Golden Gate Park. Every time I go, I think, Why don’t I come out here more often? It’s the antithesis of where I live; quiet, clean, green. Gifts the Tenderloin has given me include the true results of Mayor Breed’s policymaking, perfect models of unbidden human compassion, and Poopvision, the ability to spot and sidestep feces day and night. None of these extremes were prevalent in the Sunset. Here I sustained my observations instead of leaving them to my periphery. I heard pine trees whisper in the onshore breeze, felt the mist pelt my face, got the occasional whiff of invasive eucalyptus. It’s a different city out there; also, shit, have you been to Kevin’s Noodle House? 

Burn a day (or night) in the East Bay.

I met a handsome Englishman at work and when we first arranged to meet, he offered to BART to the city. My suggestion was Jupiter in Berkeley. It’s right on top of Downtown Berkeley BART, a short ride from San Francisco for me and for him, his downtown Oakland apartment. We met at 8pm and closed the place out. He thanked me for coming to Berkeley in a way that revealed how our East Bay friends feel about us. 

It’s not an imposition to travel across the Bay. Bridge-and-tunnel attitudes are unbecoming of us. I wouldn’t bash Oakland by suggesting you take a walk there to appreciate what you have in the city. That’s what Walnut Creek is for. What I’m saying is, let the Bay Area show you why the Bay Area is amazing. Don’t just rely on San Francisco. We all have friends in Oakland, so how about we make time to see them?

Attend the First Fridays art walk on Telegraph Avenue between 27th & 22nd Streets in Oakland. Rope a San Jose resident into going with you to the Winchester House (Yes I’ve been and yes, it is worth it). Ask your friend and PhD candidate to show you around the UC Berkeley campus. Take your big-titty goth GF to Mountain View Cemetery and snap selfies with the Black Dahlia’s gravemarker. The only thing you’ll be sad over is how relatively inexpensive the East Bay is. 

Walk the beach at night.

Of all my suggestions regarding how to see San Francisco like a first timer, this one might seem the most esoteric. Maybe that’s all it is. I think it’s what you make it. Is that so bad?

Baker Beach at night can be a spiritual experience. Dress warmly. Courtesy Shutterstock.

It’s not far off from meditation. I’m too fidgety for the traditional kind, so for me, this is meditation. Bundle up if you take my advice. Transformative though it may be, it will be cold. 

It sounds silly, but to get started, just approach the water’s edge and gaze into the ocean. Stare at the barely visible seafoam collecting near your feet, at the breaking waves that seem to come out of nowhere. At night you can’t tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins. As life starts to fall into perspective, earthly problems lose their razor’s edge, and soon it’s like you’re standing on the shores of a dream. 

You can accomplish a similar effect at Crissy Field or the beaches on Alameda Island. To feel it at its fullest I would choose Baker or Ocean Beach. The Yelamu, an Ohlone band that occupied modern-day San Francisco, had a term for ceremonies performed there. They called it “dancing on the brink of the world.” 

Indulge in the arts.

Now that you’re all spiritually open and your chakras are aligned, let’s get epicurean with it. Do you have a friend who sings in the SF Gay Mens’ Chorus (of course you do)? Buy a ticket to the next show, cheap seats are only $25. Now some artists. Who do you know? Ask them when and where to see good local art on display. One needs to shake up their imagination once in a while. When it comes to seeking new, quality stimulus, feel free to let someone else do the driving. 

A strange thing happens when a show lets out. Crowds burst from the venue abuzz with energy imparted to them by the band/cast and crew/etc.’s hard work. A great show takes you out of the world you inhabit long enough to disorient you when you return. The last SFGMC show I caught had me so enraptured that when my partner and I left, I briefly didn’t recognize City Hall. That’s partly what makes it a production. 

See if your well-off friends are donors and volunteer your company for a night at the opera. I did, and he was able to score us tickets to Innocence. A theater nerd passionate about gun reform, I was looking forward to seeing this. Some truly elaborate setwork went into telling this important story, and to high praise. Then I got COVID. If I get over it in time (my third tussle so far), I’ll get to catch Innocence while the show’s in town—you should too.