National Geographic Traveler: San Francisco, 5th Edition

I have found the National Geographic Traveler books to be ideal when planning a visit to a city. The San Francisco book seems up to the usual standards. These books cover the more interesting attractions, including some great photos, and are organized by area, which makes it easier to select what you want to see and plan your days. Another feature which should not be overlooked is the section in the back, which recommends some excellent restaurants.

If you plan to buy a Guide for San Fransisco,you really owe it to yourself to check out this one.It covers everything you want in a guide and does a supurb job in all respects.First of all the construction is excellent. Nat.Geo.publish a Guide to Birds of North America,and make them so good that they are able to take a phenomenal amount of use and even abuse.Birders get daily use of them for years and I have never seen or heard of one coming apart.If anything,they are built too good-a rare thing today.If one were to use this guide every day,you would still be using it a year later.The paper,printing,color,etc.could not be better.Most travel guides are pretty ratty after a short time and you will be amazed ,that this book will stay in great shape.The detail of information could not be better.It is full of excellent photos,maps,directions,and organized very well.Of course it is excellent as a travel guide,but it will serve as well as an excellent resource to keep handy whenever you want to find information on any historical or other points of interest in the city.There are a lot of great drawings of the interior of buildings,such as the Sutro Baths,museums,Alcatraz,Early History and many neighborhoods and personalities.There is also a section on excursions,The Peninsula & Silicon Valley,Monteray Peninsula,Carmel-by-the-Sea,Berkley,Oakland,Marin County,Napa Valley,Sonoma Valley,Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe.And of course lots of info on travel,accomodations,shopping,dining,and just about anything you'd want to know about one of the most enjoyable cities in North America.Not only will it serve you well when visiting San Francisco,but will also serve as a great way to remember it all.

This is one of the best guidebooks I have encountered that covers San Francisco as a whole. First of all, the layout is excellent (as one would hope for from National Geographic). The sections for each neighborhood are color-coded for easy access and each neighborhood features a great map that not only highlights attractions, but a feature that shows you where that neighborhood is located within the city--this is enormously helpful in putting the pieces of the city together into a coherent whole, and should be a feature in every city guidebook.Second, the guidebook includes all major attractions and a number of the minor ones. Descriptions are brief, but adequate. The guidebook excels at giving great tidbits about SF history and of the changing character and culture of its neighborhoods (though be warned that they are slightly racy at times).Third, the photographs are fabulous and do a great job of highlighting some of San Francisco's sights that must be 'seen'. This is particurarly well-done as the guidebook covers a lot of ground (dedicating space to all major parts of SF, not just the ones most visited) and uses photos to achieve maximum efficiency to convey information to the reader.My complaints with the guide are few. The hotel and restaurant descriptions are included in their own section in the back. This allows each neighborhood section to be more compact (and accessible) but probably requires a bit more flipping to find a lunch when in a given neighborhood. In addition, the guidebook uses a price coding system that makes it more difficult to figure out how much hotels and restaurants cost (though, in their defense, they do repeat the key to the coding system every other page unlike most guidebooks that hide it somewhere in the introduction).The other complaints I had were that the section on excursions outside of San Francisco was too rudimentary to be of much use--if you plan to go elsewhere in the Bay Area, you should compliment this book with one that has a better focus on Bay Area attractions. Finally the transit map on the back cover is not helpful. National Geographic tries to represent bus lines as being akin to the London Underground (with no attention to geographic realities)--this representation won't help you catch a bus. Get a Muni transit map once you get to San Francisco.That being said, if you want a solid guide to the city of San Francisco itself--this guidebook from National Geographic is a good bet.

This guide has beautiful photographs and interesting maps of the various sections of the city and would have been perfectly adequate alone, but my wife and I also had Eyewitness Travel Guides'San Francisco and Northern California. I found the information in Eyewitness more relevant and helpful. The real surprise is that the maps provided by Eyewitness were better than the vaunted Geographic!