Play: Channel your inner tourist and take a free walking tour through the city.
Even longtime residents will learn about the Bay Area’s rich history on
The Bay Area is bursting with tons of fun things to do — if you have the bucks, that is. My idea of a perfect day, assuming I had a C-note to spare: Take in the Monet exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young Museum ($35), eat whole fish with hand-pulled noodles at Z & Y in Chinatown ($35 with tip), then head over to the Golden Gate pole-dancing competition ($35).
Luckily, I’ve discovered something else enjoyable that doesn’t require splurging: free walking tours. Before you groan, consider the benefits — it’s a chill way to burn calories while deepening your appreciation of this beautiful place we’re determined to call home despite the insane cost of living.
Before smartphones came along, not having money to burn on a tour guide meant lugging around a clunky guidebook and squinting at the relatively small maps to figure out if you were on the right street. Now, we have so many better free options, from walking tour apps to meetup groups to freebies led by a human guide.
Curious about the Port of Oakland and those big cranes that lean over the bay like metal dinosaurs? The nation’s fifth-largest container port is closed to the public, but you can get a free tour of it from May through October aboard a Blue and Gold commuter ferry.
Always wanted to check out Stanford? A volunteer tour guide (visit.stanford.edu/tours) is available seven days a week at 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to lead you on a free 70-minute walk.
Then there are tour apps that can be downloaded onto your smartphone — with narration and without.
VoiceMap features narration by guides with strong ties to places like San Francisco’s Mission District for $1.99 and up. The app lets you listen before you set out, so you can decide what you’re interested in seeing.
With other apps, like Mobile Ranger in Santa Cruz County, there’s no narration; you have to read about each point of interest on your smartphone. (At least it’s lighter than a guidebook and uses GPS to guide you.) But the things you find out! Did you know there’s a square, springfed pond in a redwood grove near the UC Santa Cruz campus filled with goldfish and koi? I lived in Santa Cruz for 16 years and had never heard of it.
Meetup groups are another option, like one I found for amateur or professional photographers interested in exploring hidden stairways (bayareane.ws/StairWalks) in San Francisco and the East Bay.
There also are free walking tours led by volunteers, such as San Francisco’s venerable City Guides (www.sfcityguides.org), a nonprofit that offers 30 tours a month by history-loving guides who accept donations.
They range from oldies but goodies (of the Ferry Building, Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park) to the more obscure but intriguing (Inner Richmond,
Sunset and Mount Davidson).
I chose Free San Francisco Tour (www. freesftour.com) instead, because its walks start off at Union Square near the Powell Street BART station at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. daily, and I didn’t have to make a reservation. Founder Filip Todd Lazarevski, who was born in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia but speaks English fluently with a charming accent, took a ragtag group of us — all of whom were younger than 35, except for me — on a fascinating 2.5-hour tour of downtown, Chinatown and the Financial District.
This New Jersey native learned a lot: Why the Golden Gate is vermilion orange rather than black and yellow as the U.S. Navy wanted (for visibility’s sake in the fog); the origin of the term “sugar daddy” (former nude model and eventual San Francisco philanthropist Alma de Bretteville’s marriage to sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels); as well as how, in the wake of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, the powers that be tried to move Chinatown to the mudflats south of the city and seize the valuable real estate.
Lazarevski also took us up to a littleknown, sunny rooftop garden at 343 Sansome St. with views of the Transamerica Pyramid and the bay. It turns out it’s one of downtown San Francisco’s privately owned public open spaces, commonly referred to as POPOS. These hidden gems include plazas, terraces, atriums and small parks, none of which I’d ever have known about if it weren’t for the tour.
So, take advantage of the fact you live in one of the most glorious — and expensive — destinations on earth by treating yourself to a free walking tour.