Must-see attractions in Northern California

  • October 9, 2014: Visitors gather at Glacier Point with the Half Dome mountain in the background.

    Yosemite National Park

    Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada

    Yosemite means "killer" in the Indigenous Miwok language, and in today's parlance it's indeed an impressive, awesome site. Everywhere you look in Yosemite…

  • An aerial view of Golden Gate Park from the Pacific Ocean. Golden Gate Park is the third most visited city park in the US.

    Golden Gate Park

    San Francisco

    When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…

  • APRIL 24, 2018: Victorian-style homes in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.

    Haight Street

    The Haight & Hayes Valley

    Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…

  • SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. 15th August, 2017: historic san francisco chinatown neighborhood

    Chinatown Alleyways

    North Beach & Chinatown

    If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…

  • SAN FRANCISCO - SEPT 2, 2017: The Beat Generation lives on at City Lights bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

    City Lights Books

    North Beach & Chinatown

    No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…

  • Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill Boulevard, San Francisco, USA

    Coit Tower

    North Beach & Chinatown

    If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…

  • Golden Gate Bridge at the golden hour from Baker Beach.

    Golden Gate Bridge

    The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers

    Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…

  • Dolores Park - San Francisco, California

    Dolores Park

    The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill

    Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…

  • Clarion Alley lined with murals.

    Clarion Alley

    The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill

    The Mission District has a long history of street art and muralismo – an oft-political school of public art prevalent throughout South and Central America…

  • 826 Valencia

    The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill

    Avast, ye scurvy scallywags! If ye be shipwrecked without yer eye patch or McSweeney's literary anthology, lay down ye doubloons and claim yer booty at…

  • Waverly Place

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Grant Ave is Chinatown's economic heart, but its soul is Waverly Place, lined with flag-festooned, colorful temple balconies and family-run businesses…

  • Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, USA.

    Alcatraz

    The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers

    Alcatraz: for over 150 years, the name has given the innocent chills and the guilty cold sweats. Over the decades, it’s been a military prison, a…

  • Exploratorium

    The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers

    Is there a science to skateboarding? Do toilets really flush counterclockwise in Australia? At San Francisco's hands-on science museum, you'll find out…

  • Balmy Alley

    The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill

    Since at least the 1980s, if you stroll through San Francisco's Mission District you've likely noticed the neighborhood's profusion of colorful murals and…

  • San Francisco, USA - Jun 24, 2015: Iconic Grace Cathedral stands on top of Nob Hill on a beautiful sunny, blue sky day; Shutterstock ID 1201473919; your: Meghan O'Dea; gl: 65050; netsuite: Online Editorial; full: POI

    Grace Cathedral

    San Francisco

    Is there any church that better embodies San Francisco's resilience, inclusivity and activist streak? The Nob Hill gem has been rebuilt three times since…

  • The new De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

    de Young Museum

    San Francisco

    Follow sculptor Andy Goldsworthy's artificial fault line in the sidewalk into Herzog & de Meuron's sleek, copper-clad building that's slowly oxidizing…

  • SAN FRANCISCO, USA - OCT 5, 2015: Tyrannosaur Rex skeleton in  California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum in San Francisco, California. It was established in 1853

    California Academy of Sciences

    San Francisco

    This classic research institute and museum has been teaching San Franciscans about natural history since 1853. Right in the middle of Golden Gate Park,…

  • San Francisco: Chinatown, Grant Avenue  (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images) *** Local Caption ***

    Chinese Historical Society of America

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Picture what it was like to be Chinese in America during the gold rush, transcontinental railroad construction, and Beat heyday in this 1932 landmark,…

  • MONTEREY, CA - APRIL10:  The exterior of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, located at Cannery Row two hours south of San Francisco, is viewed on April 10, 2018, in Monterey, California. An estimated 15 million domestic and international travelers visit California each year generating more than $100 billion in revenue and creating more than one million jobs in the arts, entertainment, recreation, food service and accomodations sectors. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

    Monterey Bay Aquarium

    Monterey

    Monterey is practically synonymous with its world-class aquarium overlooking Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which protects dense kelp forests and…

  • A coastal path, part of the Partington Cove Trail in Julia Pfeiffer State Park.

    Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

    Big Sur

    If you're chasing waterfalls, swing into this state park named for the daughter of some of the earliest European settlers to arrive in Big Sur. The…

  • Pfeiffer State Beach

    Pfeiffer Beach

    Big Sur

    Pfeiffer Beach is at the heart of what Big Sur is all about – splendid, unusual scenery that's inspired generations of artists, writers, and travelers…

  • Train tracks in Santa Cruz, California, USA.

    Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

    Santa Cruz

    The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has been an Americana classic like few others for over a century. Now as in 1907 when the amusement park first opened, the…

  • The well-known Pier 39 in San Francisco with sea lions. Animals are heated on wooden platforms

    Sea Lions at Pier 39

    The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers

    Sea lions took over San Francisco’s most coveted waterfront real estate in 1989 and have been making a public display of themselves ever since. Some…

  • Earthquake Fault on Minaret Road near Mammoth Lakes California

    Earthquake Fault

    Mammoth Lakes

    Mammoth Mountain is the product of millions of years of volcanic activity, so it should be no surprise that the region surrounding it is full of…

  • General Grant Grove trees

    Mariposa Grove

    Yosemite National Park

    With their massive stature and multi-millennium maturity, the chunky high-rise sequoias of Mariposa Grove will make you feel rather insignificant. The…

  • Half Dome and the Yosemite Valley viewed from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park

    Glacier Point

    Yosemite National Park

    If you drove, the views from 7214ft Glacier Point might make you feel like you cheated – superstar sights present themselves without your having made…

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    Women's Building

    The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill

    A renowned and beloved Mission landmark since 1979, the nation's first women-owned-and-operated community center is festooned with one of the neighborhood…

  • Haight Street Art Center

    The Haight & Hayes Valley

    Jeremy Fish's bronze bunny-skull sculpture hints at the weird wonders inside this nonprofit dedicated to works on paper and San Francisco's signature art…

  • Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

    Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada

    Joined by a high-altitude roadway bisecting a national forest and contiguous with a number of wilderness areas, these two parks combined offer vast…

  • Catharine Clark Gallery

    The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill

    Art revolutions are instigated at Catharine Clark, a showcase for such gorgeous provocations as Masami Teraoka's paintings of superheroine geishas and…

  • Male or bull Roosevelt elk (Cervus canadensis roosevelti) browsing on grasses near Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, California

    Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

    North Coast & Redwoods

    Famous for some of the world's best virgin redwood groves and unspoiled coastline, this 14,000-acre section of Redwood National & State Parks has…

  • Emerald Bay State Park

    South Lake Tahoe & Stateline

    Sheer granite cliffs and a jagged shoreline hem in glacier-carved Emerald Bay, a teardrop cove that will have you digging for your camera. Its most…

  • Itchy goat scratching itself

    Tilden Regional Park

    Berkeley

    This 2079-acre park, up in the hills east of town, is Berkeley’s best. It has nearly 40 miles of hiking and multiuse trails of varying difficulty, from…

  • USA, California, Pacific Coast, National Scenic Byway, Big Sur, Point Sur State Historic Park, View to Point Sur Lighthouse

    Point Sur State Historic Park

    Big Sur

    A little over 6 miles south of Bixby Bridge, Point Sur rises like a velvety green fortress out of the sea. It looks like an island, but is actually…

  • California Street Cable Car

    Cable Car Museum

    San Francisco

    That clamor you hear riding cable cars is the sound of San Francisco's peak technology at work. Gears click and wire-hemp ropes whir as these vintage…

  • ST. HELENA, CA - SEPTEMBER 25: Rows of oak wine barrels sit on racks at Tres Sabores Winery September 25, 2009 in St. Helena, California. Tres Sabores, a certified organic winery, has strated to harvest their grapes for the 2009 vintage as wineries throughout the Napa and Sonoma Valleys begin to harvest and crush grapes.  (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    Tres Sabores

    Napa Valley

    At the valley’s westernmost edge, where sloping vineyards meet wooded hillsides, Tres Sabores is a portal to old Napa – no fancy tasting room, no snobbery…

  • Sacramento California, USA - May 23, 2020: Downtown aerial view of the Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings basketball team.

    Golden 1 Center

    Sacramento

    Welcome to the arena of the future. This gleaming home to the Sacramento Kings is one of the most advanced sports facilities in the country. Made with the…

  • Cycle race at Musee Mecanique, housing collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines.

    Musée Mécanique

    The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers

    A flashback to penny arcades, the Musée Mécanique houses a mind-blowing collection of vintage mechanical amusements. Sinister, freckle-faced Laughing Sal…

  • Chabot Space & Science Center

    Oakland

    Stargazers will go gaga over this kid-oriented science and technology center in the Oakland Hills with loads of exhibits on subjects such as space travel…

  • Gray Whale Display Skeleton

    Seymour Marine Discovery Center

    Santa Cruz

    This educational center is part of UCSC’s Long Marine Laboratory. Interactive natural-science exhibits include tidal touch pools and aquariums, while…