Tucked into the bustle of San Francisco's Pier 39 waterfront, the 7D Experience is a compact, high-energy interactive ride that fuses the screen-based action of a video game with the physical motion of a theme-park attraction. Part of a small American chain of such rides, the venue opened on the pier in the mid-2010s and quickly became a favourite quick stop for families and groups looking for a punchy diversion between the sea-lion docks, restaurants and shopping along the bay. The format is s.....

Few prison sites in the world are as instantly recognisable as Alcatraz, the small rocky island in the middle of San Francisco Bay whose name has become shorthand for inescapable confinement. Originally a military fortification and Civil War-era detention site, the island opened as the United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, in August 1934, conceived as a maximum-security, minimum-privilege federal prison to hold the most disruptive inmates from elsewhere in the federal system. The icy curr.....

The largest natural island in San Francisco Bay, Angel Island rises steeply from the water just north of San Francisco and across a narrow channel from Tiburon, its tree-covered slopes and 788-foot Mount Caroline Livermore offering some of the most expansive views anywhere in the region. Long inhabited by the Coast Miwok people, the island was named in 1775 by the Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, and over the next two centuries became, in turn, a Civil War-era army post, a quarantine stati.....

At the gateway to bustling Pier 39, the Aquarium of the Bay focuses tightly on the marine ecosystems of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific waters that lap the shore just beyond its doors. Opened in 1996 and operated by a non-profit organisation dedicated to conservation along the central Californian coast, the aquarium has built its reputation on highlighting the dramatic local fauna of cold-water sharks, bay rays, sturgeon, sea anemones and the surprisingly rich life found beneath the famous Gol.....

Occupying a handsomely restored building on Mason Street in San Francisco's Union Square district, August Hall is a multi-level live-music venue and nightlife destination that opened in 2018 on the site of the former Ruby Skye nightclub. Conceived as a modern, design-led space for concerts and events, it pairs a grand main hall with a series of bars and a basement entertainment lounge, blending live performance with a polished social experience. The main room is the heart of the operation, a hi.....

San Francisco's most glamorous nightclub began as a Prohibition speakeasy with showgirls and backroom gaming tables. Agostino "Bimbo" Giuntoli - nicknamed by a partner who could not pronounce Agostino - opened the 365 Club in 1931 on the third floor of 365 Market Street, promising "open 365 days" and the World's Best Dinner from 3 dollars 65. In 1951 he moved the operation into the Art Deco building at 1025 Columbus Avenue in North Beach, designed by master architect Timothy Pflueger for the riv.....

Near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, the Cartoon Art Museum is the only museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, editorial cartoons, anime and animation art. Founded in 1984 with a substantial endowment from the cartoonist Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts fame, the museum has occupied several locations in the city over the decades and reopened in its current Beach Street home in 2017 after a brief closure. The collection numbers some seven .....

Anchored by the elaborate Dragon Gate at the foot of Grant Avenue, San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest established Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Its origins go back to the late 1840s, when Chinese immigrants arrived in the city during the California Gold Rush, and the neighbourhood has remained a vital cultural, residential and commercial centre for the city's Chinese American community ever since, despite being entirely destroyed in the 1906 eart.....

In the heart of San Francisco's North Beach neighbourhood, Club Fugazi is one of the most storied small theatres in the city. The venue is housed in a handsome 1912 Italian Renaissance-style hall built by the Italian American immigrant John F. Fugazi as a community gathering place for the city's growing Italian population, who flocked to North Beach in the early decades of the twentieth century. The intimate, 400-seat hall is best known as the long-running home of Beach Blanket Babylon, a satir.....

Jim Carrey credits this club with jump-starting his career, and Robin Williams treated it as his home laboratory for three decades. Cobb's Comedy Club began in 1982 as Cobb's Pub, a 110-seat neighbourhood bar at 2069 Chestnut Street in San Francisco's Marina District that owner Ron Kakiki - with help from the comedy troupe Femprov, who designed the stage - converted into a full-time laugh room run with John Cantu. Tom Sawyer, a booker from opening day who later bought the club with his wife Caro.....