• Wine Tour

    Wine Country in the City

    You’re invited to an urban tasting trip of San Francisco’s wine bars, hosted by a knowledgeable resident and wine enthusiast. Sample wines by the glass, or in flights designed to showcase California's best wines.

  • The Mission

    The Mission District

    San Francisco's first neighborhood, The Mission District is still the heart and soul of vibrant SanFrancisco. This culinary journey is so wonderfully vast that we've slpit the Mission into twp tours

  • North Beach

    North Beach

    North Beach is that rare thing -- a neighborhood that manages to be a perennial hit with tourists, and also to remain beloved by San Franciscans. It's San Francisco's Little Italy and the home of the beatniks

  • Scenic Running

    Scenic Running

    Just a short run from the urban landscape of San Francisco's busy city streets you will find numerous trails and parks offering phenomenal views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the City Skyline and other gems.

  • Chinatown

    Chinatown

    Established in the 1840s, San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia.

  • Parrots!

    Parrots!

    Wild Parrots in San Francisco? Yes there are officially at least two flocks of wild Parrots here. These Parrots have evolved into a brand new species of parrot indigenous to San Francisco.

<Wild SF parrots>                   A culinary tour of two neighborhoods

 

To make things interestng there are now also two different  versions of this tour: One begins at 2:00PM and one begins at 5:30 making now two walking  tours of these two neighboring neighborhoods that are slightly different depending on the time you depart.

During the day, when the shops, temples, and museums are open so we  explore a bit more. This is the tour that shows you the behind the scenes Chinatown,  take this tour if you are curious about local customs and businesses  and how they operate. We might go into the temples, the herbalist's shop, perhaps we will see a live  poulty seller, the flower stalls, the produce vendor, we will go into a gift shop or two that tourists never get to see.

At night the work-day ends, and as the business world winds down the restaurant and cafe scenes are just waking up and the nightclub & bars, and strip clubs, are getting ready for the night, but the streets are less hectic and the atmosphere is more relaxed.

Chinatown

There are two Chinatowns: One belongs to the locals, the other charms the tourists. They overlap and dance with each other, drawing more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge. At Explore San Francisco, we show you the city as a local, so we will indeed take you to the main street for tourists, Grant Street but even on this street there are hidden gems that most people don't know about, we will show them to you. Then we will also escort you into the alleys and side streets where the residents lead their lives, usually unseen by most tourists.

We are going to see the sights and we'll be transported to another, more exotic world. We will sip fragrant teas in a gourmet tea shop. We will eat Dim Sum and visit a fortune cookie factory.We'll see Portsmouth Square where older men play elephant chess next to groups practicing Tai Chi and women playing cards. We may go to a local herbalist and we'll even go to a Buddhist Temple. These are not things that you would find on your own. And as we go through Chinatown, we will be sampling delicious foods along the way.

Portsmouth Square was once the heart of the city and on the waterfront, North Beach was once on the waterfront also...

North Beach


Welcome to San Francisco's Little Italy, the city's most charming neighborhood with a checkered past.
North Beach is that rare thing -- a neighborhood that manages to be a  perennial hit with tourists, and also to remain beloved by San Franciscans.
It's best known as San Francisco's Little Italy, with its high density of check-clothed ristorantes, caffes and Old World delicatessens. We'll see the bar where the beatniks drank and the bookstore where they read their works.

When we eat in North Beach, enjoy basta pasta or make your own canoli, enjoy espresso or a slice of pizza
Then we will then go to a semi-secret spot in the heart of the neighborhood with one of the best views in the city,
so make sure and bring your camera! Then we'll see the neighborhood sights including: St Peter's and Paul's Church, Washington Square, Grant Street, Columbus Ave, St. Francis of Assisi Church, Broadway, City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio.

We'll work our way up Columbus past bustling sidewalk cafes, where the air smells like freshly baked bread, garlic and espresso. Passing pottery shops, bakeries, trattorias, pizzerias, delicatessens and bars. We will then go to a semi-secret spot in the heart of the neighborhood with one of the best views in the city, so make sure and bring your camera! We will head for an internationally acclaimed pizza school and taste what the students are devoting their time to master, coal-fired pizza! We'll see the neighborhood sights including: Sts. Peter and Paul Church( where Joe DiMaggion and Marylin Monroe were not married) , Coit Tower from afar and beautiful Washington Square.

North Beach and Chinatown Food Tour

 

North Beach and Chinatown Nighttime Food Tour


Click here for a Photo Tour of North Beach

Click here for a Photo Tour of Chinatown

 


We also offer these related tours:

Polk Street Food | Downtown Cocktails  |    North Beach Walk  |  North Beach Food   |  North Beach & Chinatown
Alcatraz Package Tours    |   Chinatown Food |  Chinatown Walk  |  Mission Food    |    Mission Walk   |     Mission Food & Drink

 


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