Overview

This fascinating personalizedpremium tour is the ultimate full-day San Francisco experience. Tour the City by the Bay your way, at your pace and without being rushed. This is a superb way to enjoy an-depth custom tripand gain an insider access to remote neighborhoods, hidden attractions, hanging cliffs, steep hills and narrow streets where large vehicles are prohibited.

Description

Choose how you want to travel, without being rushed and enjoy this full-day San Francisco city private tour experience. Join us now and explore the magnificent wonders, attractions and sights of the City by the Bay, at your own pace.

Experience the magic, mystery, culture, architecture and landmarks of the exciting metropolis of San Francisco. Travel in style and comfort with our luxury SUV tours led by local passionate, highly rated and trained guides. This full-day private custom tour package is the ultimate touring experience. Enjoy a customized trip itinerary that will cover twice as much as a half-day tour can offer you, without being rushed. This is a fascinating full-day experience that will explore every corner of our mega metropolis.

This is a superb way to enjoy an in-depth custom tour experience and gain insider access to remote neighborhoods, hidden attractions, hanging cliffs, steep hills and narrow streets. Many of these picturesque hills and narrows streets are prohibited to van and bus tours, including Lombard street ‘the crookedest street in California’. This is where our expert tour guides come in handy, and our luxury vehicles are well-suited to this steep terrain and restricted sites. We will stop anywhere you want, so you can capture the stunning views and sights of San Francisco.

This one-to-one personalized experience is not just a sightseeing city tour, but a fascinating way to discover every famous and hidden site of San Francisco. Enjoy insider access to unique cultural encounters with locals, away from crowded sights and large bus tours. This new full-day tour is the ultimate experience. Visit famous sights, neighborhoods, museums, beaches, parks, forests, hidden treasures, painted staircases, murals and Victorian homes, that tour buses miss. It is a highly rated and recommended experience for all ages. Hike, walk or drive to stunning overlooks and enjoy breathtaking and rewarding views.

Make the most of your San Francisco vacation during your stay in San Francisco and visit San Francisco’s top attractions and famous landmarks or sights. Even places and sites restricted or prohibited to large vehicles, such as bus and van tours, can be experienced with our custom tour. Not only will you visit twice as many sights and attractions than what a large van or bus tour can show you in a day tour, but we also offer you an insider’s access to the scenic hills, hanging cliffs and neighborhoods like Lombard street ‘the crookedest street in the city’, where large vehicles are prohibited.
Sit back, relax and let your driver take care of the driving and guiding for you. Our drivers are also expert local tour guides who have earned hundreds of excellent trip reviews.

Whether you are visiting San Francisco for the first time, for business, leisure, with or without your family, this is the most convenient and ideal way to visit the city’s top attractions and sights, whilst leaving you with plenty of spare time for your own leisure pursuits.

We will provide ample time for you to step out, walk, hike, visit places and take photographs along the way and anywhere you want to stop. You will sight see and drive through San Francisco’s top sights, iconic landmarks, attractions and see the most eclectic neighborhoods from Chinatown, to Little Italy, the Billionaire’s Row in the Pacific Heights and even the hippie district of Haight-Ashbury and much more. Please refer the detailed tour itinerary for more information about this exciting trip that covers the four corners of San Francisco.

Itinerary

Brief Itinerary

Complimentary pick-up and drop-off at your hotel in San Francisco
Drive through Union Square
See Nob Hill and Grace Cathedral
Drive through Chinatown
Visit North Beach ‘Little Italy’
Drive by SUV on Lombard Street, ‘The Crookedest Street in San Francisco’.
Drive through Pier 39 and the Fisherman’s Wharf area
Visit Marina District and the Palace of Fine Arts
See the Billionaire’s Row in the Pacific Heights
Picture the Golden Gate Bridge
Drive through Sea Cliff neighborhood
Land’s End and its landmarks like the Palace of the Legion of Honor
See the Golden Gate Park Attractions
Visit Haight-Ashbury
Travel to the Twin Peaks and Sutro Tower
See the ‘Painted Ladies’ at Alamo Square
The Eclectic Mission District
Noe Valley and the scenic staircases neighborhood
Drive by Castro or Mission Dolores
Potrero Hill with its superb views of the bay and city skyline
AT&T Park, the Ferry Building and Treasure Island
Drive by the Civic Center on the way back to your hotel
Japan town – The ‘Little Osaka’ of the West
The itinerary may change based on your time, road or weather conditions, pick-up location and preference.

Detailed Itinerary

Complimentary pick-up and drop-off at your hotel and on-route for an exciting guided city tour of San Francisco.

Visit or drive through San Francisco Union Square which is visitors’ top destination for shopping, dining and entertainment in San Francisco and where top hotels are also found.

Drive up to Nob Hill, photograph iconic landmarks like Grace Cathedral and inquire about the top Hollywood movie locations in this famous neighborhood.

Drive through San Francisco Chinatown – one of the largest Asian communities outside of China, and a very popular destination for shopping and dining.

Drive through the Italian District of North Beach along Washington Square, and picture the Roman Catholic Church of Saints Peter and Paul, and some typical Italian sights.

Drive by San Francisco Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf area located between the Embarcadero and Fort Mason. Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, at the edge of the famous Fisherman’s Wharf district. Ask your driver to drop you off there at the end of the tour as you should allocate a full day exploring this area on your own. Many families and groups prefer staying here which is away from the hustle and bustle of downtown San Francisco.

Visit Telegraph Hill looming over Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, Embarcadero and the Ferry Building, and Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge. Along with Coit Tower – a slender white concrete column that sits atop Telegraph Hill – which has been an emblem of San Francisco’s skyline since its completion in 1933, you can also capture Alcatraz Island, the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge from there.

Lombard Street – San Francisco’s ‘Crookedest Street’ where bus and van tours are prohibited. Save yourself the steep walk up and downhill, and let us take you there aboard our luxury vehicles where larger vehicles are prohibited.

Visit the iconic Palace of Fine Arts monument in Marina District, adjacent to the San Francisco historic presidio and Crissy field.

Explore the spectacular Pacific Heights area and its famous Billionaire’s Row where some mansions cost over $39 million dollars. Admire the stunning views from various angles, see the house where Mrs. Doubtfire was filmed, and the magnificent staircase steps down Lyon street.

The Presidio of San Francisco-drive and stop at stunning overlooks and attractions in the Presidio. The Presidio of San Francisco is a former U.S. Army military base, and before it served as a Mexican and even as a Spanish army base as well. Today, it’s home to restaurants, golf courses, recreational destination and museums like Walt Disney, and George Lucas Film Studios where the famous Star Wars movies are made.

Marvel at the iconic Golden Gate Bridge; is a masterpiece Art Deco colorful 1.7-mile bridge which was built in 1937. This suspension bridge spans over the Golden Gate strait and became one of the seven wonders of the modern world. For time and traffic considerations, we do not go across the bridge, but we offer a better stop at Fort Point or from Baker Beach, the best overlook over the bridge particularly when it’s foggy.

Drive through the wealthy neighborhood of Sea Cliff and the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Enjoy stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge and photograph an amazing array of sculptures outside of the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Lands’ End and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area – Drive through Lands’ End and enjoy picturesque photo stops. This is a beautiful park located in the San Francisco Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It offers stunning overlooks, rocky shorelines, hidden beaches, sheer cliffs, coastal walking trails and a very informative visitor Center located by the Cliff House (by Ocean Beach) where a photo stop will be scheduled.

Visit the majestic Golden Gate Park which is over three miles (4.8 km) long, east to west (between Ocean Beach and Haight-Ashbury Area). It’s the fifth most-visited city park in the United States and home to amazing array of attractions such as California Academy of Sciences, and its natural history museum, de Young Museum, the Conservatory of Flowers, the Japanese Tea Garden, Stow Lake, Beach Chalet, the Dutch and Murphy Windmill, the Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum and much more.

Visit Haight-Ashbury, the birthplace of North America’s counter-culture and the hippies and artists of the famous summers of love, where Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin once lived.

Twin Peaks – Join us on the winding road up to the Twin Peaks; a stunning overlook offering the best lookout of the city skyline and sweeping views of the entire San Francisco Bay Area.

Drive through Alamo Square Park home of the ‘Painted Ladies’ where vans and bus tours are prohibited. We recommend booking the SUV tour option.

The Civic Center and the City Hall Neighborhood. San Francisco’s Civic Center is located in the heart of the city, and home to many government and cultural organizations. The Plaza is surrounded by the War Memorial Opera House, Asian Art Museum, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Symphony, Nourse Theatre, Superior Court of California, Supreme Court of California, San Francisco Public Library, Market street where Twitter is located, and The SFJAZZ Center – a music venue in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco.
The itinerary may change based on your time, road or weather conditions, pick-up location and

Japantown – The ‘Little Osaka’ of the West

Built in the late 19th and early 20th century, Japanese immigrants began moving into the area following the 1906 Earthquake and became the largest enclaves of Japanese people outside of Japan, but after the Japanese army attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese who even were American residents were forced to move out. Finally, in 1957, San Francisco entered into a Sister City relationship with the city of Osaka and named the neighborhood ‘Little Osaka.’ Top Japanese restaurants, sushi bars, and karaoke lounges are found.

The Castro District – An Eclectic and Colorful Neighborhood
Each neighborhood of the city is unique and authentic, including the Castro District, which draws eclectic crowds from all over the world. Castro District is one of San Francisco’s most vibrant and culturally diverse communities, home to beautiful Victorian homes, popular bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. The Oscar-winning movie, Harvey Milk, starring Sean Penn, was filmed at the historic Castro Theater, which is also known for its Wurlitzer pipe organ and sing-along movies. You will notice many rainbow flags reflecting the neighborhood’s support of LGBT rights.

Noe Valley and the scenic staircases neighborhood of San Francisco. Noe Valley neighborhood was named after José de Jesús Noé, the last Mexican alcalde (mayor) of Yerba Buena, the original name for San Francisco, who owned the area as part of his Rancho San Miguel. Noe Valley contains many examples of the classic Victorian and Edwardian residential architecture for which San Francisco is famous. Originally a working class district, it is now a more gentrified neighborhood, popular with young families who enjoy its coffee houses, bistros, home-decor boutiques, chic clothing shops and bookstores. Don’t miss St. Paul’s Catholic Church, the location for the movie Sister Act.

The Eclectic Mission District: San Francisco’s Mission District is famous for its diverse cultural background, outstanding murals, ethnic restaurants, underground creek, and historic Mission Dolores. The neighborhood maintains a precarious balance between its colorful Latino roots, gritty subculture, and growing population of technology professionals. ‘The Mission’ is warmer than all other neighborhoods thanks to its geographical location, which insulates it from the fog and wind from the west. It is a ‘city’ within the city, filled with surprises, art, history, landmarks, and terrific murals relating the history and subculture of this unique neighborhood. Among the local landmarks is the Mission Revival structure style of the Women’s Building considered a ‘masterpiece’ of mural art, but other hidden gems and alleys are filled with art and murals.
The historic Mission Dolores, founded in 1776, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco, and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of 21 missions built by the Missionaries of St. Francis of Assisi. It is featured in famous movies such as ‘Vertigo,’ starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, and was also subject of the Jerry Garcia song ‘Mission in the Rain.’

Off-the-beaten-path Potrero Hill with its superb views of the bay and city skyline
Potrero Hill offers incredible views of the San Francisco Bay and skyline. It’s trendy neighborhood with popular restaurants, breweries, wineries, and home to steep hills and narrows streets where top action movies were filmed like Bullitt

AT&T Park, the Ferry Building and Treasure Island. For baseball fans, we will make a photo at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants which was built in 1892.

The Ferry Building and its Spanish style clock tower was converted into office space in the 1950’s, and severely damaged in the 1989 earthquake, it was faithfully restored and renovated to its original style. Today, the Ferry Building is trending destination for the foodies and wine aficionados in this new Farmers’ Markets style place.

Recommendation: If you wish to explore San Francisco in-depth rather than just driving by, and spend quality time in the famous and infamous neighborhoods, we highly recommend opting for the full day custom tour of San Francisco, because the half-day is a panoramic trip, that cannot cover more than 50% of these sights and iconic places of this huge city. It is almost impossible to see it all in a 4-hour half-day tour. In addition, on the full day tour, you get to see more places, walk, hike and stop anywhere you want without restricting yourself to an express half-day tour. Click here to learn more about our full day premium custom tour of San Francisco.

Tour Prices

What’s Included in this San Francisco city 4-hour tour?
All applicable taxes, San Francisco city 8-hour guided tour in a luxury vehicle, complimentary pick-up and drop-off in San Francisco downtown, Fisherman’s Wharf, and surrounding areas or neighborhoods, but not outside of these areas.

What’s Not Included in this

• Meals, Driver’s gratuity tips. Gratuities are recommended and customary in the USA at 15%-20%), and entrance tickets to any optional site(s) or monument(s).
• For time considerations, we don’t drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on the half-day tour but we do include it on our full-day San Francisco city tour. However, we will offer you great photo stops at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge.
• The itinerary may change based on your time, road or weather conditions, pick-up location and preference. When it is rainy or foggy, we have to skip some areas /places for safety considerations or due to the lack of visibility.
• Please note that vehicles taking 7 passengers or more are prohibited entry to many places in San Francisco, like Lombard Street, Alamo Square, Telegraph Hill, Marina, Sea Cliff, Hyde, and wherever a sign is posted in this regard. We therefore recommend our SUV tour option, which is without doubt the best way to travel to these sights.
• Smoking is not allowed in our vehicles. We are sorry, but our vehicles are not pet friendly and not equipped for passengers with disability or wheelchairs, thank you for understanding.

Term & Policy

Alcatraz Tour Terms and Conditions

Please note that tour guides are not allowed to guide inside Muir Woods National Monument and Alcatraz
The pick-up at your hotel in San Francisco is included. However, to keep the cost down, the drop-off after your Alcatraz tour is not included.
Alcatraz tickets are extremely hard to get because they are often sold out weeks and months in advance. The sooner you book the better.
Approved online transactions do not guarantee your Alcatraz tour or tickets, as we should go through a process in order book these tickets. After we receive your transaction, the tour can be approved or declined based on availability. This is due to the increasing popularity of Alcatraz.
The only online calendar available on our website is extremely hard to manage and update on a daily basis. This calendar governs all our tours and is available in over 10 different languages, which multiplies the number of tour options by 10! When Alcatraz tickets are sold out, we cannot simply block the calendar for these particular date(s) because this will prevent all other clients from booking any of our tours in 10 different languages, which would put us out of business! Alcatraz represents only 1% of our tours and it’s impossible to block the calendar each time Alcatraz is sold out. For that reason, we have amended these terms and conditions on our website stating clearly and unequivocally the following terms regarding Alcatraz tour and tickets:
-All our tours including Alcatraz are subject to availability even if the online transaction is approved. We do reserve the right to void or refund your transaction when Alcatraz tickets are sold out.This is totally out of our hands as the only provider of Alcatraz tickets and tours are governed by the U.S. National Park Service.
-We do require 8 business weeks in advance when booking our Alcatraz tour during the peaks season, holidays and week-ends. The peak season refers to the period of April to the end of October.
-We reserve the right to offer you alternative tours when Alcatraz is sold out. If you decline our offer, we will fully refund your transaction – a process which takes about 10 business days before your funds are available to you. This is stated on our terms and conditions page, available in all languages.
When Alcatraz tickets are sold out, customers make the common mistake of desperately rushing to book the Alcatraz tour directly on our website, without taking the time to review our terms and conditions in this regard. We cannot be blamed as we make it extremely clear that we have no control over Alcatraz tickets when they are sold out.For that reason we do require your booking at least 8 business week sin advance!

Trip Reviews

Fascinating combo tour of SF & Alcatraz

Reserve Alcatraz tickets in advance, the tour was So much better than I was expecting. You get a ferry ride from San Francisco piers to the Alcatraz island. It was rainy, and foggy that day, but still well worth the trip. The trip was very well run, we were welcomed in the dock by a ranger who let us know some key information and rules before visiting the prison.

Why everybody is so crazy about Alcatraz?

Why everybody is so crazy about Alcatraz? Alcatraz Island is dim, cold, morbid, and crowded. We felt nothing, seen nothing, heard nothing that made it so appealing, a bit overrated in our opinion. Why criminals have become victims? They deserved to incarcerated in Alcatraz prison! Some visitors were even asking for autographs from a former inmate of Alcatraz, this makes no sense to me

Alcatraz & SF-Best part of our trip to California

This is an incredible tourist attraction. We did the tour with our kids, and they loved it too. The audio tour was well done, we took tons of pictures, hanged out and enjoyed the views of the city from Alcatraz Island. The views are spectacular from Alcatraz, go to the officers’ gardens’ side that overlooks the golden gate bridge, but watch out for the steps, they are very steep. Army officers and their wives who stationed on the Island in the early 1900s, planted all kind of vegetables there (The beauty on the beast).