OP here. We ended up going to SF and had a fun and safe time. It was great to escape the heat for a bit. It’s no worse than DC and there seemed to actually be less homelessness and dirt/decay than I expected based on the news reports. The only negative is the public bathrooms near the touristy piers do have a significant amount of needles on the floor so I would just stay away from them and use private bathrooms when you can. Other than that we did enjoy it along with all the other tourists who are out here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went to San Francisco last summer and had a great time - behind the scenes tour at Alcatraz, Muir Woods, Chinatown food walking tour, rode a cable car. We stayed in Fisherman’s Wharf and never felt unsafe.

That said, however, I believe conditions in the city have deteriorated since then, and I would probably not go to San Francisco now.

And that’s a shame.

It has deteriorated that much—you “believe”—from “never felt unsafe,” in one year?

We did a week in SF over Christmas break last year with our kids. It was cold but we had a great time and did all the sights. I love SF. It honestly wasn’t even close to as bad as people said it would be. We stayed in the financial district at a luxury hotel and went ice skating, had delicious peking duck, got hot chocolate from ghirardelli and all of the sights you do with young children.

It’s a beautiful city with some great food. We were warned in advance to make dinner reservations well in advance and glad we did. We stayed in the Presidio and it was gorgeous, super clean and delightful to see the Golden Gate every morning. One area I think is overlooked is Clement St. We got croissants, dim sum and had Burmese food near that area and it was all delicious. The Japanese Tea garden, the botanical garden and the California Academy of Sciences were great. At Fisherman’s Wharf we enjoyed eating at SCOMA’s and the mechanical museum

We went last year but stayed outside the city. We went into town 2!days for various activities. Tourists areas, at least during the day were fine.

Coolest I’ve ever been in the summer.

Anonymous wrote:Yes the touristy sections are still beautiful and fine. Don’t let the TV news hype- and this board- scare you.

They say the same thing about DC.

My daughter lives there. It is fine. Just avid the Tenderloin area.