I'll dispense with all the usual tourist spots and try to highlight the more unusual ones. This part of the west coast has so many things to see, that you're probably going to run out of time. Some amount of time budgeting would be recommended.

San Francisco is a walker's paradise .. most of the interesting sights/views are best seen on foot. So, even if you're driving into the city, pick 2 or 3 spots where you can park, and just head out on foot. And it's relatively compact, so even walking from the SF Bay at eastern edge of the city to the Pacific Ocean at the western edge is enjoyable. There's a well-marked driving route, called the 49-mile scenic drive (and well-marked by the blue-and-white seagull signs) that's going to take you to most of these spots. Section out the route, depending on how many days you have to spare, and use the route as a guide.

Golden Gate Park, Presidio areas

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor (with an original casting of Rodin's "The Thinker") has wonderful European art. The adjoining greens of the Lincoln Park Golf Course has good views of the Golden Gate bridge, and a nice hike (Lands End trail) that is a great spot to watch a sunset. This museum is also the site of many travelling exhibitions from around the world - check their website for what's on when you visit.

The Exploratorium in the Palace of Fine Arts is a nice science museum. High point is the Tactile Dome, a pitch-dark crawl-thru area (this tactile area is usually heavily booked, and one of the few things that you have to plan ahead to see).

Golden Gate Park itself is a very place to walk around (see a tour guide for details on what to see), but it's a wonderful and huge urban park. At about 1000 acres, it's smaller than NYC's Central Park, but a huge variety of things to see & people-watching (incl. skaters on rollerblades doing impromptu disco routines :-))

Clement St., just a block north of Geary Blvd, has tons of interesting restaurants.

Check out the golden onion domes of the Russian Orthodox church on Geary. This road ends at Cliff House ... you can hike to the Lands End trail from here as well, and check out the old Sutro Bath ruins & Seal Rock.

Baker Beach is my favorite beach in SF. Just off Lincoln Blvd, which winds thru the Presidio and ends at the southern end of the GG bridge. The beach is pretty quiet, people walking their dogs, and stunning views of the GG bridge.

Fort Point is another great spot to check out the bridge (it's right under the bridge on the southern side).

Pier 39/Fishermens Wharf, Embarcadero

Pier 39 & Fishermens Wharf is the big tourist trap in the city. But you can't avoid it - you'd have to go there to catch a ferry either to Alcatraz Island - that defunct high-security prison is a definite must-see, as well as Angel Island. If it's good weather, it's a beautiful place to hike (or go biking)

The Ferry building in the Embarcadero area has a produce market that's really nice on weekend mornings. If I remember, there's a Mahatma Gandhi statue just behind the building.

USS Pampanito .. a restored World War 2 era submarine which saw lots of action in the Pacific theater.

Jeremiah O Brien .. A Liberty ship (a troop carrier from World War 2).. this ship was refurbished, and went to the 50th anniversary celebrations of the D-Day landings at Normandy.

(and while we're on the topic of ship-museums, don't miss the USS Hornet, a WorldWar2-era aircraft carrier, docked as a museum in Alameda (a city not far from Berkeley). Lots of history - Doolittle's Raiders took off from this ship on that retaliatory raid on Tokyo right after Pearl harbor. This ship also went to pick up the returning Apollo 11 astronauts from their pioneering trip to the moon.

Pacific Heights, Marina

Great homes, great views. Lafayette Park & Alta Plaza Park which is a few blocks away both have wonderful views of the city & the Marina.

The Victorian mid-19th centurty Haas-Lilienthal house in this area is open as a museum, and is worth a visit.

North Beach, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill

The San Francisco Art Institute .. nice roof-top cafe, nice views too. And a beatiful Diego Rivera mural "Making of a Mural".

You'll probably drive thru the crooked section of Lombard St., but while you're in that area, check out Filbert Street about 2 blocks away from the more famous "Crooked Street". Filbert between Leavenworth & Hyde is actually an even steeper street - at a 30%+ grade, it's the steepest road section of SF.

There's another street with beautiful houses called Macondray Lane in the same Russian Hill neighborhood.

Continue down Lombard to take you to Columbus Avenue, the main drag in North Beach. Tons of great restaurants, bars, cafes.

You would most probably not miss Coit Tower, the imposing memorial to the city's firefighters. But once you're there, descend Telegraph Hill via the Greenwich Steps - this is one of my *favorite* spots in the city ... a series of steps winding down the hillside, you'll be passing beautiful homes and you'll have stunning views all the way down. And if you've parked your car in the Coit Tower parking lot, you can go back up the hill via the Filbert Steps, another great path.

The Mission District, Haight-Ashbury

Haight-Ashbury was ground-zero for the city's 60's tune-in-drop-out crowd. (when I first came to the Bay Area from India many years ago, a snap standing below the Haight/Ashbury street signs at the intersection was a not-to-miss patel-photo-op :-))).... but this place has pretty interesting restaurants too (tapas bars like "Cha Cha Cha", and there's another very good Eritrean/Ethiopian restaurant on Haight - but the name escapes me).

The Castro Street neighborhood was yet another ground-zero, this time for the city's gay community in the 70s & 80s. Halloween is a tripped-out party here. The city's out-there gay culture is not really restricted to this area now, the city as a whole is pretty gay-friendly. Nice bars. And one of the best movie theaters in the bay area - the Castro theater.

The Mission district is another place for funky shops, bars & restaurants. Wonderful street-side murals. And Mission Dolores, the oldest building in the city.

Twin Peaks offers unbeatable 360-degree views of the city & the surrounding areas (esp. if you walk up the hill from the parking lot).

Marin Headlands

Just outside the city, and just north of the GG bridge, this is a favorite spot for many to see the bridge from an elevated point. The most popular spot for tourists is Battery Spencer, just off Conzelman Road. For a wonderful drive, stay on Conzelman Rd as it winds its way up the cliffs. And then, after a couple of miles when you've seen the last of the tourists, the road swoops down, and in no time, you'll have the whole place to yourself. Watch eagles lazily surfing a thermal, or clamber up one of the ruins of those old batteries. Even on a busy holiday weekend, this area hardly sees anyone. Continue on to a beautiful lighthouse at Point Bonita.

Point Reyes

Another stunning area, north of the city. A large, desolate peninsula ... great hiking trails, stunning beaches. Sir Francis Drake anchored here on his 16th century voyage with the Golden Hind, and left a commemorative sign. I think that sign is now in one of the university libraries in the area (either Bancroft at Berkeley, or the library at Stanford - have a feeling Uber or Tocsin might be able to confirm this).

And yet another beautiful light-house. One of the prime whale-watching areas in this part of the country. There's a cool trail called the Earthquake Trail ... there's a point where a part of a fence moved about 15 ft during the 1906 earthquake. And BTW, you'll be going right over the San Andreas Fault ;-)))

Other neighboring areas to see ....

the South Bay & points south ... Stanford - the university & if you like that sort of stuff, the Stanford Linear Accelarator Center (SLAC) is really cool. Also the outdoor Rodin Sculpture Garden on the campus). Monterey/Carmel. Hwy 1 drive along the coast all the way down south to Santa Cruz. The Big Sur area, south of Carmel. (Nepenthe restaurant for a coffee break & *jaw-dropping* views).

East Bay - Berkeley, of course. Not to be missed. Cafes, bookshops, restaurants, music stores. A beautiful lake (Lake Anza) up in the Berkeley hills that's open for swimming in the summer. And more bookshops :-)

Points north of the city ... Sausalito & Tiburon closer to the city ... Napa & Sonoma valleys. Muir Woods, Stinson Beach (nice route to Point Reyes from the city)

Stuff to do in the evening ... some options below -->

... live music. there are a host of bars/venues for live music. like i said, check out my earlier blog .. there are usually some interesting bands playing all year-round in the bay area. For example, do you like REM ?? .. they're playing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley (an awesome outdoor theater) in the 2nd week of October

.. theater/plays/opera ?? .. don't follow theater action too much, but that's an option.

.. sports ?? .. depending on when you're here, you could check out Barry Bonds & the SF Giants at their ballpark - it's a *beautiful* ballpark, btw .. and i'm not saying this just because it's local - baseball writers all over the country have raved about this new baseball stadium. If you're staying in the downtown area, you could just take public transit (it's in China Basin)

or the SF 49ers, if they have a home game .. or the Raiders, in Oakland across the SF bay

... restaurants, of course, the city's teeming with excellent restaurants all over the place

... literary events - there are usually mid-week book readings by authors in most of the well-known bookstores, both in SF & Berkeley

... some of the sights are beautiful at night too. Try walking across the Golden Gate bridge in the late evening(though I think they close pedestrian access on the bridge in the night) ... or drive to Battery Spencer, just off Conzelman Road in the Marin Headlands - watching the GG bridge from above in the night is a mind-blowing sight, especially when there's some light fog blowing in from the ocean - now you see the bridge, now you don't .. and sometimes, you'd see just parts of the bridge while the rest of the bridge is shrouded in fog ...

I think Red & White (tour operators) and/or Hornblower Yachts have dinner cruises .. they'd take you out into the bay for dinner .. you get an incredible view of the city from the water

OK, this is getting to be really long. Let me wind up with some tips.

Parking is crazy in SF. Like I said, if you like walking, nothing like it.

Nice views of the city --> Twin Peaks ... Carnelian Room restaurant (in the Bank of America bldg in the Financial Dist.) ... the bar in the downtown SF Marriott (there's a bar on the 39th or 40th floors that has wonderful picture windows ... and a good, if expensive, selection of single malts !) ... Lincoln park Golf Course ... Marin Headlands ... Baker Beach .. Treasure Island (half-way across the Bay Bridge between Oakland and SF) ... Filbert/Greenwich Steps on Telegraph Hill ... Lands End trail

Bars & juke joints ... see my earlier blog --> down home juke-joints

Restaurants --> Tons of them. The bay area is foodie heaven. Prime spots ... Geary/Clement in the Richmond district ... Ninth & Irving in the Sunset district ... Columbus Ave in the North Beach area. And then, outside the city ... Berkeley's "gourmet ghetto" area (Shattuck ave near Cedar) ... Palo Alto's University Avenue.

Well, if you're coming .. I'm sure you'll have a blast here. The hard part would be to decide what to see, and what to skip :-))