San Francisco is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It was founded on June 29, 1776, with Spanish colonists establishing Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate and Mission San Francisco de Asis a few miles away. The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco's status as the West Coast's largest city peaked between 1870 and 1900, when around 25% of California's population resided in the city proper.  After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt.

In World War II, San Francisco was a major port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. It then became the birthplace of the United Nations in 1945. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, significant immigration, liberalizing attitudes, along with the rise of the “hippie” counterculture, the Sexual Revolution, the Peace Movement growing from opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the US. 

A popular tourist destination, San Francisco is known for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Fisherman’s Wharf, and its Chinatown district. San Francisco is also the headquarters of major banking institutions and various tech companies such as  Fitbit, Salesforce, Dropbox, Reddit, Square, AirBnb, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, etc. The city, and the surrounding Bay Area, is a global center of the sciences and arts and is home to a number of educational and cultural institutions.

It’s impossible to experience everything San Francisco has to offer even in a week! However, this 3-Day itinerary offers most of the major tourist spots in the city and covers most of the actual city area. Stops that would be definitely worth adding to this map would be (of course if you have extra time) SFMOMA, city view from Twin Peaks, night city view of San Francisco from Treasure Island, Muir Woods National Monument on the other side of Golden Gate Bridge, and maybe Alcatraz (if you are really into its history :) )

Please keep in mind, you will need to have a Gmail account to be able to access the link for this itinerary on google maps. Please expect the link to be activated within 24 hours after payment.

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