Cable Car

Pier 39 Beach and, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94133, USA

Everyone loves the San Francisco cable cars. The classic trolley are cute relic of a time before buses and cars – and they give a great retro-style tour of the city’s hills, and neighbourhoods: Union Square, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf and the other districts. However, besides the classic cable cars that the tourists hop on, there are cars belonging to the Muni system purchased or donated from all over the country and the world and it is fun to commute or get a ride in one of these classic vehicles!

More Recommendations

San Francisco's famous cable cars (from other cities!)

Everyone loves the San Francisco cable cars. The classic trolley are cute relic of a time before buses and cars – and they give a great retro-style tour of the city’s hills, and neighbourhoods: Union Square, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf and the other districts. However, besides the classic cable cars that the tourists hop on, there are cars belonging to the Muni system purchased or donated from all over the country and the world and it is fun to commute or get a ride in one of these classic vehicles!

First thing you should do in San Francisco

If the only San Francisco experience you’ve ever had was seeing photos of this cool city, then the first thing you need to do in San Francisco is ride a cable car! Go to where it begins in front of the Gap near Market Street and ride it all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf! It takes about 40 minutes and it will give you a scenic view of San Francisco’s beautiful city. Make sure to hang off the side for extra awesomeness!!!!

My SF highlights!

AT&T Park and the Cable Cars were my highlights. The cable car is fun and let my imagination run wild with how things could’ve been “back in the day”. Definitely do it. The MUNI 3 day pass (in our case) was so worth it as we used the bus system and were able to ride the cable car as much as we wanted. Alcatraz (yes a tourist trap) was kinda neat...though (as with a lot of other things in SF) felt commercialized. AT&T Park has to be the prettiest ball park I’ve been to. Compared to Oakland across the bay, wow big difference! Must see if you love baseball. I love food. Real local food. And I wish I could say I loved the food here but overall my impression of SF food was” eh” (Gary Danko, Park Tavern, Pier restaurant hopping.) My favorite I guess would be Brenda’s French Soul Food for their beignets. Yum. I was hoping (and thought I did my usual travel research) to find the real SF and it feels like I missed the mark. And seriously something has to be done with the homeless. I was forewarned but I think it was a little excessive...and kinda scary! Everyone kept saying we should make the trip to Napa while there and unless something changes our mind I’m pretty sure next time Napa will be the only place we’ll be headed if/when we return to that area.

Take a Ride on the Cable Car

There are many must-do’s when you visit San Francisco for the first time. One of my favorite things to do is ride the cable car. There are three lines, the Powell-Hyde line, Powell-Mason line and the California line. This picture is from the Powell Mason Line. It was the first time I was able to ride on the outside! So much fun! I was able to capture how steep some of the streets in San Francisco really are. In the distance you can see Fisherman’s Wharf and as far out as Alcatraz.

Information on this page, including website, location, and opening hours, is subject to have changed since this page was last published. If you would like to report anything that’s inaccurate, let us know at notification@afar.com.

Nearby highlights
Sign up for our newsletter
Join more than a million of the world’s best travelers. Subscribe to the Daily Wander newsletter.
More From AFAR