We ran into SK at the Wells Fargo Bank's roof garden. He was talking about the adjacent building,…read moreso I listened in and later asked more questions. SK kindly told me about the architectural elements and history of the building and invited us to join the tour. Although we could not stay for the whole time, we were able to learn about the fascinating histories behind the Well Fargo Bank building, the Hunter-Dulin Building (West Coast HQ of NBC when it was still radio), the Hallidie Building at 130 Sutter by Willis Polk (first building to have glass walls), and the heart sculptures all over San Francisco. What's really great was that SK put things into perspective by not just talking about San Francisco but comparing SF to other cities. Both locals and out-of-towners can learn a ton from his tours. Book SK's tour to see SF like never before! SK also gave us cool sackpacks!

RUN DON'T WALK TO THIS ABSOLUTELY INSPIRED WALKING HISTORY MAGNET OF ALL THINGS SAN FRANCISCO…read more Literally, I said to SK, the very first place you took me to and told me about, if the tour stopped here, I got my money's worth. The combination of rich story-telling by SK and the engaging sites and sounds of Downtown San Francisco made for the highlight of my stay in San Francisco. Who would think something called lousy would be so great???!!! Here you obtain the real, in-depth stories of how the West was won and where the bodies were buried. Remember when we think early San Francisco, we are talking about the Wild West. And boy oh, boy were there doozies. What other tour will tell you the history behind the words "limelight" and "sugar daddy" - both San Francisco originals. You do not have to read anymore Yelp Your Reviews. Just book this one and enjoy the very entertaining ride!

It was amazing to watch the celebration and all the activities they have and look around and enjoy…read moreit all food and music and art and all the other things and shops. Definitely a great time

Last year, we did Tipsy Putt in Emeryville, and this year, my Berkeley team at Eisenmann…read moreArchitecture choose a Chinatown food tour! We literally just returned, and we couldn't be more delighted. Isabella is truly a gem...warm, knowledgeable, and incredibly engaging. She guided us through hidden culinary spots, shared rich cultural history, and made every stop feel meaningful and delicious. It was the perfect blend of food, storytelling, and local insight. We can't recommend this tour highly enough!! After the tour, we had to go back to Vitality Tea - Chris is truly a godsend.

This is to provide a "heads-up" for what to expect from the Telegraph Berkeley Historical Walking…read moreTour. This is also to supplement the Walking Tour, in case some of the more interesting points were missed. I doubt if this Walking Tour includes any of the really important things about Berkeley, such as Melvin Calvin's discovery of the Calvin Cycle, or the discoveries relating to vitamin B12 by Horace Barker, or the discovery by Gilbert Lewis of the covalent bond and his concept of electron pairs. Instead, the Walking Tour is more likely to disclose: (1) Anti-war demonstrations and riots; (2) Free Speech Movement; and (3) Curiosities, such as People's Park, Holy Hubert (evangelist), Pink Cloud (Berkeley Barb salesman), Pravda, the Hate Man, Stoney Burke (performs political comedy), and the successful and famous poet, Julia "Bubble Lady" Vinograd. And so, to prepare yourself for the Walking Tour, I suggest buying a copy of BLESS YOUR DIRTY HEART by Hubert Lindsey, a.k.a., Holy Hubert, and by buying two or three poetry books by Julia Vinograd. I suggest, CANNIBAL CASSEROLE to start out with. MY PHOTOGRAPHS. I took these photographs in the years 1969 to 1971. During the time I was taking freshman chemistry in Latimer Hall, us students were faced with a tough decision. Should we open the windows and let the stinky smell of our chemicals go out the window, or should we keep the windows shut to keep out the stinky smell of the tear gas that the Berkeley police were shooting at the rioters. The day after the riots, I would go out and collect spent tear gas bombs. I have a tear gas bomb that was a rubber ball with a valve on top, and another tear gas bomb that was a blue-painted can made of thick metal, with holes in the can to let the gas come out. I washed the residual tear gas out of the bombs by flushing water over the spent tear gas bombs in the bathroom sink in PRIESTLY HALL dormitory. My photographs show: (1) Bluegrass trio in Sproul Plaza with a mandolin case where you donate money, and where the mandolin case has a sign reading, "KITTY." The term "Kitty" is sometimes used to refer to a place for putting spare change. (2) Also on Sproul Plaza, people playing trombone and clarinet. (3) Holy Hubert on Sproul Plaza. One of the signs reads, "Jesus Christ is coming again to judge this world, follow Christ here on earth. Be persecuted and go to heaven not hell. Another sign reads, "REPENT-REPENT-REPENT Communist Party USSR Communist Party Red China Communist Party U.S.A. Marx-Lenin-Maotsetung ALL 3 ATHEISTS. Bible says Atheist=Fools. I won't follow fools. (4) Riot police on Telegraph Ave. escorting boy to paddy wagon. (5) Sandwich board on Telegraph Avenue. Sign reads, LEOPOLD'S RECORDS New Stones Album $5.99. (6) Boy gets put into paddy wagon, on Telegraph Avenue. (7) Four rioters on Telegraph. One of them flips bird at me. (8) Protest against Nixon and bombs. I took this photo at entrance to U.C. Berkeley campus. (9) Hippie is glad that LBJ died. See headlines from Berkeley Daily Gazette that reads, "Washington Funeral For LBJ." The sign attached to the wooden post reads, "ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL . . . ALICE STEWART & SNAKE . . . June 23." Please note that Alice Stewart & Snake also performed with Big Brother and the Holding Company, at Bimbo's in 1972. (10) Happy gathering on Telegraph. (11) People's Park with Pravda in the nude, as usual. (12) People's Park with row of four friends. (13) Happy gathering on Telegraph, near La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant. You can see GARDEN SPOT MARKET next to La Fiesta. But me and my roommates called this place the GARBAGE SPOT.

I checked out this tour on a recent rainy Sunday and as a Berkeley native learned so much I never…read moreknew about our local history, specific to Telegraph Avenue, Cal as well as Berkeley in general! It's a great tour and I'd recommend it to residents and visitors alike. It's a free app to download and my friend and I each but an earbud in our ear and walked the tour together. Totally recommend!

I joined Daniel for the biking and hiking tour to Muir Woods. It was one of the best things that I…read morehave done in the Bay Area. The trip was really fun. Daniel was very helpful and made sure I found a good place to rent a bike. He also knew a lot about the history of The sites so I learned a lot. The bike and hike was close to 9 hours long, it was a great exercise. I got lots of great pictures and memories. At the end of the tour, I really felt accomplished. I am so happy that I choose this tour vs the competitor. Seriously one of the best things I have done in and around San Francisco.

TOUR GUIDE NEVER SHOWED UP AND HAS NOT CONTACTED ME TO REFUND MY MONEY. I waited 15 minutes at the…read moredesignated spot for the Chinatown Untold Tales of Slavery, Tong Wars, and Persecution tour. Twice I called the phone number of Love to Explore as printed on my ticket. No answer. Seems Love to Explore has skipped town with my money as I have not heard peep from them.

The Bay City Guide works great for me for a few reasons. First of all the maps, especially the…read moredetailed Union Square and Golden Gate park maps, are great for explaining things to tourists and locals alike as they are very up to date and easy to read. The information inside the guide is simple but useful, it highlights neighborhoods in SF that tourists wouldn't normally even think about and this is important for tourists who want to get the full SF experience. Lastly, and this might sound odd, but I like the ads. IT highlights locals businesses that I wouldnt have normally thought about, and I like when money in San Francisco is recycled within the city, it creates long term relationships between vendors and local businesses. Great guides, thanks being a great part of our local hospitality culture!

My review also relates to the Alcatraz, Open Sky city tour and Chinatown Walking Tour, all booked…read moreas a package for $87. In the city for the weekend, we booked the tour on Saturday and were told to check in at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday. At that time, the gentleman at the desk told us that we would take the ferry to Alcatraz at 11:00 a.m., the city tour at 3:00 p.m. and the walking tour at 5:00 p.m. The Alcatraz portion went fine. We had a couple hours to kill after that, and then went and took the city tour. As another reviewer mentioned, the bus is a school bus (stickers for school bus rules still attached at the front of the bus) with its top cut off. The seats/benches are not precisely built for comfort! I have re-named this portion the Psychedelic Bus Tour because it was so bizarre. We, too, had Timber as our guide, an aging hippy who was apparently a professional photographer (and insists you let him take your photos if you want them to turn out well), a bit actor and now a tour guide. The tour was unintentionally hilarious -- and would have remained so throughout the three long hours had one been drunk or perhaps on 'shrooms; however, after two hours everyone on the bus was looking for an escape route. First of all, the only stops we made were at the Palace of Fine Arts and the Golden Gate bridge, both of which occurred within the first 30 mins of the tour. We were then regaled with the driver's stream of consciousness ramblings about anything from a new bike trail ("Oh, wow, I hadn't noticed that before!") to comments about pretty young women on the street (all spoken over the loudspeaker so that the women in question could undoubtedly hear as well) to police activity near the Disney museum ("Look at that -- three police cars! I wonder what's going on there. We definitely don't want to stop here!") We were also subjected to his politically incorrect sociological views, such as the "fact" that there are "10-12 reasons" that people become homeless (this as we were stopped at a light in front of Golden Gate park where said homeless were happily smoking pot) and, while driving through Chinatown, the observation that one thing the Chinese know well is capitalism! Ah, and we were also introduced to a transgender club (with a warning to the gentlemen that pretty ladies might not be ladies at all) and a topless club. And there were children on the bus!!! Lest I forget, in the middle of the Golden Gate bridge, on went the radio to a local 70's/80's station and we were 'treated' to such best-forgotten hits as Janet Jackson's "Nasty Boys" and Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". I'm telling you, a drunk would have had a blast on this tour; me, being all too sober, not so much! As for the walking tour, well, how were we supposed to be there at 5:00 p.m. when the bus tour lasted over three hours??? We were dropped off at 6:15 p.m. and had obviously missed it. Since we left San Francisco that same night, there was no way to do it on another day. In fact, we weren't even told that we could do it another day, which strikes me as rather unethical, seeing as how the man we originally checked in with had to have known that the bus tour was 3 hours long and would overlap with the walking tour. All in all, I'd recommend that others book the tours separately. The bus tour definitely isn't for families, but a group of college age kids or single (drunk) adults might get a kick out of the guide's bizarre ramblings.

Very informative walking tour, even for a San Francisco native. Our group was very small (8 total,…read moreincluding our docent, Lois) compared to the other Chinatown walking tour groups that we saw along the way. Our docent customized the tour to what each person of the group wanted to hear/learn more about which I thought was very cool. Our tour was also accompanied by print outs of articles and photographs which were helpful aids. Though they say to arrive 10-15 minutes prior to the tour to check in, on Saturdays, when the tour begins at 10am, it is not quite as necessary to arrive earlier. The Chinese Culture Center is not open until 10am and the docents don't arrive until 10am either. We parked at Portsmouth ($4/hour) since we wanted to arrive earlier to check-in, but we actually had enough time to park at the (farther) garage that the Chinese Culture Center validates.

Fun and Informative! We're San Franciscan natives and some friends decided to take this tour…read morethrough the Chinese Culture Center. Esther, the docent, had in-depth knowledge of the history, culture and struggles of Chinese in America! She provided us with many "gems" and "tidbits" of history that we were not even aware of, i,e., learning what living in an *'8x8ft" Single Room Occupancy (SRO) would be like (-wow), visiting the oldest temple in Chinatown, various plaques in and around and on the streets in Chinatown. We had a great time and we recommend taking the 2 hour Chinatown Walking Tour through the Chinese Culture Center!!

SUCH A FUN TOUR! My mom and I have been in the bay for 4 years and have explored SF on a variety of…read moreoccasions. However, we've never known the food scene like this tour showed us. Tour guide Casey was fun, easy going, accommodating to my many food allergies, entertaining, knew her shit, and was very timely. We got such a variety and this tour does not slump out on making sure you get your fill. Make sure not to have breakfast ;). Plus, their price is unbeata

We did the tour of Chinatown with Elaine and it was great! Lots of fun facts and history about the…read morearea and some great food. Very enjoyable!

Our tour was wonderfully fun and informative! As a young child, I grew up near Chinatown, but…read moredidn't know much about the history. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but my group of three all agreed that we learned so much about Chinatown's rich history. We especially appreciated learning about the tremendous advocacy that came from both within the community and from those outside who supported Chinatown and its preservation. It gave all of us an appreciation for the community and its history. Our guides--Kelvin, Timothy, and Kaigi (my apologies if I misspelled any of the names)--were knowledgeable, engaging, and made the experience enjoyable. Thank you for such a wonderful and enlightening tour. Would highly recommend.

We highly recommend taking this richly informative tour. Our guides were super friendly and we…read morelearned so much about the history, culture, politics, and community as well as some interesting stories and key events. It a great way to truly gain a deeper understanding and a better appreciation of the Asian community and culture that adds a richness to the city.