Things Not to Do in San Francisco

If you're going to hop aboard San Francisco's most famous icons, don't…

TAKE THE POWELL STREET CABLE CARS

Lines snake around the cable car terminus at Powell and Market streets, the beginning of the two major cable-car lines (Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason), which carry tourists to Fisherman's Wharf. While you wait—sometimes as long as an hour—you're held hostage by D-grade accordion players, panhandlers, and evangelists threatening hellfire. All this hassle for a ride on a toy train?

Instead…

TAKE THE CALIFORNIA STREET LINE

Take the cable car line tourists don't know about: the California Street line. There's rarely a queue for this lightly traveled route because visitors don't know what to do at the end of the line, Van Ness Avenue. But we do: Grab a picnic lunch of succulent Cowgirl Creamery cheese and crusty French bread near the beginning of the route at the Ferry Building Marketplace and hop on the cable car at the foot of California Street. Then, from the terminus at Van Ness Avenue, walk to Lafayette Square, in swanky Pacific Heights, for a hilltop picnic in the shadow of stately townhouses. Afterward, window-shop Upper Fillmore St alongside the city's skirt-and-sweater matrons. (Tip: For a great photo on the cable car, shoot east downhill as you approach Stockton Street; the Bay Bridge tower is briefly framed just right between downtown skyscrapers.)

Concierge.com by John A. Vlahides