Don't Go Somewhere Without a Sweater - The weather in San Francisco is the best. A nice cool breeze throughout the day will keep you going. Our Mediterranean climate is why San Francisco residents live here. To get this good of weather year round, one would have to go to Greece. At night, the breeze starts to turn even cooler and you would be remiss not to have a sweater on your waist. Also, the higher the elevations you go on any of the 43 hills of San Francisco the cooler it tends to get. As well as, the fog could come in at any point and reduce the temperature by 15 degrees within the hour.

Talk to your Hotel Concierge - San Francisco hotel concierges are a great resource for information. They can give you information about restaurants, San Francisco tours, clubs and nightlife. However, some hotels in San Francisco use third-party concierges that are not directly hired by the hotel. In these situations they may have other motivations in hopes that you may visit a timeshare presentations or whatever. If knowing this beforehand is important to you, be sure to ask your hotel concierge if they are affilatied with another third-party outsource company. Check out this recent WSJ article about this subject.

Items to Bring - For the non-tour times in San Francisco be sure to bring the following: street map, muni map, quarters for parking meters, Kleenex, Sunglasses, A sweater, a notepad to jot down various traveller recommendations from our Tour Guides.

The September/October Factor! - Unexpectedly, in San Francisco September and October are our 2 warmest months of the year. While one would think that July and August are the best weather months to visit San Francisco, it's actually in late Fall. Something to think about when booking your San Francisco vacation.

▪ They use large group motor coach buses- These buses tend to hold up to 50+ people per tour and the double deckers tend to hold even more people. We believe smaller group tours make for better tours. We find that the people sitting in the back of these larger motor coaches don't get the opportunity to ask questions or feel apart of the group because they are too far from everything.

▪ Their driver is also your Tour Guide - this practice is less personal, and offers no face-to-face interaction. A driver guide is wired into the bus PA system and they talk while they drive with their back to you.

▪ Less stops - Our competition offers more driving then they do stopping and getting out of the tour bus. On the other hand, our San Francisco City tours makes 9 tour stops with many out-of-the-shuttle walks.

▪ Their Tour Guide does not get out of the bus - On competitive tours where a driver guide is used, very often they can't leave the bus during the stops to show you different landmarks and points of interest.

▪ Free hotel pickup has many hotel stops - Like those airport vans, our competitors stop at many different hotels and valet areas before taking you to your final destination/tour launch. Thus, by the time you get ready to start the tour, you're already ready to get out of the van. We recommend saving your vacation time and just taking a taxi or walking to the tour pickup spot.

▪ No Ferry Cruise Service- Most other tours do not offer a ferry option as a part of their standard city tour to mix up your tour experience. In most cases this cannot be offered by the competition, because their Tour Guide is also their driver. All of our tours include some form of a ferry/bay cruise as a part of our standard tour package, whether you're on our San Francisco tour, Muir Woods tour or the Wine Country Tours.

▪ Lombard Street - On competitive tours, since they don't have a separate Tour Guide from Driver, they can't get as close to Lombard Street as you need to get the great pictures. On our 5 hour comprehensive tour, we will taking a special Lombard Street walking tour.