Made in SF with ❤️
If you live here, you are just visiting, here are some uniquely San Francisco trivia and random quicks about SF. Some of it’s useful, some of it’s not. Revel in my list of random knowledge glory! Listed in no particular order.
San Francisco Weather
- You should wear or carry a light down jacket 360 days a year
- The fog has a name (Karl) and a pretty hilarious Twitter account (or X if you prefer)
- The Sutro Tower does too
- Summer is cold and foggy, Winter is rainy and mild and generally clear
- The weather people are constantly wrong about San Francisco weather, or for the weather in your San Francisco neighborhood
- Because the weather is generally nice, San Franciscans are very good at complaining about the weather
- If you don’t like the weather in your microclimate, just go a few blocks and it might be completely different. More about that here
- Most people don’t have Air Conditioning (neither central or window unit), but you should get a fan for the 1 week of the year where it’s unbearably hot or you close your windows due to wildfires
- The temperature generally falls between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit year round and feels like Fall or Spring
- When it’s moderately hot out, everyone tries to wear the 2 pairs of shorts or skirts that they own
Random Trivia
- There are very few bugs! Roaches aren’t really a thing, but spiders and ants can be
- The housing stock is generally old. By and large, the main parts of San Francisco with new housing stock is in the downtown area, Mission Bay or Mission Rock, and Yerba Buena
- If you live in old housing stock, you might have rent control
- Nothing is open on Mondays (OK, not nothing but very little)
- San Francisco is not a late night city. Most establishments close around 9-10pm
- People generally wake up early
- Park hangs are a thing, get a picnic blanket and bring your own spread
- Many people are annoyed when you call San Francisco “San Fran” but “Frisco” seems more acceptable? I don’t have strong opinions. It’s also called “the City”.
- 49ers do not play in San Francisco, they play in Santa Clara
- Politics here are crazy, but you can vote on lots of things!
- Don’t leave anything in your car. Anything!
- You can do beach bonfires on Ocean Beach (March 1, 2024 bonfires are back through the end of October)
- The western half of San Francisco used to be sand dunes
- Composting is a thing
- San Francisco has parking permit zones in most of the city. If you have an annual parking permit, which can be purchased from the SFMTA, you can park for longer than the posted time-limit signs. Keep in mind that you must move your car after 72 hours.
- SF City College is free and awesome
- The SF library is free and awesome
- SF is the birthplace of tiki culture, dutch crunch, the fortune cookie, cioppino, irish coffee (stateside)
- SF is approximately 7×7 miles
- The Presidio is federal property
- Parts of The Embarcadero are land fill and were built on top of ships
- The Palace of Fine Arts and Japanese Tea Garden were leftover from the World’s Fair
- There are earthquakes but little chance of wildfire (though wildfire smoke is a thing)
- Olmstead (who designed Central Park) also designed Golden Gate Park
- There used to be a highway on the Embarcadero but it collapsed in the earthquake of 1989
- There’s a giant cross in SF on Mount Davidson dedicated to the Armenian Genocide
- There are bison in Golden Gate Park, but apparently there used to be many other animal attractions
- What’s that sound? It might be a foghorn!
