My complicated relationship with San Francisco tourist traps

In honor of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Tourist Trap Day today, I must weigh in. As a pop culture nut, I’ve always embraced tourist traps and have even planned cross-country road trips around weird attractions, with the original Roadside America book as my bible.

Things got more complicated when I moved to the crooked block of Lombard Street in San Francisco.

My first apartment after college, the tiny studio on Russian Hill was quiet and affordable. Every day I took in a view of the San Francisco Bay and North Beach on my walk to work. From my place, I could spy a sliver of Coit Tower out of the Edwardian building’s window.

Located in the back of the building, I was sheltered from tourist traffic while inside; but the constant stream of out-of-town visitors and traffic outside began to wear on me. When entering and leaving the building, tourists would stare at me like I was part of the attraction. Over and over again, I would hear the same comments and queries about me (“wow, does she live here?”, “can you imagine living here?”) and Lombard Street’s sidekick: the cable car (“what if it snowed here?” “can you imagine?").

Worried that I would snap, I found ways to embrace my tourist-centered neighborhood. I would take walks to nearby Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square to become awash in tourist culture, hoping that the full-on immersion would have a restorative effect.

San Francisco Wax Museum in 2013. Photo: Jennifer Waits

In 1992, I excitedly signed up for Cacophony Society’s “The Tourists from Hell” adventure. The invitation announced,

We’ll be giving a busload of tourists an experience of San Francisco they’ll long remember, as we join them for a cacophonous tour of everybody’s favorite city. Come dressed as an exaggerated example of a tourist (i.e., Texans might wear ten gallon hats and cowboy shirts; New Yorkers should be loud, brash and arrogant; of course, leisure suits are always appropriate) and armed with dumb tourist questions (Do cars wear out their brakes a lot on these hills? Where can we get Rice-a-Roni? etc.). For added confusion, one member of our group will pretend to be a local, giving his out-of-town parents a tour of the city, and telling them outrageous lies about landmarks and history, which the rest of us will enthusiastically embrace. We'll meet beforehand to work out other strange scenarios.

Sporting shorts (a true sign of a San Francisco tourist in July) and carrying a bright red camera, I met up with a crew of strangers at Lefty O’Douls, ready for a faux tourist adventure on a motorized cable car. Simultaneously pretending to be a tourist and mocking tourists at the same time helped me to deal with my out-of-the-ordinary Lombard Street life.

Although I no longer live on a tourist attraction, I still have a special place in my heart for the tourist meccas in the northern part of San Francisco. Sundaes at Ghirardelli are always a treat, the cable car at night is as dreamy as ever, the wax museum is good, goofy fun (although I deeply miss the original San Francisco wax museum and its terrifying displace of torture devices), and the beauty of the Presidio, Fort Point, and the Golden Gate Bridge never gets old

View of Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point. Photo: Jennifer Waits, 2018