(the prices quoted in this article need to be updated)

A visit to San Francisco certainly isn’t complete without seeing or riding the famous cable cars! (You’ll need to hum a few bars of “I left my heart in San Francisco” and sing the part about “where little cable cars go halfway to the stars!” to keep the girls entertained in line! Ha ha)

Powell Street and Market near Union Square is the place to catch either the Powell/Mason or the Powell/Hyde line. I like Powell/Hyde because it goes up and down lots of hills and passes Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world, (make sure to get a seat on the right side of the car to get the best view!) and it ends at Aquatic Park in the Fisherman’s Wharf area. The Powell/Mason line ends a few blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf on Taylor Street. The California St. Cable car may not be crowded but it isn’t as scenic or as fun as the Powell/Mason Powell/Hyde Street Line.

Cable Car Turnaround: The Mason and Hyde lines terminate at the intersection of Powell and Market streets, where drivers get out and turn the nearly 8-ton, 18-foot-long relics around so they’re pointing in the direction they came from. That’s fun to watch.

Want to ride? Get there early in the morning, before 9am, to experience this San Francisco treat with minimal fuss. If you wait till later in the day the line can often take an hour or more! I would recommend that you wait so that your troop is first in line to get onto a cable car so that you can all be together and so that you can all stand up and “hang off” the sides. This is a blast! Your girls are strong enough to hold on, don’t worry. They can sit if they want to or if they get tired of standing. (They won’t get tired of standing!)

**Let’s talk for a moment about public transportation. If you are flying into SF International Airport or the Oakland Airport the cheapest way is to take the BART into the city. The fare from Oakland is around $20.40 round trip (and you’ll go under the bay!) and from SF Intl Airport is about $17.90 round trip for adults. You load the money for Adults on a BART card. The girls can use a clipper card, more on that below, and their fare is about half of the adult fare. You should buy the cards right now and have them mailed to you: www.bart.gov/tickets/sales You can look at sample fares on the BART website fare calculator. Powell Street is a good central BART stop in the city by Union Square and coincidently this is where the cable cars start OR you might want to get off at Embarcadero by the Ferry Building Marketplace.

Buses, Streetcars and Cable Cars are run by SFMTA or Muni and the fare is $2.25 for adults and $1 for girls (you are allowed to transfer within 90 minutes of first use). The cable car fare is $7.00 for anyone. A three day passport (which includes the buses, street cars and cable car on the muni system) is $31.00 for adults. I would recommend that you get 3 day passports for the adults and pay $1 per ride for the girls. The easiest way to pay for the girls is to get them clipper cards:www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/discounts/youth.do and you can get those by mail now. The card can be ordered online and loaded with money for travel. You might load $10 on each girl’s card to start or add up (cost of BART from airport) + (estimated number of bus rides per day x $1) to get a total.

There are 2 apps that may come in handy. The Muni+ App..it has the complete bus, streetcar and cable car system maps and schedules, gives you live muni bus location info and countdown to bus timers. We had a blast riding all over the city on the bus line, we hopped on and off whenever we got tired of walking. I think the girls might say that reading a bus map and riding the bus might have been the most valuable skill they learned on this trip it’s too bad that Apps may have taken some of the challenge of learning to read a map away from your girls. The other App is SFPark which gives you parking information anywhere you’re trying to go.

A Few Notable Stops Along the Cable Car Route:

Union Square, where the cable cars begin/end, may be fun to explore. There is a nice photo op by a big heart on one of the corners of the square. There are lots of shops all around the square…many of them available at Fashion Valley or Horton Plaza…but your girls may have fun window shopping. We went into the Paul Frank shop to take photos with the monkey. You’ll pass by the Sir Frances Drake Hotel with the fancy doormen if you continue up Powell Street from the Square.

The Cable Car Museum at 1201 Mason St is an interesting stop where you can see the cable cars from a more unusual point of view – from underground – and admission is FREE. The Powell/Mason line goes right past the museum. Remember if you get off the cable car it costs another $7 to get on…but you can get on or off at any point on the route.

We got off the Cable Car at Lombard Street and my girls enjoyed walking/running down the street and taking some silly pictures that made it look like they were standing sideways. We took the bus from the bottom of the hill to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Barbary Coast Trail – This is a 3.8 mile walking tour of San Francisco, created by the San Francisco Historical Society, which can begin in Union Square, and includes a ride on the cable cars and 20 other historic sites. There is a cost for the map/guide or audio tour that can be downloaded to a smart phone or ipod, but it looks like it includes lots of interesting history of the city and these stops:
Trail Highlights
• Birthplace of the Gold Rush
• Largest collection of historic ships in the U.S.
• Pony Express Headquarters site
• WWII submarine
• First Asian temple in the U.S.
• Barbary Coast-era shanghaiing den
• Old Mint, once the “Fort Knox of the West”
• Gold Rush-era buildings
• Oldest Catholic cathedral west of the Rockies
• Gold Rush Museum, featuring stagecoaches and Gold Rush mining implements
• Mansion built by Silver King James C. Flood
• Hyde-Powell Cable Car Line

Ubers and Lyft are ok with an adult chaperone in each car and following the guidelines in Volunteer Essentials (ie, using seat belts). Those companies use background checks similar to ours, and require insurance.

An alternative to Uber and Lyft for women ONLY in San Francisco is a company called Wridely!! A perk of Wridely is that you can schedule a time in the future or request a ride immediately. You also get to know the fare of the ride before taking it, unlike Uber.
This is a new service that is available only in SF & SD, and not in LA YET .

Shuttles are available from the airport but are more expensive than BART and you’ll get stuck in traffic…the BART travels above and under ground so you arrive quickly to your destination.