I recently took my oldest daughter on a mother-daughter trip to San Francisco to celebrate her 16th birthday, and we had an absolutely amazing time together. Core memories were made, great food was eaten, incredible sites were seen, trolleys and buses and rental cars were ridden, park passport books were stamped, a custom playlist was made and listened to.
We spent a whirlwind 3 nights and 3 days there, and lunch in Chinatown was our very first excursion. We wandered our way through the colorful streets with a couple open-ended plans and ultimately returned to our hotel with both our bellies and our curiosity fully satiated. If you’re headed to San Francisco with your teenager, I highly recommend spending at least a few hours in Chinatown.
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Table of Contents
An Overview of Chinatown
Although the San Francisco Chinatown is not the largest Chinatown in the United States, it is the oldest Chinatown, and second in size to New York City’s. Established in 1848, it was a safe haven for Chinese immigrants who faced persecution when they moved to the bay area during the Gold Rush. It’s located just north of downtown San Francisco and is surrounded by Nob Hill and North Beach.
From a visitor’s standpoint, it’s a great place for food, souvenirs, and unique cultural experiences. Plus it’s super pedestrian-friendly.
Tips on Traveling With Your Teen
As mamas, safety is always our top priority when you’re out and about with your kids—an instinct that is engrained since they were infants. Avoiding meltdowns for both you and your teen is still a must too. And traveling together is a great way to impart life wisdom you might not otherwise have the opportunity to in the day-to-day back home. Here are some tips that helped make our mother-daughter trip a success:
- Getting them involved in the planning — Giving your teen a say in some of the sites you visit during your trip will help them not only get excited about the trip, but it’ll help exercise their own travel-planning skills.
- Location sharing — If you don’t already share your location via your phone with your teen, traveling along together is definitely the time to do so. This is helpful not only in case you get separated during your travels, but also in case one of you misplaces your phone. This will make finding each other or your devices incredibly easier. Thankfully this was never an issue for us, but would be a welcome relief to have it on if that were ever the case. Sharing your location is super easy with the ‘Find My’ app on iPhones.
- Phone charging — Speaking of phones, making sure yours is always charged is a must when you’re navigating a new city—oftentimes with directions from your phone. Your battery will drain much faster than usual, and you may not always find easy outlets to recharge at when you’re out and about. An external battery back that you can recharge from makes a world of difference. We learned this the hard way in San Francisco when we tried to find an outlet to charge up at and had to visit four different coffee shops before we found one.
- Street smarts — Learning how to be aware of your surroundings when you’re navigating the streets of a busy city is imperative. Demonstrating to your teen how to keep their personal belongings safe from pick pockets, navigating public transportation, and assessing your personal safety on quiet streets and around questionable strangers are valuable life lessons.
- Always carry a water bottle — Keeping hydrated is super important whether you’re hiking the trails or the alleys of Chinatown. Making it a practice to carry a water bottle in your bag (and keeping it filled) will help you and your teen avoid dehydration and help keep the grumpies away.
Now let me walk you through our walk thru of Chinatown so you’ll have some tips on planning your own visit!
Transportation To and Around Chinatown
Getting to Chinatown was super easy for us, because we were staying literally around the corner at the Palihotel San Francisco. So we made it on foot throughout our explorations. We did take public transit later in our trip to get around in town, and the bus system was super easy to navigate.
You could always Uber over from where you’re staying, but I avoided them after seeing how expensive they could be.
If you think you want to hop on a trolley to explore Chinatown, or any part of San Francisco, than I’d recommend checking out the Muni Visitor Pass options, which gives you on and off access on all public buses, trains, and trolleys for 1-7 days. We didn’t do this to get around on day one, but we did on day two when we were going further across town and I didn’t want to mess with where to park my rental car.
All that to say, Chinatown itself is super walkable, and once you get yourself there, you don’t really need to worry about anything except making sure you have on a good pair of walking shoes. Unless you’re on a time crunch for some reason, walking leisurely through Chinatown really is the best way to soak it all in.
Places to Eat and Drink in Chinatown
The first thing we did after dropping our bags off at the hotel was find a spot to get lunch. And I had bookmarked a couple food spots before our arrival but we were getting close to being hangry so I used good ole Google Maps to find something that was a short walk away that was well reviewed. We ended up finding a delicious looking hole in the wall spot called New Fortune on Stockton Street, and it was absolutely incredible (and an easy place to put your feet up with indoor seating). If you’re looking for dim sum, City View Restaurant is one of the best restaurants to enjoy some, and it’s right next to Portsmouth Square Park in the heart of Chinatown.
We also also ended up grabbing some coffee during around afternoon wandering around at a hipster little place called Reveille Coffee up just north of Chinatown.
Another spot that I had bookmarked and that was well-reviewed was Golden Gate Bakery; a Chinese bakery widely known for its custard tarts. I’d never heard of this local delicacy before and it would have been fun to try one, so definitely something we’d track down on a return visit.
I wish I could say I had a larger list of food and drink recs for y’all here, but I really found it easiest to look up things that were nearby and open in the moment when we were searching for things in a particular neighborhood on our San Fran trip. Needless to say, you’ll find mostly Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, and it’s a darn good reason to pay it a visit.
I wish I could say I had a larger list of food and drink recs for y’all here, but I really found it easiest to look up things that were nearby and open in the moment when we were searching for things in a particular neighborhood on our San Fran trip.
Things to Do in Chinatown
Make Your Own Fortune Cookies at Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory
Our number one must-see thing on my list before our trip to Chinatown was a visit to Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company I’ve always loved fortune cookies, and when I learned that we could go see them being made I geeked out adding that to my list. And that’s just where we headed after eating lunch. We took in the sites and got distracted by a tea shop on the way, and then almost missed the turn off—the little pedestrian only Ross Alley.
The alley itself (which there are many similar ones in Chinatown) was super cute with Chinese lanterns hanging overhead. There were a lot of little alleys like this, but this was a more well known one apparently. We caught some words from a tour guide talking about the history of Ross Alley in particular. I skipped out on listening too closely though when I realized they were headed to the fortune cookie factory too. We made it ahead of the crowd of 20 or so tourists just in time for a quiet lull in the factory’s storefront.
We geeked out over watching them pull out the flat discs to fold them into their iconic shape, swiftly slipping the tiny fortunes—the quick randomly selected words of wisdom then parsed out into their final containers. We got to sample some of the prefolded discs and then ogled over the shelves of packaged cookies. I opted for a clam shelled variety pack that I figured would survive the flight back home. You can buy the cookies in bulk for an amazing price.
The real delight was the little station they had set up to write your own fortunes to pass to the woman folding them into the cookies. You could make two to fill your own mini Chinese takeout box as a souvenir. Eleanor and I were absolutely giddy over this and quickly tried to think up fun things to write for friends back at home (that was so much harder to think of them on the fly than I anticipated!).
Add to Your Souvenir Penny Collection in “Penny Press Row”
I am an absolute nerd when it comes to collecting souvenirs during my travels and there are certain types of items I have my eye out for at all times when I’m touristing it up. Penny press machines make me squeal like a kid (at least on the inside if not always audibly) when I stumble across them. And suffice it to say I could barely contain myself when we stumbled across a block along Grant Ave. (at the intersection of Washington Street—sometimes locals call it Grant Street) that had at least half a dozen machines collectively on both sides of the road.
I make sure to keep quarters and pennies with me on all trips for such occasions as these. And Eleanor dutifully helped me choose which designs to press our pennies with—and helped crank the machine at multiple penny presses. I’m often hard pressed to find any penny machines, so to randomly find a group of them clustered in front of a small shop felt like pennies from heaven were showering down on us. These tiny tangible treasures bring me so much joy and instantly take me back to the places I found them and the people I was with when I pressed them.
Get Your Fortune Told with Zoltar
Just like any other millennial mom who grew up watching Tom Hanks’ magical transformation in the late 80s movie Big, Zoltar machines hold a captivating spell over me. We discovered one about a block south of the penny press machines and I had to introduce this wonder to my own teenage daughter.
Shop for Unique Home Goods and Souvenirs
There are tons of incredible little shops sprinkled throughout the streets of Chinatown. You could easily get distracted by all of the ample window shopping opportunities, which I most certainly did from time to time. I wish I could tell you the absolute best place to go shopping for souvenirs and quintessential items to buy during your visit, but I think this is where happenstance will serve you best as well.
Some of the fun finds I collected from some of the shops we stopped in included a new hand fan, mini paper lanterns (to add to our Christmas tree this year as ornaments, and some Chinese fabric coin purses as gifts for friends and family back home. I was very tempted by some of the tea and incense shops but ended up skipping on those goods this time around.
Grant Avenue is a great place over all to find some of the cutest goods to bring back home with you. Just be mindful of how much you’ll be hauling around with you throughout the rest of your day on foot, too!
Things to See in Chinatown
Dragon Gate
One of the other must-sees I had on my list for our visit was checking out Dragon Gate. I saw it pop up as a landmark in Google Maps and bookmarked it. You’ll find it at the intersection of Grant Avenue and Bush Street at the southern end of Chinatown. It’s a great way to enter the neighborhood, but it ended up being how we exited.
This iconic Chinatown gate was built in 1969 and is one of the most popular spots in the historic neighborhood.
The street behind it is lined with red paper lanterns above and it’s especially pretty at night when they’re all lit up. This is the section of Grant Ave. considered the ‘Grant Avenue Stroll’ and if you only have a short time to stop in Chinatown I highly recommend making it this one.
Street Art + Musicians
There are tons of murals on the sides of buildings and in alleyways all throughout Chinatown. I’m sure there must be some well known ones, but we found it fun to just serendipitously come across them. Same thing with street musicians. We didn’t see too many of them, but we were visiting on a weekday. We did enjoy listening to a man playing a traditional Erhu instrument, and I’m sure you’d probably come across more street musicians and performers during a weekend visit (although the streets were still pretty full with people on a Thursday).
Sites Just Outside of Chinatown That Are Worth Your Time
Explore the Shelves at City Lights Booksellers
A friend of mine had recommended we visit this bookstore. Dating back to the beatnik days, City Lights was instrumental in the publishing of Allan Ginsberg’s Howl, and is an institution in the world of independent bookstores. (Check out the Beat Museum nearby if you’re curious to learn more). With 3 stories of books to explore in a charming old building, it’s easy spend a good portion of your afternoon here. I gravitated to the top floor with the poetry books and walked away with a book titled Finger Exercises for Poets.
Little Italy
Just on the edge of Chinatown, you’ll find Little Italy, in the North Beach neighborhood. We didn’t realize we were walking into the neighborhood until we began seeing Italian flag colors everywhere. If you have a hankering for some good Italian food, this is your area of town to look in.
Coit Tower
It’s a bit of a trek from Chinatown, but it’s doable (San Francisco’s steep hills come into play fyi). There is a fee to climb up to the top of the tower, but the view is absolutely worth it. Plus there are a bunch of incredible murals painted in 1934 as part of the Public Works of Art Project on the inner staircase. (Plus there’s another penny press inside!) Pioneer Park at the base also offers great views of the city, as well as the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
Where to Stay Near Chinatown
I don’t have an entire list of places to stay near Chinatown, but I do have one that we enjoyed overall: Palihotel San Francisco. It’s right around the corner from the Dragon Gate entrance to Chinatown, so it’s the perfect distance for walking.
We did have some issues with late night noise from the neighboring room and an overcharge that I had to call for a refund on after our trip, but the overall aesthetic and comfort of the hotel was lovely. The design of the entire building was great, and it had a fun vintage elevator.
There was no hotel restaurant operating during our stay, but there was complimentary coffee in the beautiful lounge on the second floor. I took to it in the evenings when I needed a few minutes alone to decompress from the day. It looks like this space may be a bar and restaurant now, and I’d definitely check it out if we made it back.
Pro tip: if you need to park your car skip the hotel-recommended garage around the corner and opt for the public one across the street. It’s easier to get to, and less expensive when we were there.
Final Thoughts
Believe it or not, we did all of the recommended things above (plus more) just on day one of our visit to San Francisco. Chinatown was the best way to kick off our mother-daughter trip, and I couldn’t imagine a trip to this gorgeous city without making a stop there again!
