1. Morning | Art walk through Yerba Buena Gardens

Wander through Yerba Buena Gardens, a park filled with public art, a carousel, and lush gardens. One pathway routes behind the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Waterfall, a must-see (check the website for the current hours, which are adjusted to due to recent construction).

From there, head across the street to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. You can visit the first two floors of the grandiose art museum for free. Current free exhibitions at SFMOMA include a work by minimalist artist Sol LeWitt, as well as a piece by Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian-born American artist known for her abstract landscape paintings.

2. Lunch | Dim sum and fortune cookies in Chinatown

Walk just a few blocks to Chinatown for cheap dim sum and baked goods at Good Mong Kok Bakery. Order the set of three vegetable and pork buns ($2.30) and a steamed barbecue bun ($1.20) for a hearty meal.

Bonus: The egg yolk buns (order three for $2.20) are heavenly—a fragrant, slightly sweet bun with a custard-like filling.

For dessert, visit the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory for a brief, free tour, where you’ll be treated to a sample of a fresh, unfolded fortune cookie. The real treat is watching the factory workers hand-fold the flat, vanilla cookie discs into form in just seconds.

Bonus: The free tour is also a great spot to get a delightfully cheap, personal gift for a loved one—a handwritten fortune. Write your message on a strip of paper, hand it to a factory worker, and they’ll fold a fresh cookie with your note inside ($1).

Wander the streets of Chinatown. Stop at the neighborhood’s official entrance, the Dragon Gate, and grab a photo under the glowing red lanterns hanging over Grant Avenue.

3. Afternoon | Periodicals and pizza in North Beach

The next neighborhood over is North Beach, San Francisco’s Little Italy. Pop inside the City Lights bookstore, which was made famous during the Beat era. Then walk down the adjacent Jack Kerouac Alley, a half-block alley where the walls and floors are covered with art and quotes by authors including Maya Angelou, John Steinbeck, and Kerouac himself.

Rest your feet at Washington Square, and if your glutes are up for it, climb up the nearby, quad-burning hill to Coit Tower for fantastic Golden Gate Bridge views (as long as the fog hasn’t rolled in). Budget travelers can skip the official tour of the tower ($8); the views are just as great from the exterior (read: free) area.

Snag a slice of square-shaped Sweet Grandma pizza ($6) for dinner at Tony’s Slice House. The crust is slightly crunchy—and true to its name, the sauce is sweet. By the way, that’s Tony as in Tony Gemignani, the Food Network celebrity and Guinness Book of World Records multi-record holder (for feats including creating the world’s longest pizza).

4. Evening | Cable cars and chaturanga in Nob Hill

Walk 10 minutes from Tony’s to the free Cable Car Museum to learn about the underground cables powering San Francisco’s famous transit system. But hurry over: It closes at 6 p.m. April through October, and at 5 p.m. November through March.

Then peek inside the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel, an opulent, historic landmark situated on top of Nob Hill, where Tony Bennett first sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” If it’s Christmastime, you’ll witness the lobby’s spectacular holiday display, including a 25-foot-high gingerbread house (complete with miniature railway) and a 23-foot-tall Christmas tree.

For a unique physical and spiritual experience, head inside the gothic archway of the Grace Cathedral, just a block from the Fairmont. Most tourists linger outside, but as Johnny Hayes, founder of FuncheapSF, told us, the real magic is inside: Every Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. (arrive early), the public can participate in a secular yoga class held on the cathedral’s labyrinth and set to live music.

“Every week it’s different—sometimes a dude is playing a didgeridoo, and sometimes the class is set to the beat of drums,” Hayes said. “You don’t just see it, but you really experience the place.”

Assuming you didn’t pack your own yoga mat, you’ll need to rent one for $5.

Bonus: Although the class is free, donations are accepted (the recommendation is about $15).

Cost of day one:

Food: $9.50

Activities: $5

Transportation: $0

Bonus picks: $18.20

Total: $14.50 ($32.70 including bonus picks)