_Instead: _Explore the Mission District. For the real San Francisco-now experience, explore the gritty Mission District. Before the dot-com boom, the Mission was the last ungentrified central San Francisco neighborhood, historically the heart of the city's Latino community and the stomping ground of underground artists. Today weekend hipsters with day jobs in biotech have moved in, but the vibe remains decidedly experimental. Explore the Mission's famous murals in Clarion Alley with Precita Eyes Mural Tours, fuel up on $4 tacos, and then wander down Valencia Street (from 24th to 16th Sts) and pop into only-in-S.F. boutiques. At Paxton Gate you can peruse housewares like glass terraria and vintage taxidermy; Good Vibrations is ground zero for the latest in sex toys. Make love not war: That's the real way to channel the hippie Haight spirit.

5. If you're going to hop aboard San Francisco's most famous icons, don't take the Powell Street cable cars.

Lines snake around the cable car terminus at Powell and Market streets, the beginning of the two major cable-car lines (Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason), which carry tourists to Fisherman's Wharf. While you wait—sometimes as long as an hour—you're held hostage by D-grade accordion players, panhandlers, and evangelists threatening hellfire. All this hassle for a ride on a toy train?

_Instead: _Take the California Street line. Take the cable car line tourists don't know about: the California Street line. There's rarely a queue for this lightly traveled route because visitors don't know what to do at the end of the line, Van Ness Avenue. But we do: Grab a picnic lunch of succulent Cowgirl Creamery cheese and crusty French bread near the beginning of the route at the Ferry Building Marketplace and hop on the cable car at the foot of California Street. Then, from the terminus at Van Ness Avenue, walk to Lafayette Square, in swanky Pacific Heights, for a hilltop picnic in the shadow of stately townhouses. Afterward, window-shop Upper Fillmore St alongside the city's skirt-and-sweater matrons. (Tip: For a great photo on the cable car, shoot east downhill as you approach Stockton Street; the Bay Bridge tower is briefly framed just right between downtown skyscrapers.)

6. If you want a taste of waterfront life, don't waste your time at Pier 39.

Unless you have an insatiable refrigerator-magnet fetish, don't rub fanny packs with the hordes thronging Pier 39. Little more than an outdoor strip mall built to revitalize the once decrepit northern waterfront, Pier 39 overflows with tourists clutching bags of tatty souvenirs destined for future garage sales. The only smart reason to come is to ooh and aah at the sea lions lazing off the pier's northwestern side, but you can do this in the evening, once the shops have closed and the pier has emptied out.

_Instead: _Explore Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Get picture-postcard vistas of the bay's glittering waters from the waterfront promenades of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Wander west of Van Ness Avenue from Pier 39 along the wooded trails leading to Fort Mason, a former shipyard now home to experimental theaters and art workshops. Further west, Marina Green draws kite-fliers and sunbathers to a giant sweep of grass in view of bobbing masts of sailboats. But the big payoff is Crissy Field, a restored bay-front wetlands with raised boardwalks over the dunes, stellar bird-watching, and jaw-dropping views of the 70-story-high Golden Gate Bridge. If you've got good walking shoes on, keep going all the way to Fort Point, directly beneath the bridge, to see where Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart dove into the water in Hitchcock's 1958 thriller Vertigo (required viewing for all San Francisco visitors). And if the fog rolls in, fret not: Aim for Crissy Field's Warming Hut, where you'll find hot cocoa and National Park rangers to help you find your way home.

7. To get a real taste of Chinese culture, don't go to Grant Avenue in Chinatown.

No tour of San Francisco would be complete without a loop through Chinatown, the largest Chinese enclave this side of the Pacific. All those green-tile roofs, dragon lanterns, and Art Deco-Chinoiserie make for some damn good pictures, but don't miss out, as most tourists do, by sticking to Grant Avenue. If you do that, you'll walk right through Chinatown and miss the real thing, seeing only tchotchke shops and overpriced electronics stores.