My job usually revolves around pointing out what’s wrong with San Francisco — and there’s never a shortage of topics.

The ridiculous cost of housing. Homeless tent camps. Open-air drug use and dirty needles littering the gutters. A $10 billion annual budget that somehow still can’t get Muni to show up on time or keep the sidewalks feces-free.

But then why do so many people clamor to live here? Why do I still love San Francisco after 18 years? Why do this city’s residents remain so devoted to their hometown they hang pictures of it all over their walls and equate any criticism of it with trashing their mothers?

A nice summer vacation provided some much-needed reminders of why so many of us fell in love with our city — the city — and why we still love it despite its obvious flaws.

For starters, there’s the beauty that bursts forth from pretty much any vantage point. (OK, not those needles in the gutters or the Powell Street BART Station, but you know what I mean.)

If there’s a more joyous experience than driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny day with your favorite song blasting on the radio, I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s riding the cable car as it rumbles past Union Square and then catching a glimpse of the Transamerica Pyramid and the sparkling bay behind it. Or strolling along the Embarcadero to AT&T Park in time to see a Giants splash hit into McCovey Cove.

But like a romantic partner, good looks will only get you so far. You’ve also got to have fun. And San Francisco offers that in spades. As Charlotte Shultz, the city’s chief of protocol, once told me, “This city loves celebrating. I’ve always said if you got people together and said, ‘Let’s celebrate Tuesday,’ people would come and celebrate Tuesday!”

True. It’s often hard to pick which whimsical event to attend on any given day, Tuesday or otherwise. A good friend and fellow mom posted on Facebook on Friday, “Trying to decide what to do in the city this weekend: scavenger hunt and kids’ concerto at the Botanical Gardens, circus street festival, myriad science programs at the public libraries or anti-racist story time at the natural parenting store. San Francisco, you are rad.”

If there ever was a more San Francisco phrase than “anti-racist story time at the natural parenting store,” I don’t know what it is. But I get a kick out of the fact it exists.

My family spent a lovely week at the city’s Camp Mather outside Yosemite, our first time there. It’s run by the Recreation and Park Department, and it’s so popular, city residents have to enter a lottery for a spot.

It may be the only place outside San Francisco that’s composed of only San Franciscans. That being the case, it’s somewhat like San Francisco, minus the concrete, skyscrapers and sight of everybody buried in their phones. There’s no cell service or Wi-Fi connection, so people were actually buried in — you’ll never believe it — books! I thought it would be hard being so out of the loop for a week, but being late to the news of Donald Trump Jr.’s bizarre Russia meeting wasn’t exactly the end of the world.

We tried our hands at archery, horseback riding, canoeing, tie-dying and more. Families brought huge floaties — some bigger than walk-in closets — to bob around Birch Lake, blasting super soakers at their friends. Floaties shaped like flamingos, swans, pizza slices and avocados (sans toast) dotted the glittering water. The evenings were also celebratory, with talent shows, dance parties, and the gulping of ice cream and wine from the general store.

(Side note: San Franciscans know how to have fun, but they also know how to engage in roiling debates. The long-standing, still raging one at Camp Mather is whether Mather rhymes with rather or is pronounced May-ther. Those running the camp seem intent on the former, while many longtime camp attendees are just as certain it’s the latter. As a first-timer, I feel entirely unqualified to weigh in.)

Back in the city, my love affair with San Francisco continued. For being the American city with the smallest percentage of kids, San Francisco is actually a great place to raise them. My 7-year-old boy has discovered the joys of Rec and Park’s Silver Tree summer day camp, where kids roast marshmallows, weave lanyards, go on pinecone hunts, and, every Thursday evening, perform songs and skits for their parents. His group sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and then said, “We know the song so well, we can sing it backward!” They then turned around and sang it again.

Even the most basic outing can be memorable in San Francisco. Take Sunday morning. A one-stop BART ride got me from my neighborhood, Glen Park, to 24th and Mission streets for a yoga class — complete with live music — at Yoga Tree Valencia. A preacher was yelling about God in Spanish in the BART plaza, and nobody seemed to mind.

I asked friends and colleagues why they love living in San Francisco. Sunday Streets. The diversity. The tolerance. The ease of reaching Wine Country, Tahoe and Yosemite. “People of all stripes are welcome here,” said one. “Everybody’s a Democrat,” said another.

I stopped Cammy Blackstone, who works in external affairs at AT&T, as she walked the halls of City Hall on Monday. She’s lived in San Francisco for 36 years and definitely knows how to have fun. She said the city’s gentrification and open-air drug use and crime are frustrating, but she loves the constant flashes of excitement that come with living here.

Like Flower Piano, the just-concluded two-week event where pianos dot the arboretum in Golden Gate Park, or live music at the Honey Hive Gallery in the Outer Sunset. She whipped out of her purse a card advertising an Elvis Presley Tribute at the Make-Out Room on Aug. 16. She’ll be a DJ, and the evening will include a “shake your pelvis contest” and peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches.

“It’s 40 years since he died. Or disappeared,” she said with a twinkle behind her cat-eye glasses. “If someone says they’re bored in San Francisco, they’re not trying hard enough.”

Indeed. What are the reasons that keep you in San Francisco despite the hardships of living here? From the big (your job, your family) to the small (your favorite dish at your favorite restaurant), I’d love to hear about it. The best answers may be published in a future column.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Email: HKnight@sfchronicle.com, Twitter: @hknightsf