One of my favorite hiking destinations in San Francisco is the city itself. By foregoing its city streets and focusing entirely on the city’s stairways, you can carve out a magical hike with awesome views, with peeks into little-seen urban nooks.

Thanks to the city’s pedestrian and cable car past, San Francisco is littered with stairways carved into its neighborhoods, creating pedestrian short cuts from one hilly road to another. The stairways pop up throughout the city, but reach a fever pitch as you get closer to our big hills — Twin Peaks, Nob Hill, Bernal Heights, and Grand View Park.

Using the network of stairways, you can climb up to Twin Peaks and then descend into the Inner Sunset (or the other way around, depending on where you start from). Climbing uphill, you’ll have stunning views of downtown San Francisco and the bay; on the downhill, views of pastel houses splayed out on the march to the Pacific Ocean.

The paths themselves are curious and fascinating. Some stairways, like the Vulcan Stairway, are dotted with hidden intricate gardens and candy-colored bungalows onlyreachable by the stairs. Other stairways are cloaked in Eucalyptus and Redwood trees.

While my preference is to treat the stairways as a day-long seek and find, I understand getting lost and finding yourself may not appeal to everyone. If you’re not sure how to navigate the stairs yourself, or if you’d like a guide to follow, I’d highly recommend picking up Stairway Walks in San Francisco. It lays out 29 walks you can go on, and gives directions and a map. The book also catalogs over 600 stairways in San Francisco.

Happy hiking.

——————————————–

Live in the East Bay? You can do this in the Berkeley and Oakland hills too. Check out our Hiking the Berkeley Hills and an Evening at the Greek Theater.