Any thoughts on which San Francisco Hilton is better to stay in? We've never been to San Francisco and are only going to be there one night before heading off to a wedding. The Hilton seems to have one in downtown and one at Fisherman's Wharf. (we're contemplating using Hilton points!
Thank you!

I always like to stay downtown rather than at the wharf. But generally:
Downtown - lots of restaurants, entertainment, theater district and shopping
Wharf - some good seafood, very touristy, trinket shops, cooler weather

If you only have one day, I would spend a few hours at the wharf, but I would dine and sleep downtown.

Mary,

My advice to you would be to stay at The Hilton Garden Inn at the San Francisco Airport. The city of San Francisco has been on the decline in recent years. Increased crime, homeless problem(they are very aggressive in their approach of asking for money), and trash in the streets. I have lived in the SF area for many years and have never seen it this bad.

Hilton Garden Inn
670 Gateway Blvd.
San Francisco, CA
Located near airport w/complimentary airport shuttle. Just 8 miles from downtown San Francisco.
Telephone: 650-872-1515

Yes, the airport is FAR more charming than Union Square or the Wharf. get real, Cameron, and quit polluting this board with nonsense.

The area around the airport is completely uninteresting and industrial. Why would anyone even consider recommending that a visitor to SF stay at the AIRPORT?????

Please disregard that little bit of distraction from your considerations, mary.

Personally I think staying in thedowntown area is preferable as I find the FW area excessively touristy, but the views are nice. I'm not a fan of either hotel, so I'll just stay quiet on that topic.

Thank you all for your thoughts. It sounds like downtown is the place to stay! I'm very happy to hear other suggestions for hotels, we would certainly prefer some advice on other options!

SF is an expensive city, but there are some good values to be found.
The key question, what's your range for hotel rates?

The range would be anything between $150-$250. We'll be there on a Wednesday, so I know it may be tough mid-week with business travelers.
Thanks again to all of you!

For one night only -- take the freebee with the Hilton (downtown). Makes beaucoup sense.

Is there a Gateway Blvd in San Francisco? Hmmm... never new! Really learning from this post.

Mary: As I recall, when researching hotels in S.F., we discounted the downtown Hilton due to it's huge (1900 rooms) size and being located in a dicey area. We ultimately stayed at the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill and were quite pleased. I would research the particular area of S.F. where the Hilton is located, but I guess for 1 night it won't be as much of an issue.

Gateway Blvd is in South San Francisco.

For one night free is hard to beat.
On the other hand, your price range does leave you with quite a few options (Unless there's a convention or something in town).
Have you checked on quikbook.com, orbitz.com, etc?
You can stay at some very nice places in that range.
I even checked one of my favorite 'under $300' hotels, the new "W" hotel, and it was only $200 on a couple Wednesdays I randomly selected in July.

San Francisco may be the worst cities in America, but too many of its residents are lost in such a haze of self-righteous entitlement and aggrieved internecine warfare that they don't even seem to know it. And the things that are wrong with San Francisco were so many years, so many decades, in the making.

The local transportation system is a scandal. In Chicago one zooms around by car, "el" and cab. In San Francisco, one never zooms, anywhere, by any means. The city's bus and subway network, called Muni, is the thalidomide baby of transportation systems. As far as I can determine from the reporting on it, it's
been run by incompetents for more than 20 years. The fares are about the cheapest of any major city -- only a dollar. But any politician who suggested raising fares to help the system would get laughed out of town. If you talk about curbing peoples' antisocial behavior in San Francisco, you get tagged as a Giuliani. But it's actually a fundamental quality-of-life issue for the city's weakest and mostdefenseless people. Bus drivers are too busy snarling to attempt to enforce decent behavior on the buses. Those who try get
threatened and attacked. And when thugs are threatening other passengers, it drives all but the most desperate away.

Cabs aren't the answer because there hardly are any. In most of the city you can't depend on getting one before 9 p.m. on non-weekend nights. I'm always struck by the crowds of tourists lined up outside pricey hotels and restaurants, wanly waiting for a cab. They're probably so caught up in the romance of the city that they don't think about how pathetic it is that they have to spend an hour waiting for a ride back to their overpriced hotel.

The homeless are considered a mark of pride here that the city does not harass the homeless. The trouble with this is that the city does nothing to help them, either. The result is an ongoing human
tragedy of epic proportions. On Haight Street, on a given Saturday,you can see dozens of teenagers and those in their 20s, fried out of their skulls, systematically killing themselves and each other. A large portion of the other homeless you see on the street are
obviously victims of substance abuse of one form or another. San Franciscans view this as a laudable example of their tolerance. But for the addicted, this sort of tolerance is not so much freedom as a trap. Most San Franciscans like political positions that remove from
them the responsibility to actually do something about a particular issue. The city's homeless policies coincide nicely with this tendency.

In terms of the cultural scene, I could never quite figure out why San Francisco is considered a cultural center. The theater scene here, particularly the mainstream commercial fare, is undistinguished. (The one superior theater company is the Berkeley Repertory, across the bay.) The music scene, save for a few underground turntablists, is unnotable. The symphony and opera are considered only decent, the museums less so. The architecture is the visual equivalent of fingernails scraping across the blackboard of the horizon, a panorama of boxy columns and clumsy attempts at attention-getting. This, too, is an effect that took decades to accomplish.

While your rhetoric is more harsh than most, your points are defensible, xyz.
I agree with you.
SF has more potential than any city in the world.
Largely squandered, though, primarily due to this odd need to promote liberalism and hedonism.
Very sad.