The Barbary Coast
Seven stops. Seven lies. One Emperor. Walk through the neighborhood that invented the word shanghaied — where a gang leader in chain mail was assassinated because somebody sent his bodyguard for a newspaper, tourists paid for balcony seats to watch staged depravity, and a bankrupt rice trader declared himself Emperor of the United States.
Start This ExperienceWhat You'll Experience
A taste of what you'll hear
9 stops, each with its own story. Here's a preview.
"You're about to walk through the neighborhood that gave San Francisco its reputation. Not the good one. The other one. Before this was a city of startups and sourdough, it was the most dangerous port in the Western Hemisphere."
"See that brick building? Four fifty-one Jackson Street. Italianate facade, cast-iron shutters, a plaque on the wall. This was the West Coast's largest whiskey warehouse."
"Alright. Seven stops. Seven lies. Let's sort them out. Sam Brannan's receipt — shovels sold, fourteen hundred, gold personally mined, none? I made that up. No evidence he kept one."
Part tour, part game
Most of what you hear is true. But we slip in a few things that aren't. At the end, there's a quiz — can you tell which facts were real?
It makes you pay attention. And it's way more fun than just listening.
Have questions? Just ask.
Curious about something you heard? Want to know more about a place? Ask us anything — we have a lot to say. It's more fun when it's a conversation.
Ready?
Download the app, head to the starting point, and press play. The stories start themselves.
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Haight-Ashbury
100,000 Hippies and One Camera Store
How San Francisco became the capital of doing your own thing. Walk from the Painted Ladies to Dolores Park through hippie ground zero and the neighborhood that launched a civil rights revolution — where a hundred thousand teenagers showed up for free love and the locals held a funeral to make them leave, a camera shop owner stepped in dog poop on purpose to get elected, and two women opened bar curtains and changed what courage looked like.
Waterfront
Fog, Fraud & Fortune Cookies
Ten landmarks. Ten lies. Good luck. Walk through a city that spent a hundred and seventy-five years doing absolutely unhinged things and then pretending they were normal. You'll see the Ferry Building that was hidden behind a freeway for thirty-two years, the sugar heir who survived a shooting because of picture books, the fake Chinatown built by architects who'd never been to China, and the crookedest street that isn't actually the crookedest street.
Golden Gate
The Bridge That Couldn't Be Built
The man who built the Golden Gate Bridge had never designed a suspension bridge. The man who actually did the math was erased from history for seventy-five years. Walk from a building designed to fall apart to a bridge that screams in the wind — through a military base conquered three times without a shot and an airfield restored from poison.