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.
Start This ExperienceWhat You'll Experience
A taste of what you'll hear
12 stops, each with its own story. Here's a preview.
"You're in San Francisco. Which means you're currently standing in a city that has spent the last hundred and seventy-five years doing absolutely unhinged things and then pretending they were normal."
"Look up. That's Coit Tower — two hundred and ten feet of fluted concrete on top of Telegraph Hill. People will tell you it was designed to look like a fire hose nozzle. The architect denied it. The woman who paid for it would have loved the rumor."
"Alright. Ten stops. Ten landmarks. And you've been trying to figure out which parts I made up. Let's do this. The ferry captain refusing to sound his horn as he pulled away for the last time — she knows we're leaving? I made that up."
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.
Get the Free AppOther San Francisco Tours
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.
Jackson Square
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.
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.