Tag: san francisco

Best Places to Visit in May

As spring unfurls its colors across the United States, the month of May emerges as a beacon for travelers eager to experience the beauty and diversity of the nation. From the temperate shores of the Pacific Northwest to the historic streets of the East Coast, here are the top destinations to consider for your May getaway.

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston in May is a picturesque blend of blooming gardens and historical charm. The annual Spoleto Festival USA, beginning in late May, transforms the city into a vibrant hub for artists and performers from around the world. Stroll through centuries-old streets, explore antebellum homes, and savor Southern cuisine at its finest.

San Francisco, California The iconic city of San Francisco offers cool and foggy mornings with sunnier afternoons, perfect for exploring its hills and eclectic neighborhoods. Visit the renowned San Francisco Museum of Modern Art or take a ferry to Alcatraz Island. Don’t miss the chance to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and enjoy stunning views of the bay.

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The Grand Canyon, Arizona For outdoor enthusiasts, May is the ideal time to visit the Grand Canyon before the summer heat sets in. Whether you hike the rigorous trails, partake in a rafting adventure on the Colorado River, or simply gaze out over the vast expanse from the rim, the Grand Canyon in spring is truly a natural wonder.

New York City, New York New York City in May is full of life. The weather is perfect for walking through Central Park, visiting open-air markets, or catching a Broadway show. The city’s museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, offer cultural enrichment for art lovers.

Portland, Oregon Portland bursts into bloom with rhododendrons and roses in May.

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What the Tech? Google AI vacations

When you’re planning a vacation you might know where you want to go, but you need help with what to do when you get there. Where to stay, where to eat, what to do during the day, and are there any baseball games/live bands/festivals taking place when we’re going to be there?

People have been using Chat GPT to create travel plans and itineraries but Google believes it can do it better. And maybe it can because of the billions of pages of information in its search engine. At least I was anxious to see what it could do.

Now, to plan a vacation all you need to do is ask Google and its new generative AI tool in the normal Google Search bar. Let’s plan a vacation in San Francisco, California. We’ll add that we are interested in live music and wine and would like to include Napa Valley.

Add the dates and for how many people. I type into the search bar “plan a vacation in San Francisco for June 18th to 28th for 4 people. We are interested in live music and wine.” After hitting ‘enter’, Google scans its resources and in a few seconds, gives us a daily itinerary. Something for the morning, afternoon, and evening that it thinks we’ll like based on our search criteria.

It recommends Bix restaurant with live music on day 1. I can read reviews, see it on a map, visit the website, and see the menu. AI recommends we spend the first few days in San Francisco, and then take the remaining days to travel to popular winery’s in Napa Valley. Not only does it deliver recommendations of which winery’s have the best tours but it includes driving directions and even some cool places to stop along the way.

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Where are the best places to travel for fall 2023?

Just because summer is in the rear-view mirror doesn’t mean that travel has to stop. New Mexico Living recently spoke with travel expert and award-winning author Sarah Dandashy about some of the best fall destinations for 2023.

First up: San Francisco, California.

“Small but mighty city. You can really cover a lot in a short amount of time. It’s this perfect mix of outdoorsy and cultural with this incredible food scene,” says Dandashy.

She recommends staying at The Clancy near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and touts the mild weather as another reason San Francisco is a great fall travel destination.

Next: Seattle, Washington.

“Don’t overlook the Pacific Northwest, and head to Seattle,” says Dandashy. “Interestingly enough, from October 12 through 15, they are having the refract festival, which is celebrating Seattle’s glass art community. It’s a thing up there, so you can get a changing color of the leaves as well as this whole world of glass art.”

Dandashy suggests staying at the Sheraton Grand Seattle, which is close to a lot of other must-dos in Seattle, including Pike’s Place Market and the Space Needle.

Then, there’s Santa Barbara, California.

“It’s this sort of perfect blend of a coastal city as well as nature. Really, kind of tucked into 78 acres of beautiful landscape. You’ve got the Ritz Carlton Bacara in Santa Barbara, which is honestly one of the best hotels in the area, hands-down,” says Dandashy.

While you’re in Santa Barbara, Dandashy says to take advantage of the ‘Ambassadors of the Environment’ program the Ritz Carlton is doing. There, you can choose from different activities like an eco-hike or a naturalist-led class where you can learn about the ecosystem. She also recommends visiting the Channel Islands National Park.

And finally: Gallup, New

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Matador Says A.I.-Powered Travel Has Found Its Stride With GuideGeek

It’s a brisk morning on the San Francisco Bay as Ross Borden unlocks the door to the Sausalito warehouse Matador Network calls home. The co-founder and CEO of one of the planet’s most prolific travel websites hasn’t been to this dockside doorstep in a while, he admits. He’s got a newborn at home.

As one might expect from a global network of travel writers and content creators, Matador’s home office is seldom used. But as the mid-morning sun begins to burn a porthole to the glistening city in the distance, Borden swings open the latch and takes the pulse of the one-room loading bay framed by natural woodwork, fatigued leather couches, a garage door and a 6,000-pound family safe from a bank in Idaho.

The spires of San Fransisco strike an Oz-like pose over this marina. The specters of Salesforce tower and the Transamerica pyramid loom over Matador’s home like watchful bastions of big tech, monitoring the moves of startup enterprises and next new things swirling around them daily.

“Is that where you keep GuideGeek?” I ask Borden, pointing to the safe.

It is not. The secrets harbored during a years-long development process to create an A.I.-powered travel assistant are unlocked and open for viewing now. They’re public knowledge unleashed among the torrent of A.I. tools being put to use by companies as far ranging as JPMorgan Chase, Netflix and Adobe.

Borden settles in to a comfortable spot in front of a large desk lined with offline computer monitors to tell the tale me the tale of how Matador—a travel website spawned by group emails and a mountain

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4 adventures via San Francisco Bay Ferry

Sailing away on a Bay Area ferry is like having your own little party cruise but much cheaper. The ocean breeze whistling in your ears, the cold beers with happy, Hawaiian shirt-clad strangers, the views of Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge – sorry BART, but why wouldn’t people take the ferry as often as humanly possible?

The ferry is not just for commuters. It’s a little adventure all on its own. And summer and fall are the perfect time to get out on our water-based fun-time transit and have some fun, both aboard and after you disembark — tasty eats, interesting sights and more. Here are four suggestions on how to turn a ferry trip to Alameda, Oakland, San Francisco or Mare Island into something more.

A quick note: We chose the San Francisco Bay Ferry, because it has more routes than the also-splendid Golden Gate Ferry. Whether you use your Clipper card, an app or a paper ticket, ferry fare ranges from $4.60 to $9.30 one way, and kids under five are free. Find details and schedules at https://sanfranciscobayferry.com/.

Without further ado, here’s what you might do when you’re…

Arriving in Mare Island

The scenic journey from San Francisco to Vallejo takes about an hour, and from there, it’s another 15-minute ferry ride to Mare Island. A historic military hub for boat and submarine construction, the island now is home to funky art installations, a bustling brewery and the Vino Godfather Winery, and some of the neatest views of humongous ship-building machines in the entire Bay.

Large machines stand in the historic core of Mare Island, a historic ship-building hub now home to a brewery, a winery and dining options. (John Metcalfe/Bay Area News Group)
Large machines stand in the historic core of Mare Island, a historic ship-building hub now home to a brewery, a winery and dining options. (John Metcalfe/Bay Area News Group) 

Explore: On Sunday afternoons, the Mare Island Art Studios open their doors to show

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San Francisco travel destinations going strong as ever

That downtown San Francisco has been struggling since the pandemic is no secret. To borrow a quote from Mark Twain, though, reports of San Francisco’s death may be “greatly exaggerated.” In fact, there are many neighborhoods that are thriving in the City by the Bay. Below are four of my favorites.

North Beach: On a recent Saturday afternoon, soccer fans were spilling out of several local bars; sidewalk cafés were doing brisk business and beloved sites like Coit Tower were teaming with tourists. A vintage 1950s fire engine rumbled along the crowded streets, taking passengers on a San Francisco Fire Engine Tour (sanfranciscofireenginetours.com) of the district known as San Francisco’s version of “Little Italy.”

Meanwhile, at the popular Italian eatery Convivium Enoteca, San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin was telling journalists how North Beach merchants acted quickly to open parklets during the pandemic, positioning the neighborhood for a quick post-COVID-19 comeback. Authentic eateries like Tony’s Pizza Napoletana (tonyspizzanapoletana.com) and the popular fudge shop Z. Cioccolato continue to draw customers to the area.

Nob Hill: With crown jewels like the 1909 neoclassical Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco hotel, Nob Hill is one of the most visually seductive places on earth. Traversing the hilly streets with telescoping views of the bay, you’re immersed in architectural elegance.

Heavy cornices, recessed entryways, circular bay windows and ornate fire escapes accent the French-flaired Edwardian style of so many structures built right after the city’s 1906 earthquake and fire. Grace Cathedral is another destination with its soaring Gothic columns and inspiring stained-glass windows and walking labyrinths.

Tying Nob Hill together is San Francisco’s iconic cable car system. Its two lines intersect at the crest of California Street, and the nearby Cable Car Museum (1201 Mason St.) is free to the public. The

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Keanu Reeves’ excellent adventure with Dogstar at BottleRock Napa 2023

Keanu Reeves had a big day at BottleRock Napa Valley on Saturday.

First off, the A-list celebrity’s band Dogstar — which also features former Los Gatos resident Bret Domrose on vocals and guitar as well as Robert Mailhouse on drums — performed its first show in over 20 years for a huge crowd of curious festival-goers at the big Verizon Stage.

Then Reeves, who plays bass in the alt-rock act, and his fellow bandmates took to the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage for a cooking demonstration with famed Kogi Korean BBQ chef Roy Choi and host Liam “Foodie Chap” Mayclem that ended up turning into a burrito tossing party that featured San Francisco 49er George Kittle.

Yeah, more on that later.

Of course, many of the attendees might not have even realized the “John Wick” star was part of a band, given that Dogstar’s heyday came back in the mid-’90s with the release of the EP “Quattro Formaggi” and opening act stints for both David Bowie and Bon Jovi. The group did release two full-lengths — 1996’s “Our Little Visionary” and 2000’s “Happy Ending” — neither of which ended up making much noise and were quickly overshadowed by Reeves’ continued success on the big screen.

Yet, I managed to see Dogstar perform a show at the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1997 and the band was pretty enjoyable on the live stage. So, I was looking forward to catching them again 25-plus years later to see how their music has held up.

The answer is that it’s held up pretty well.

Reeves proved to be a more-than-just-capable bassist, combining to form a pretty solid rhythm section with Mailhouse, who is also known for his work on NBC-TV soap opera “Days of our Lives.” Domrose, who grew up in Santa Clara County

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Police search tower where Bob Lee stabbing suspect Nima Momeni’s sister lives

San Francisco police executed a search warrant at a luxury apartment building where the sister of the suspect in the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee owns a home.

Police confirmed at a press conference Thursday following the arrest of tech boss Nima Momeni that they had executed three search warrants in the case.

In addition to permission to search Momeni’s home, authorities presented a warrant at Millennium Tower, a high-rise residential building in the South of Market district, a source told the San Francisco Standard.

Momeni’s sister, Khazar Momeni, and her husband, plastic surgeon Dr. Dino Elyassnia, are listed as the owners of a unit in the ritzy building.

The upscale address is just down the street from 1 Hotel San Francisco, where 43-year-old Lee was staying at the time of the fatal stabbing.

It is also a 16-minute walk from 403 Main St., where Lee collapsed after begging for help from passersby when he was attacked in the streets, the Standard reported.


Nima Momeni appeared Friday in San Francisco Superior Court to face a murder charge of Bob Lee – Momeni appeared briefly, however, in the courtroom, making a heart sign to his sister, Khazar Momeni and her husband, Dr. Dino Elyassnia, a plastic surgeon. They made the heart sign back to him.
Nima Momeni appeared Friday in San Francisco Superior Court to face a murder charge of Bob Lee – Momeni appeared briefly, however, in the courtroom, making a heart sign to his sister, Khazar Momeni and her husband, Dr. Dino Elyassnia, a plastic surgeon. They made the heart sign back to him.
AP

Bob Lee.
Bob Lee was killed on April 1.
Facebook

Nina Momeni
Police arrested tech boss Nima Momeni, 38, at his apartment in Emeryville on Thursday.
Facebook / Nima Momeni

Khazar Momeni and her husband, Dr. Dino Elyassnia.
Khazar Momeni and her husband, Dr. Dino Elyassnia, are listed as owners of an apartment in the building.
Dino Elyassnia/Facebook

The palatial residence was last sold in 2016 for about $2.7 million, and is now valued off-market at $2.2 million.

Attempts to reach Khazar Momeni on Friday morning were unsuccessful. 

Police arrested tech boss Nima Momeni, 38,

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The Best Places To Travel In The U.S. In 2023, According To The Experts

For the past three years, with borders closed around the globe, U.S. travel has provided Americans with much-needed solace—a tonic during a time of uncertainty and fear. We rediscovered national parks, we explored this country’s hidden shores and we found new appreciation for America’s wide open spaces.

Despite the fact that many international countries have reopened to travelers, domestic travel remains strong, according to the U.S. Travel Association—proving that there’s still a lot to discover close to home.

So what are the best places to travel right now? Every year, I round up the best places to visit in America. Once again, I tapped into leading women travel experts and influencers to find out their favorite places to travel in the U.S. in 2023. I also opened my own little black book to reveal the destinations that are on my radar.

This year, the top choices for where to go span the country from coast to coast, ranging from seaside escapes to mountain hideaways to urban hot spots, with some surprises thrown in along the way. Compare these choices to 2022’s list of the best places to travel in America, and it’s clear that the U.S. is the travel gift that keeps on giving.

Where to Go: Phoenix, Arizona

Chosen By: Lucee Santini is a travel writer and lifestyle blogger who has contributed to Huffington Post, SheBuysTravels and Newsbreak and is the chief editor and writer for MomJunky.com. She shares her adventures and tips on

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Multigenerational Travel Is A Key Market In San Francisco

San Francisco has always appealed to a diverse range of travelers, including families. So it’s not surprising that the city is seeing an increase in multigenerational travel, especially coming out of the pandemic. Families have put off trips for a couple of years and now tourism numbers are strong.

One of the big draws for multigenerational travel to San Francisco is the rich array of offerings. The city boasts incredible arts institutions such as the SFMOMA, De Young, and Asian Art Museum that are complimented by the fun-for-all ages Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences.

Families can bike or walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, take a historic cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf (to see the sea lions and visit Musée Mécanique), take a whirl in the SkyStar in Golden Gate Park, see the Bay and city skyline by ferry, and visit national historic park sites such as the Presidio of San Francisco with its new Presidio Tunnel Tops (which has a natural playground and Field Station for kid exploration) and National Maritime Museum.

It doesn’t hurt that San Francisco is compact, 7 by 7 square miles, which means it’s walkable and easy to get around—no matter if you’re traveling with younger kids or seniors.

Celebrations in the City

In 2023, San Francisco is celebrating a number of anniversaries. It’s the 150th year of cable cars traversing its steep hills. It’s the 125th anniversary of the Ferry Building and the 90th season of SF Ballet. Also, it’s the 60th anniversary of Alcatraz prison closing and its 50th year as a national park site.

Plus, this year debuts the Central Subway

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