Although we faced more than a few challenges getting around the city — the steep hills, the uneven pavements, the stops that looked perfectly accessible on Street View until you were actually standing at them — it goes to show that where there's a will, there's a way. Usually involving a bit of creative route planning, the occasional bout of mild profanity, and a cold beer at the end of it. San Francisco is a city we both fell for on our first visit back in 2013, and that hasn't changed. It has become a less straightforward tourist destination in recent years — you do notice things that weren't quite so visible before — but we've never been the sort to let what you see on the news make decisions for us. If you thought that way, you probably wouldn't get out of bed in the morning, let alone board an eleven-hour flight. I've spoken to plenty of people who've been here, though most of them visited years ago and haven't been back. I've only ever found one other person who loves it the way we do. There are plenty more cities across the USA on our list, but I suspect San Francisco will always be the one we keep coming back to — particularly in the quieter months, when the fog rolls in off the bay and the city does that thing where it feels like it belongs entirely to you. It's a city of extraordinary contrasts — friendly and chaotic, beautiful and baffling, with people from every corner of the world and restaurants to match just about every taste. Some of which, it has to be said, you'll probably want to avoid — the famed seafood restaurants down at Fisherman's Wharf being a case very much in point. There's still plenty we want to see, both in the city and beyond. But we'll get back to it. It'll probably be a few years yet and, in the meantime, the hearts we left here in 2013 will just have to keep the city company. One day we'll be back to check on them. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain
