CityPASS San Francisco articles

One of the world's most notorious and best known prisons, over the years, Alcatraz housed some 1,545 of America's most ruthless criminals including Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud (the "Birdman of Alcatraz"), George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Bumpy Johnson, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Mickey Cohen, Arthur R. "Doc" Barker, James "Whitey" Bulger, and Alvin "Creepy" Karpis (who served more time at Alcatraz than any other inmate).

Born and bred in the Bay Area usually means growing up ignoring San Francisco’s cable cars. Read about one woman’s reasons for changing her mind about these charming transit vehicles as she sheds some light on the most misunderstood of SF icons, the trolley.

While the San Francisco Bay Area is amply dotted in brightly colored, provocative art, famed muralist Ray Patlan recommends that visitors start in San Francisco’s Mission District if they want to experience a close collection of established and exciting mural artwork.

One Canadian writer visits San Francisco for the first time with kids and learns the City by the Bay has a lot in common with her hometown of Vancouver, BC. From the West Coast vibe, tolerant and friendly populace and a wide variety of high quality food, read on to see what makes SF great!

Everyone knows San Francisco’s bustling, busy Chinatown, the largest outside of Asia. But Japantown? "People just come here to eat,” says Dawn Shalhoup, who represents Japantown and took us on a walking tour. "They don’t realize how much there is to do!”

If you're planning on making a trip to San Francisco, one thing you have to take the time to do is to ride their world famous cable cars. But did you ever wonder how they work or how they ever got started? Read the information below and you’ll learn a ton about the San Francisco cable cars: how they work, how fast they go, why they were built, and more!