San Remo Hotel

North Beach & Chinatown


One of the city's best-value stays, the San Remo was built in 1906, right after the Great Earthquake. More than a century later, this upstanding North Beach boarding house still offers sunny, cheerful Italian nonna (grandma)–styled rooms with eclectic turn-of-the-century furnishings and shared bathrooms. Snug rooms facing the interior corridor are bargains; family suites accommodate up to five. No elevator.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby North Beach & Chinatown attractions

1. San Francisco Art Institute

0.19 MILES

Since the 1870s, SFAI has been at the vanguard of Bay Area art movements – including 1960s Bay Area abstraction, 1970s conceptual art and 1990s new-media…

2. Diego Rivera Gallery

0.2 MILES

Diego Rivera's 1931 The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City is a trompe l'oeil fresco within a fresco, showing the artist himself pausing to…

3. Fisherman's Wharf

0.3 MILES

Fisherman's Wharf – the Embarcadero and Jefferson St waterfront running from Pier 29 to Van Ness Ave – includes Pier 39, the Musée Mécanique, the Maritime…

4. Washington Square

0.3 MILES

Wild parrots, tai chi masters, and nonagenarian churchgoing nonnas (grandmothers) are the local company you'll keep on this lively patch of lawn. This was…

5. Francisco Street Steps

0.32 MILES

Take the high road from Fisherman's Wharf to North Beach via the urban trailhead between 150 and 155 Francisco St. Cross the courtyard, ascend to Grant…

6. Lombard Street

0.33 MILES

You’ve seen the eight switchbacks of Lombard St's 900 block in a thousand photographs. The tourist board has dubbed it ‘the world’s crookedest street,’…

7. Musée Mécanique

0.35 MILES

A flashback to penny arcades, the Musée Mécanique houses a mind-blowing collection of vintage mechanical amusements. Sinister, freckle-faced Laughing Sal…

8. Aquarium of the Bay

0.38 MILES

Sharks circle overhead, manta rays sweep by and seaweed sways all around at the Aquarium of the Bay, where you wander through glass tubes surrounded by…