No first-time loop through the Castro would be complete without a peek at this window display featuring trans Barbies and Billy Doll, a gay alternative to Ken who's more than just a little anatomically correct. Dolls are dressed – well, some of them – in outrageous costumes and arranged in protest lines, complete with signs. One says it best: 'It's Castro, Bitch.'
Barbie-Doll Window
San Francisco
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
2.61 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
1.02 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
2.89 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
3.07 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
2.6 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
3.38 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
4.34 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
0.42 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby San Francisco attractions
1. Human Rights Campaign Action Center
0.04 MILES
Harvey Milk’s former camera storefront was featured in the Academy Award–winning movie Milk, and now it's home to the civil rights advocacy group…
0.11 MILES
America's first gay-history museum showcases a century of San Francisco LGBTQ+ ephemera – Harvey Milk's campaign literature, matchbooks from long-gone…
0.12 MILES
You're always in excellent company in the Castro, where sidewalk plaques honor LGBT+ heroes. The walk runs along Market St from Noe St to Casto St and…
0.15 MILES
See what the Castro's creative community has been dreaming up lately at this art space showcasing local neighborhood talent. Gallery shows here are the…
5. Harvey Milk & Jane Warner Plazas
0.22 MILES
Somewhere over the rainbow is Harvey Milk Plaza, where a huge rainbow flag flaps. Rainbow-lit escalators lead toward Castro Muni station and a display…
0.26 MILES
Built in 1892 by an attorney who wanted sunnier weather than swanky Nob Hill afforded, this gorgeous Queen Anne mansion went uninhabited after its…
0.42 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
0.42 MILES
While adults are asleep downhill, eight-year-olds are making scientific discoveries atop Corona Heights Park. After Josephine Randall became a pioneering…