Which city should you visit as a first-time California tourist: Los Angeles vs San Francisco? If you only have a limited amount of time or a limited budget, where should you go?
We went to both but we spent more time at one of them. Why? Here are the factors we considered:
1. Theme Parks
Hands down, Los Angeles wins this category. It is the birthplace of Disneyland, hello!?! And it has two Disney parks: Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park (technically both in Anaheim, 30 minutes from LA). We’ve been to Disney parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong, but we made sure to visit the original park that Walt himself built.
Then there’s Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farm (in Buena Park, also around 30 minutes from LA), and Six Flags Magic Mountain. We skipped these as we already spent three days in both Disney parks.
San Francisco has nothing.
So, if you’re visiting California for the first time with young kids, you just got to go the happiest place on Earth!
Winner: Los Angeles
2. Iconic Landmarks: Los Angeles vs San Francisco
As we’re steeped in Hollywood culture, we’ve seen famous landmarks in both Los Angeles and San Francisco from movies, TV, books, magazines, t-shirts, icons, and Instagram. A very touristy thing to do, sure, but what the heck, we’re tourists!
So, which one has more must-see (and must-selfie) iconic landmarks and tourist attractions: Los Angeles vs. San Francisco?
LA has the Hollywood sign, Hollywood Walk of Fame, TCL Chinese Theatre, Griffith Observatory, Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Capitol Records Building, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. That’s at least eight.
In SF, there’s the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, Painted Ladies, Palace of Fine Arts, Ghirardelli Square, Lombard Street, and Transamerica Pyramid. That’s also at least eight.
Thrown in the cable cars (because you need to have a photo of the iconic cable cars), and San Francisco has a bit of an edge.
Winner: San Francisco
3. Food: Los Angeles vs San Francisco
Both Los Angeles and San Francisco are renowned for their cutting-edge, award-winning, multi-cultural, and locally-sourced cuisine. There’s a lot of Asian, Italian, and Mexican influence in California cuisine.
But all we want from our Californian food trip is quintessential American food. We’re talking about burgers, hotdogs, sandwiches, pizzas, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, chicken and waffles, sourdough bread, and clam chowder. (Okay, some of them have foreign origins but they’re not more identified with American food.) If you’re traveling with kids, these are exactly the kind of food they like, so double bonus points!
Let’s talk burgers. Southern California is the birthplace of many famous burger chains like McDonald’s, In-and-Out Burger, Big Boy, Fatburger, and Carl’s Jr., either in LA or near it. So it seems LA has the edge. (Among these, we only ate at In-and-Out; we have/had McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr. back home.)
But San Francisco has Super Duper Burgers and Goat’s Roadside, which we tried, along with Barney’s Gourmet Burgers, Big Mouth Burgers, Bistro Burger, Burger Bar, and Burgermeister. They’re all burger “chains” you’ve never heard of. We liked In-and-Out but we raved about Super Duper.
We never ate a hotdog in San Francisco, since it’s not really known for it. But we enjoyed the hotdog in Pink’s in LA as well as Portillo’s in Buena Vista Park and Japadog in Santa Monica (although Portillo’s started in Illinois and Japadog is from Canada). But just based on Pink’s alone, we say LA is a great place to get a hotdog.
Anything that has cheese on it, we’d choose San Francisco. We loved the grilled cheese sandwich of Cow Girl Creamery. The same for ice cream and pastries. Bi-Rite Creamery, Lappert’s and Tartine are the bomb!
And of course, San Francisco wins for seafood and sourdough bread. We loved the fish and chips, calamari, and clam chowder at Sabella & La Torre and the sourdough bread at Boudin Bakery.
As for farmers markets, Los Angeles does boast of the Original Farmers Markets with its pretty good selection of food merchants. But we enjoyed the food more at San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace.
Winner: San Francisco
4. Architecture
Los Angeles: concrete jungle. Lots of buildings, highways, billboards, strip malls, and suburbs with houses that look the same.
San Francisco: charming small town feel. Lots of historic buildings, hilly streets, and pretty Victorian homes that have character.
You can fall in love with San Francisco. Can’t say the same about LA.
Winner: San Francisco
5. Beaches
It’s no contest. Los Angeles is king of the beach! Santa Monica Beach, Venice, Malibu Beach, Long Beach, Laguna Beach, Paradise Cove Beach, Manhattan Beach, etc. It also has a vibrant beach culture. We were able to spend time in Santa Monica Beach where our kids frolicked for hours.
San Francisco has beaches, but are either unsafe, too rocky, too windy, too cold, or too foggy.
Winner: Los Angeles
6. Weather: Los Angeles vs San Francisco
Los Angeles can be hot. The days we were at the Disney parks were at times unbearably too sunny. The evenings though are much cooler and pleasant.
San Francisco, however, can be quite cold, particularly at night. But we enjoyed strolling in the streets with the temperate weather (we were there in June). For Southeast Asians like us living in a tropical country, cold is always better than hot.
Winner: San Francisco
7. Nature
Also no contest. But this time, it’s San Francisco all the way. I’m not even sure there are places in LA to enjoy nature (except the beaches). But in San Francisco, Golden Gate Park is a refuge for nature lovers. The Presidio is a forest with hiking trails. There also Crissy Field, Mission Dolores Park, Washington Square, among others. Nearby, you can explore Muir Woods, Sausalito, Napa Valley, and Sonoma.
Winner: San Francisco
Conclusion
Obviously, we picked San Francisco. That’s why we planned our 2-week California itinerary skewed towards San Francisco.
Now, it’s not that we didn’t like LA. If we had visited those iconic landmarks (we planned to but the lack of time and energy were against us), we would have appreciated it more.
Still, it would not have changed our minds. We like LA. But we love SF. We would recommend you visit both, of course, but if you want to play a game of “would you rather”, then hands-down, we would rather go to San Francisco.
