urban travel guide SAN FRANCISCO (Urban Travel Guide San Francisco)

Rating:
Summary: great for the true globetrotter
Review: finally, a guide that doesn't weigh your backpack down with another ten pounds of useless text and minute details you really don't want to read. while practical on one side [with the standard categories of shopping/food&drink/nightlife/etc], it reinvents travel guides by breaking out sf in more meaningful ways [body,mind&soul/sophisticate/bohemia,california] specific to The City. perfect for the traveler that likes to look under a city's hood and stroll off the beaten path, the way a local would.

Rating:
Summary: Different kind of guide
Review: With most guides, I pick the thing up after I've decided what to do: I use it to see if the restaurant I'm considering is any good, or what the hours are, or whatever. Bradley Charbonneau's Urban Travel Guide is something else again. Seems to me, Charbonneau has gone out and found about 200 interesting/fun/weirdly rewarding things to do in San Francisco that you don't usually hear about. Each place he reviews is on its own page, so each page corresponds to a different activity. Last weekend, I was bored, I said to my wife, pick a number, she picked 96, I opened the book, it turned out to be a place called the Linc Gallery, so we went and saw an art show. Never would have thought of it otherwise. Next time I have a vistor from out of town, and I have to leave them on their own, I'm going to give them a copy of this book.