Fisherman's Wharf is SF is not only the home of Boudin sourdough, noisy sea lions and seafood restaurants, it also contains the "world's largest candy department store," aptly called It's Sugar. The jazzy music and scent of sucrose draws you in. Here you can sit next to a life size jelly bean.
You can buy sugary cereal that is more sugar than cereal. You can buy bag lunches entirely composed of candy, unhealthy and yummy. You can buy cheeky chocolate bars labeled by your birth order. (My middle sister seemed disappointed I had not gotten her a "middle child" bar.) You can buy 80s and 90s themed candy bags, in the shape of cassette tapes. It's like an edible museum of sugar! Do not miss it. (And if you do miss it, there's another branch of the store down the street.
Next door is a huge chocolate shop filled with assorted Ghiradelli delicacies and then everything else chocolateish. The sugar high continues. That I bought nothing is a miracle.
Fisherman's Wharf is also packed with souvenir shops. Steven resisted the call, but I went into a few. Usually these shops sells various doodads with your name on them. Keychains, jewelry, miniature cable cars, miniature baseball bats, etc. There is little that cannot have your name on it, unless your name is Betsy, and then it hardly ever appears. But it is always a game to check, and I did a lot of checking. And then in an "Only California" souvenir shop, I found a SF keychain with my name on it. The last and only Betsy keychain. I didn't need it, but it called to me and I bought it.
Once a solid working neighborhood, Fisherman's Wharf has now become a tourist hot spot. For all that, it is still authentic and eclectic. And if the season is right, you can still buy fish straight off the docks.
Check out the Visitor Center, which is actually a very decent (and free) museum that provides the colorful history of the area. I learned that out of work sailors slept under the boardwalk benches, and "shanghai'ing" was a thing. Drunk sailors were essentially kidnapped to work on boats, and then their pockets emptied on women and booze once they made landfall. Telegraph Hill was once an island, dotted with the tents of gold rushers.
Here also is a vintage In-n-Out Burger joint, should you tire of fish and chips.
Great city!!!
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