Pros and Cons of Staying in Other Areas of San Francisco
- Chinatown and North Beach: You'll only find a handful of hotels in these two popular tourist areas, but they include one of the few places in the middle of San Francisco that offers free parking (Royal Pacific) and one of the top-rated budget hotels (Columbus Motor Inn).
- Lombard and the Marina: It's a bit far from the most popular tourist areas, but you'll find some fairly inexpensive-yet-nice places, some with free parking. Our favorite in this area is the cute, clean Lombard Motel.
- Van Ness: You'll find a few big hotels along this street, some of which are popular with tour bus companies and for small meetings.
- Japantown: A good base for exploring one of only two Japantowns in the United States, also close to the Fillmore shopping and dining area.
- Civic Center: Serves the city and state government offices and is also close to the public library, Asian Art Museum and Symphony Hall.
- West SOMA: We didn't include this area in South of Market because it's a bit far to walk to the convention center, but you'll find a cluster of well-priced hotels along 7th Street, just south of Market. How well you'll like staying here depends on your tolerance for a somewhat gritty street scene.
Where We Stay
When working on the west side of San Francisco, we've stayed at the Laurel Inn, a nice place on California Avenue and the Marina Motel, an excellent value on Lombard's motel row.In Japantown, we like both the Hotel Tomo and the Kabuki (read our review of it here).
In west SOMA, south of Market, the Good Hotel is a nice, clean place with great rates - but read our review to find out its strong and weak points before you decide to stay there.
Reserving a Hotel in Other Areas
We use Tripdadvisor as an important tool in planning most of our trips and we're happy to share our secrets: How to use the same process we do to choose your hotel. Or just go straight to Tripadvisor to start your own research.Some hotel chains guarantee that you'll find the lowest published online rates at their websites. With them, you can save time in your search by going directly to their websites. In the areas listed above, they include:
- Best Western
- Choice: Comfort Suites, Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Rodeway Inn
- Intercontinental: Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, Staybridge Suites
- Marriott: Marriott, Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, Renaissance, Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites
