5 Hidden Gems San Francisco

Why it made the list: A 163-step mosaic staircase running up a residential hill in the Inner Sunset, covered in over 2,000 hand-made tiles that form a continuous scene from the sea at the bottom to the stars at the top. It's a community art project from 2005, it's completely free, and the climb rewards you with a view over the city.

Why it made the list: A sound sculpture built out on a jetty in the Marina, made of stone and PVC and concrete pipes that reach down into the bay, as the tide moves, the pipes produce low, eerie, organ-like sounds that change with the water. It's free, it's weird, and it's built into one of the best bridge-and-bay views in the city.

Why it made the list: Two long concrete slides built into a tiny hillside park, designed by a local teenager in the 1970s, and still free to ride if you bring a piece of cardboard to sit on. It's a genuine slice of neighbourhood San Francisco, delightful for kids and adults with no shame.

Why it made the list: A giant walk-in camera perched at the edge of the continent by the Sutro Baths, a rotating lens on the roof projects a live, moving image of the crashing coastline onto a big dish inside. It's the last surviving building from Playland, a 1913 seaside amusement park, and it's gloriously analogue.

Why it made the list: The ghostly concrete ruins of a vast 1896 seaside bathhouse, once seven saltwater pools under a glass palace, now weathered foundations, a sea cave and tide pools at the wild edge of Lands End. Free, dramatic, and unlike anything else in the city, especially at sunset.