A 100 years ago, your only hope for civilization west of the Mississippi River was nestled on a peninsula in Northern California. Of course, I’m referring to the City by the Bay, the Great Foggy One, San Francisco. The amount of verbiage and hyperbole and the tired recombination of gushing adjectives is so pervasive it begs the question: why bother writing anything about San Francisco ever again? What can you say about a city that has everything said about it already?

Like New York, the City (as locals coolly refer to it as) demands works to be typed about it on netbooks and laptops nationwide. It has a pull, a charm that is as unmistakable as it is undefinable. Why bother, indeed? Like Everest, because it is there and it teams with ambition and people and an intangible savoring of the past. It’s a perpetual; haunting, as if the phantoms of the Great Quake are still gathering, moving and whispering in the ears of tourists and locals alike.

The City has never had to cater to shallowness, unlike it’s upstart cousin to the south, — though many would argue that Rice-A-Roni did more to elevate and destroy San Francisco’s reputation. Of course, no San Franciscan treat is going to tarnish the Spanish colonial splendor of the City. It has survived a biblical torrent of calamities, from fires to earthquakes to civil unrest. And yet, it still emerges, like any great capital city.

The City has made some image mistakes. It is, after all, one of the top five tourists destinations in North America. This is a result of actual sights that are worthy of a trip to the Golden State and some not-so-savory marketing campaigns. The city the 49ers built — that is, the actual miners and gold-seekers, not the 5-time Super Bowl champs — was a rugged, yet elegant city. It catered to the arts, enjoyed a number of thriving newspapers and even an opera. Like I said, if you were west of the Mississippi and you were a city-lover, you made a beeline to the City.

Of course, it’s had its fair share of economic downturns. From the thriving Seventies, the city tumbled into something like a John Carpenter movie. It wasn’t really until the Dot Com resurgence that the city enjoyed a renaissance, the ripples of which it is still riding on. An aggressive campaign that married gentrification, a pro-LGBT stance, and eco-friendly initiatives has transformed the city into a shopping Mecca. Indeed the proliferation of San Francisco hotels is testimony to the millions of people who flock here, day in and day out, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of those whispering phantoms.

There are a lot of San Francisco hotels you pick from. Pick one near downtown and you’ll have easy access to the BART rail and the MUNI buses.