To get to the Haight, you'll probably want to ride the 71 bus, which you pick up on Market street (possibly after getting off the BART train at Powell street). You can get off the 71 in the Lower Haight and walk up, but it's probably better to start in the Upper Haight and walk down (with gravity on your side).

Haight street from Golden Gate Park on down to around Buena Vista Park is the region now known as "the Upper Haight"... this is the classic Haight of sixties fame, a rough equivalent of Berkeley's Telegraph Ave. It used to be known by the name Haight-Ashbury, after the intersection at the center of it... where there is now a Gap (the Gap must die), and perhaps more appropriately a Ben and Jerrys. Anyway, the upper Haight still reeks of hippie nostalgia, but the punk invasion transformed the place quite a bit. Some locals like to sneer at the Upper Haight as silly kid stuff or something... but how can you dislike a neighborhood with so many bookstores, not to mention one of the best record stores on the planet?

The stretch of Haight Street between Scott and Webster is the "lower Haight". This is a part of town that experienced a hipster invasion in the mid-eighties that has only been slightly toned-down by yuppie influence.

Both the upper and lower Haight have their share of scumzoid population, though they're much different in character. In the Upper Haight, you've got a lot of street people types (ex-hippies, gutter punks) panhandling away. Down in the Lower Haight, it's more like the local poor black population. Anyway, watch yourself at night, yaddah, yaddah... and in any case, most of the upper haight and a lot of the lower closes up tight at night.

Some highlights of the Upper Haight, from Golden Gate Park on down:

• Amoeba Records - one of the world's great record stores, new and used, major and obscure, CD and vinyl... they try and cover everything, and do a really good job of it. (This is a spin-off from their original location in Berkeley.)
• Cold Steel - 1783 Haight St, Near Shraeder, between Shraeder and Cole. piercings, tattoos.
• New York Apparrel, at 1772 Haight - Cheap basic goth/fetish stuff, like fishnets and ankhs.
• Giant Robot, just off Haight at 622 Shrader - San Francisco outlet of the LA based Asian-American hipster outfit. Reference.
• DalJeets - More or less fetish oriented clothes, heavy on the shoes.
• Escape from New York - Decent pizza that doesn't disgrace the name "New York".
• Red Vic Theater - no longer in the same building as the Red Vic bed and breakfast. Lousy prints, shown on poor equipment, by California flakes: a fun place if you pick the right night.
• Note: a block off of the Haight strip at Cole and Waller is my favorite coffee place in the area (in part, because it *is* a block off the strip): "Cole Valley Cafe". The chocolate halva is good. Some web terminals. Reference.
• Red Vic Bed and Breakfast
• Villains - Cool clothes. Lots of boots.
• Wasteland - Quirky used clothes place. Huge.
• Balazo - popular taqueria that has never grabbed me for some reason (Reference). It does have a lot of nice little brightly-colored interior spaces.
• Booksmith, at 1644 Haight - Interesting, medium sized bookstore. New books.
• Mendel's Art Supply & Stationary/ Far Out Fabrics
• Masawa, 1538 Haight - Excellent Ethiopian food. Well, really it's Eritrean food. (I doubt many Westerners can tell the difference, but these two countries are always fighting each other, so they're likely to be sensitive about this.)
• Cal Surplus - For all your clothing needs. Well for all my clothing needs, anyway.
• Great Expectations - Small Bookstore, good new books, and too many hippie nostalgia T-shirts.
• Anubis Warpus - Shoes, zines, random coolness.
• Forever After Books - Used.
• Porkstore - Greasy little breakfast place that's surprisingly popular.
• All you Knead - Bigger breakfast place that any sane person would pick over the Porkstore.
• Piedmont - 1452 Haight St (between Ashbury St & Masonic Ave) Clothing, sub-type wild, brightly-colored, etc. Feather Boas. A little too much of a "whacky costume" place, perhaps. One of the first places people think of when they're trying to fit-in as a Burner. Reference
• Discount Fabrics
• Recycled Records - used records.
• Bound Together, the Anarchist Collective Bookstore - a personal favorite. Random strange stuff, in addition to the left-wing anarchist literature.
• Ceiba, at 1364 Haight Street (between Masonic and Central) (Reference): (more-or-less) rave music and (more-or-less) ravey fashions. I like the "Nomad Pants": *triple* side pockets.
• The Love of Ganesha, at 1310 Haight, near Central Imports from India, Nepal, and so on on the Ganesha theme. Raises money for Thai children. Serves green tea.

By the way: I've heard it said that the opening sequence in the film "Interview With A Vampire" was set in a house on Divisidero near Haight, but I can't remember which one.

In between the Upper and the Lower, there's a small, interesting strip of things on Divisidero, just a little north of Haight:

• First of all, there's the "KK Cafe", an odd little place run by a chinese couple who are obsessed with the life-giving properties of Peanut Milk. Yes, the Peanut Milk Latés experience is waiting for you here.
• Comics Experience - Divisidero, between Haight and Page. One of the best comics place in SF (though certainly not better than the Comics Relief near the Berkeley Campus on University Ave).
• Gamescape - (333 Divisadero St) A gaming place next to Comics Experience. You know, war games, role playing, etc.
• And there's a pretty strange cluttered place somewhere between thrift and antique, specializing in household stuff, called something like "Cooks".

One other place you might like to know about is "Jack's Record Cellar", a place that carries a lot of genuinely old vinyl (not to mention shellac). That's at the corner of Scott and Page, one block over from Divisidero, and one block up from Haight Street. (Hours: Wed-Sat, Noon - 7pm). Historical note: Kenneth Rexwroth used to live upstairs from here, this is where he held his Friday night literary soirees that played a key role in the San Francisco Renaissance/Beat Generation literary movements.

And now, for some highlights of the lower Haight, starting at the upper end (going east from Divisidero):

• The Grind - Coffee place, popular for it's outdoor seating area.
• Groove Merchant - hip hoppy, drum n' bass kind of record store.
• Tweekin Records - yeah, ravey stuff.
• Noc Noc - Legendary industrial bar.
• Cafe International (near Fillmore) - One of my cheap-eats picks. The soup is great here. Choose between couches up front, or outdoor seating in the back, under a mural with very few white people in it. Reference
• Kate's - excellent cornmeal pancakes, and too damn many people on weekends, thanks no doubt to the Lonely Planet. Goddamn writers, always spilling the secrets. <--
• Zebra - hip-hoppy kind of place. -->
• Nickie's - On Tuesday nights DJ Cheb I Sabbah plays a mix of dance music from Asia, Africa and Arabia.

That's pretty much the end of the strip, but why not hang a right on Webster and head south a few blocks... there's some things like that crepes place under the dubious name of the "Squat N Gobble", and further up on the left, you can check out the window display of HStarch Co (136 Webster).

Okay, so where do you go from here? From this end of the lower Haight, you're not far from Market. Keep going down Webster a few blocks, and you're there. You can take public transit from there.

If instead you want to stretch out this expedition a bit, you could walk south-west on Market instead, heading toward the Castro through the Upper Market area.