Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Newspapers & Magazines
Although
most fancy hotels distribute that shallow
McNewspaper
USA Today
to use as your
morning doormat, the local paper, the
“Datebook” section of the
San Francisco
Chronicle
(www.sfgate.com), the city's
major daily, is good for finding out about
local happenings.
San Francisco Magazine
(www.sanfranmag.com) is a glossy maga-
zine that covers snooty city trends and
upscale restaurants.
SF Weekly
and
The
Examiner
are two free giveaway papers
that usually stock more useful event infor-
mation than the paid publications do.
Pharmacies
Walgreens
is located liber-
ally all around town, and many of them
are open until midnight, but there is one
at Divisadero and Lombard (in the Marina)
that is open all night.
Smoking
Smoking is prohibited in all
public indoor spaces, including offices,
bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies, and
shops. Californians simply aren't into it.
In general, if you need to smoke, you'll
have to go outside into the open air, and
even then, often in strictly enforced des-
ignated areas. Pot smoking, though, may
be another matter—still illegal, of course,
but not nearly as frowned upon as
tobacco.
Taxes
A 7.5% sales tax is charged on all
goods with the exception of most edible
grocery-store items and medicines. Hotels
add 14%, which stings. The United States
has no value-added tax (VAT), but the
custom is to not list prices with tax, so
the final amount that you pay will always
be slightly higher than the posted price.
Some restaurants also add a surcharge
marked “health”; this goes to the health
insurance that they are required by local
law to provide for their employees.
Telephone
Generally, hotel surcharges
on long-distance and local calls are astro-
nomical, so you're better off using your
cellphone
or a
public pay telephone.
Many convenience groceries and packag-
ing services sell
prepaid calling cards
in
denominations up to $50; for international
visitors these can be the least expensive
way to call home. Many public phones at
airports now accept American Express,
MasterCard, and Visa credit cards.
Local
calls
made from public pay phones in most
locales cost either 35¢ or 50¢. Pay
phones, when you actually find one, do
not accept pennies, and few will take any-
thing larger than a quarter. Make sure you
have roaming turned on for your cellphone
account, because having your own phone
is definitely the cheapest way to go.
If you're a staying at a hotel and have
high-speed Internet access in your room,
you can save a fortune on calls by using
Skype (www.skype.com), iChat, or some
other Web-based calling program, since
calls between members cost nothing.
Most long-distance and international
calls can be dialed directly from any
phone.
For calls within the United
States and to Canada,
dial 1 followed by
the area code and the seven-digit number.
For other international calls,
first dial
011, then the country code, and then pro-
ceed with the number, dropping any lead-
ing zeroes.
Calls to area codes
800, 888, 877,
and
866
are toll-free. However, calls to
area codes
700
and
900
(chat lines, bul-
letin boards, “dating” services, and so on)
can be very expensive—usually with a
charge of 95¢ to $3 or more per minute—
and they sometimes have minimum
charges that can run as high as $15 or
more.
For
reverse-charge or collect calls,
and for person-to-person calls, dial the
number 0, and then the area code and
number. An operator will come on the line,
and you should specify whether you're
calling collect, person-to-person, or both.
If your operator-assisted call is interna-
tional, ask for the overseas operator.
For
local directory assistance
(“infor-
mation”), dial
411;
for long-distance
information, dial 1, then the appropriate
area code and 555-1212.
