Here's a dirty little secret about San Franciscans: most of us have never actually done San Francisco.

We'll smugly tell visitors which Fisherman's Wharf restaurants to avoid (all of them, obviously) and which cable car lines aren't worth the wait, but ask us when we last set foot on Alcatraz and the room goes quiet. As one local put it, "I'm embarrassed how long it took me to go to Alcatraz." Same, friend. Same.

There's a certain kind of civic snobbery that develops when you live in a world-class city. You start treating tourist attractions like they're beneath you — as if proximity to something cool is the same as actually experiencing it. We pay some of the highest rents in the country to live in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, and then we... stay home and scroll DoorDash.

The irony is that many of these so-called "tourist traps" are legitimately great. The Hyde Street Pier museum? Actually fascinating. The USS Pampanito? One SF resident called it "actually amazing" — and they're right. The Internet Archive runs a free tour on Fridays at 1pm that most locals have no idea exists. Meanwhile, Bottom of the Hill — one of the city's last great small music venues — is closing at the end of the year. As one local noted, it's "a nice chance to see a small slice of music history" before it's gone for good.

Another resident summed up the right philosophy: "Be a tourist in your own city every now and then."

Look, we're not saying you need to buy a sourdough bread bowl at Pier 39. But there's a difference between being discerning and being lazy. San Francisco charges you a premium just to exist here — between the taxes, the cost of living, and the bureaucratic headaches of doing anything in this city, you might as well extract some actual joy from the deal.

So this weekend, do something radical: go somewhere in your own city you've never been. Eat at that Michelin-starred spot solo. Take the ferry to Alcatraz. Walk through a neighborhood you only know from driving past it.

You're already paying for this city. You might as well use it.