The weather in San Francisco is great in October. The cold summer fog is gone, and the winter rains haven't yet begun. It's a great time to be outside in the healthy fresh air, getting some exercise or enjoying San Francisco's world-class cultural events. Whether you take a walk, ride a bicycle, enjoy live music, visit a street fair, or exercise your mind, you'll be glad you're in San Francisco in October.
Music
The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is an annual extravaganza that brings hundreds of the best musicians in the world to San Francisco for an October weekend. They play in Golden Gate Park to enthusiastic crowds. It's all free. You'll get exercise walking between the six stages and dancing. If you want to bike to the festival, there is valet bicycle parking.
Exercise Your Mind
October is a great month for San Fransisco book lovers. Litquake, the annual literary festival, features nine October days of literary events, capped off with a pub crawl down Mission Street. Many of the neighborhood's small restaurants, bars, shops, and even, sometimes, a laundromat all host authors reading their work. To make this a healthy event, get a splash of fruit juice in your drink. Remember that your brain needs exercise just as much as your body does.
Walk
San Francisco City Guides, an organization sponsored in part by the San Francisco Library, offers free walking tours year-round. In May and October, though, the group has special tours unavailable at any other time. Most of these focus more on residential areas than on toursity spots. Some of the special October tours include a Sutro Forest Hike, a two-part tour of the Inner Richmond, and a walk up and down the Golden Gate Heights Stairways. City Guide tours emphasize the history of the areas that you walk through.
Bike
Take advantage of the good weather by going on a bike ride. Get a copy of the SF Bike Map at bike shops or bookstores. In addition to showing bike routes, it shows how steep the streets are. Check out the online bike-trip planning tool at sfbikemapper.org.
Street Fair
The Castro Street Fair, held on the first Sunday in October, has five stages of entertainment, arts and crafts, vendor booths, and food. Harvey Milk started this historic street fair in 1974. Enjoy the weather in one of the city's sunniest neighborhoods and dance your way to fitness in the dance pavilions.
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