San Francisco, USA

San Francisco is a unique city, much loved by visitors, who return frequently to take in the myriad pleasures of the 'city by the bay' With more than 3,500 restaurants and drinking establishments and an estimated 30,000-plus hotel rooms, visitors are in tourist paradise. Arguable the most attractive of American cities and regularly voted the best city in the USA, San Francisco is adored because of its colourful history, dramatic setting and its laissez-faire atmosphere, a quality missing from synthetic Los Angeles. San Francisco began life as a feisty frontier town, and little has changed in 150 years. The city only occupies 47 hilly square miles of California, but it captivates the world. It is a regular trendsetter in everything alternative, from flower-power to 'free love' and gay liberation; it prides itself on being individualistic, down-to-earth and cultured.