(1.) I kind of lucked out by finding a good roommate situation through college friends. We ended up getting a really good deal in the Nob Hill area, which I like a lot so far. If it weren't for my roommate who is more into the "Marina bro" scene, I probably would be living in Cole Valley, Hayes Valley, Duboce Triangle, or the Mission with a rando off CL (which I hear isn't weird like it is elsewhere - I'm from Dallas).

(3.) I have no idea... When you find something cool, let me know. I actually met the guys/startup I work with/for at a YC event. Twitter, HN, and even blogs are always good places to meet new people, though.

(4.) I never realized how urban/densely populated SF was. Parking, grocery shopping, doing laundry, and receiving packages are all huge hassles (for me at least).

I walk to get around way more than I ever have. Invest in comfy socks and walking shoes and adjust your diet accordingly?

I also never expected it to be so cool out here. I wear a jacket every morning on my walk to work and a fleece or sweater for the rest of the day.

The food out here is really good. Every restaurant seems to take their food/service extremely seriously, which is cool.

There are tons of tourists everywhere - many from Europe.

I'm still a noob to SF, but it's pretty cool so far. I kind of just jumped in and am figuring everything out as I go...

Good luck! :)

But yeah, SF is also cool...

Can you explain what "Marina bro" is? I did google it w/ no luck. I know where the Marina area is, but that's about it. Sorry, East coast here.

I spent the summer in the Bernal Heights area,(pretty close to the southern edge of the city - just south of the Mission). Its somewhat far away from SoMA (30-45m by muni + bart -- made this trip daily to go into the office, its not that bad). I've really never had any problems getting around the city whenever I need to go somewhere.

2. It'll take more than a weekend to find a place, but likely less than a month. I'd suggest to sublet for a month, but, no reason why you can't use AirBnB or something similar on a weekly basis.

3. Most of the events/meetups I follow are for iPhone/Mac dev-type things, not marketing (which seems to be your area of interest). So I can't help you there, sorry. But, if that is your cup of tea, there's weekly NSCoder night, an iOS Dev Camp coming up in a few weeks, and so on. Github has one, the Cappuccino folks do, etc. Lots of stuff going on.

4. There's no such thing as a weekly muni/bart pass. Maybe its because I'm used to NYC where the MTA has these, but, this really surprised me.

http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mfares/passports.htm

BART has no passes, but if you pay $10 extra for a monthly Muni pass, it'll work on BART within the city (only). That's what I did before I decided the mission was too grim'n'gritty.

To the original poster: Muni buses are notoriously unpredictable, as in sometimes they just don't show up and the next one is filled to capacity. Muni trains are pretty reliable (except for some complaints that the N-Judah can turn back before the outer sunset), and BART runs like clockwork (off grade FTW).

Bernal Heights to Soma on bike: 10-15 min

2) if you find someone who lets you crash on their couch, go for it. give a few neighborhoods a try before you settle down! my first place that wasn't a friend's couch was a warehouse listed on airbnb. worked great and gave me the time to figure out where i really wanted to live.

3) it feels like people here are perpetually busy and barely have the time to hang out even with their closest friends. there's a seemingly endless supply of interesting people too. few strangers will throw a welcome party for you even if you are awesome (unlike where i am from). that makes people seem unwelcoming to a certain degree initially, but don't worry, it just takes a bit to grow into a social circle here and then you'll be perpetually busy and socially oversaturated too.

4) it's much easier to approach people when you have something to talk about. unless your project is in full gear, you might have an easier time getting to know interesting people through doing interesting things or sports. startup meetups and such work too, but being active together or even just picnicking together in dolores park gives you an entirely different connection. there's a lot of fun and cool stuff happening here that's not startup focused, and it's easy to join in and offer to help, and you'll be surprised how tightly connected this town really is.

5) a lot of people use hackerspaces as some of the first places they visit in a new city to meet people. depending on the space and the moon phase you might meet truly awesome people and/or complete weirdos. give it a try, cowork there for a bit and see who you get to know along the way.

6) get a bike. i've resisted initially, but there's simply nothing that works better here (including cabs, muni or your own car). see jwz's advice on bikes in sf: http://jwz.livejournal.com/883988.html

Look up Craigslist and get a sublet.

Get a friend who's pretty active in the startup scene and friend that person. You will discover all kinds of interesting events that person's attending.

Once I found a neighborhood that felt comfortable, I narrowed my focus and drilled down on finding a place.

If you can do something similar, I highly recommend it.

http://paulstamatiou.com/atlanta-to-san-francisco-moving-cro...

I moved from Atlanta, sold all my stuff and drove out. Definitely a great feeling to not be tied down to many posessions. I live in the Mission and love it. My email is in my profile if you want to ask any questions.

Rooms to rent: http://www.airbnb.com/travel/san-francisco/ca

Events to look at: http://plancast.com/search?q=san+francisco

* Avoid SoMa

* Ditch the car - use ZipCar

* China Town for cheap produce

* SafeWay delivers groceries

* Costco! It's downtown so you don't need to go far.

* Goodwill for simple things (just bought a replacement keyboard there for $3)

And some ways to save time:

* Wash and fold laundry service! Most of the US is missing out by not having this.

* You can get a good cleaning person on CL for not too much. I get it once a month to do a deep clean.

Its a long-term stay hotel. They give you a room, breakfast and dinner for $50 a night. People are nice and its a good location (as far as checking the city out).

Quite honestly, you can only do so much pre-planning before you you arrive. Really, you gotta spend time here and work out what works best for you.

On where to live, quite often it comes down to price. Check housingmaps.com to see what a 1BR works out with in different parts of the town and compare to your budget. You might want a different living arrangement if you are up for sharing and/or want to run a business from home.

2. AirBNB and other couch surfing sites. Do know anyone in SF - staying with them will help you get to know the city quicker than staying on your own. Honestly, I lived here for over a year before I really got to know anyone who had spent time living in the city for sometime (most of the other people I was working with also moved in recently at the time). Point is, I learnt so much more about the city once I spent time with being who had lived here for 5 years+.

Also be aware we have a large homeless population, and so as those folks pull themselves out of homlessness, the hostels and residence hotels are their half-way-house/first foot on the ladder. You might not want this to be your first experience of SF.

3. Check Plancast, Facebook events, Meetup.com for SF

4. I could write a book on this subject, gosh...

* Consider up front whether you want to run a car or not (I assume you do now living in Mid West) - and price in your budget and where you live accordingly.

* SoMa is a great to live because it's close to startups and lots of amenities... but it's not a "neighborhood" in the true sense, dangerous + skuzzy in the middle (5th - 12th streets) and when I lived there I'd go for weeks without ever leaving the area. So consider whether you really want to work + live in the same place.

* ...Assuming you are not going to live in SoMa, consider what kind of person you are - as the other neighborhoods very much cater to different types of personality. For every person who tells you to live in Mission (hipsters living in grittyness) you'll find someone who'll tell you to live in Marina or Pac Heights (LA-wannabe party scene in more up-market living). If you fit into one of those personality types you probably won't want to live in the other, etc.

* Getting a network of friends + contacts going is really important. I actually spent 6+ months doing this BEFORE I moved here by visiting back and forth (from London, UK no less).

* Don't live in Tenderloin or Bay Shore (dangerous) and while Richmond and Sunset areas are much cheaper, they're so far out from anything.

(sorry if the above is kinda random and all over the place. Honestly, I've written this out several times - have you tried searching for other threads on this subject?)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1510553

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=65936

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=54034

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=102933

* From Berkeley, by BART

2. http://www.elementssf.com/

3. Github drinkup.

4. Too general of a question.

If you don't intend to run a car in SF you prob want to be within a few blocks of a BART of MUNI Street Car stop.

You can generally describe property value, livability, etc of the Mission knowing only the proximity to bart and parks.

Honestly, most of the Mission has those kinds of social issues - and to choose to live there is to choose to accept (and embrace) them ...

* Homeless and crazy people around the BARTS and most of the Mission St corridor,

* Sureños and Norteños turf battles around 21 street

* The projects in the middle

* Drunken hipster fucks riding around with pointless fixie bikes with no breaks and no gears (dude, didn't you study physics at school? can't you see we have hills in SF?)

Where in Mission can you live without any of these issues before you are getting into Noe Valley, Bernal Heights or Potrero?

I ended up in the southern tip of the mission where Mission, Noe Valley and Bernal meet and love it. $800 a month in a nice 4 bed 2 bath, w/d in unit, new everything.

I had been watching the rentals/roommates space on Craigslist for 5-6 months while saving up to move. Unfortunately for both of us, we missed the bottom of the rental price market. They have definitely been trending up over the past few months as the tech scene is starting to get frothy again. So watch dates if you are reading articles on people moving here.

I stayed with 3 different hosts off of Airbnb.com for a little over 2 weeks while finding a place. I would book for 4-5 days. I lost two places to live at the last minute, and both hosts had other people booked so I had to find new Airbnb hosts last minute. BUT, it was super easy, Airbnb has a short notice/standby feature where they literally tell all of the hosts who want those alerts that someone needs a place fast. I had 6-7 host offer within an hour both times.

One interesting note on cost of rent that I just noticed...You very rarely have to turn the heat on and most places don't have AC. As opposed to the Midwest (I'm from Nebraska) where either one is cranked year round. This time of year in NE our electric bill would easily be $150+ a month (in a small two bedroom), and I've seen insane bills for heating with gas in the winter. So for me there is really $100-$200 a month that moved from HVAC costs to rent.

I cut my possessions in half before moving back home, and then again before moving out here. I boxed up all my stuff really good and left it at home. Flew out here with suitcases full of clothes, then had my 4-5 boxes shipped UPS once I found a place.

I sold my car. I've been extremely car dependent since I was 16. Adjusting to this change in transportation has been the hardest thing to adapt...but honestly it has been easier than I thought and not having a car is awesome. You said you come from the Midwest too, so I imagine you are car dependent has well so here are my quick tips to ditching it in SF.

   -  Sign up for the ZipCar program.  $50 a year, $8-$12 per hour (gas and insurance included) cars on demand.  I have never been more than 4 blocks from a ZipCar when I needed it for getting furniture off craigslist, big store run, etc.  Good phone apps

   - Get a Clipper Card (previously TransLink) and either load cash or passes.  I signed up to Autoload a Fast-Pass every month.  $60 for unlimited MUNI and BART every month, a little more than one tank of gas.  And they work smooth.

   - I use the built in Google maps on my iphone to plot a route and see what line I need.  I then pop over to an app called Routesy that is better for getting a complete picture of the stops and ETAs for any MUNI or BART Line.

   - Get a bike, I snagged an insanely awesome bike that was barely used and 3 months old with receipts off Craigslist for well under half price. Pro Tip:  Google maps for bikes will plot you around the hills as much as possible.

Feel free to drop me a line if you want to chat more or grab a coffee/drink when you get here. schaecher.michael gmail

I don't think that has to do with the tech scene, Bay Area rents are higher for summer move-ins and that cycle happens every year.

Ignore the guy who said "avoid SOMA" because you can find some great deals here. There's a building in this small alleyway on Sumner that has huge 2-bedroom apartments which could comfortably be converted (and often are) to 3-bedrooms for $1800/month. If you realyl want to be cheap, my current building is filled with AAU students who double up the bedrooms and split $2825 4 ways to live in a building with a pool and a fitness center a cross the street from Twitter (sort of).