Flashback: Summer of Love, Winter of Discontent

I've lived in the Bay Area my whole life and found this tour both fascinating and fun. Our guide, Kurt, was very knowledgeable on the local hippie history, and it was really interesting to see things like how close the Grateful Dead's house was to the headquarters of the Hell's Angels, all while playing fun games, answering hippie trivia, and even breaking into a "Hippie Dance" competition. Would definitely recommend the tour to locals as well as tourists--it'll make you see the Haight in a new light!

The tour was fun and informative and I was able to get a really good sense of what the Haight Ashbury was like in the late 60s. Fun way to spend a couple of hours.

The Summer of Love tour is a great find for those of us who can remember the 1960's. It does a good job of recreating what life was like in the Haight during the hippie movement. I took my adult daughter who was fascinated to learn about the Greatful Dead, Janice Joplin, Charles Manson, etc. The best part of the tour was participating in the hippie dancing contest.

I'd been on many of your tours. Whenever I have family in town we take one of your tours because they are prompt, interesting and funny. This time you missed on all counts. We started about 30 minutes late, the points on the tour were pretty lame and the jokes fell flat. I'll probably take another tour when visitors come but it definately won't be this one.

The Haight-Ashbury tour is a combination of early and mid-20th century history but its the architecture that steals the show. The neighborhoods are some of the most exciting architecture in The City and a neverēnding feast of craftsmanship and detail. Our tour guide informed us of the early history and also the lore of early San Francisco rock and roll. He readily took cues for how much comedy to insert into the tour by his quick understanding of people. Our family liked the history and trivia facts more so than the comedy so we learned a lot from our guide and also kept the tour pace very customized to our needs. The guide had an I-pod with a variety of sound clips, which I would have loved to hear more of, but for my parents, it was just enough. In my opinion even though the Summer of Love, which disintegrated into chaos with the influx of kids, music, and drugs should not be overlooked in its importance at that time -- the anti-war movement -- and in the long run was morally worthy of a lot of protest. Great tour -- will do it again when other friends come to town.

The tour was informative and fun -- although it focused primarily on the music scene of the 1960's-'70s. I would have enjoyed learning about other aspects of that era, as well.

This was a really great tour - lots of information that I wouldn't have found out exploring the neighbourhood on my own. The guide was friendly, knowledgeable and personable. I would recommend this to anybody wanting to know more than the typical tourist facts about San Francisco.

Poor Kurt, He seemed pretty tired and was totally unorganized. No energy, zip or humour. Thank God the day was beautiful and we had time to wander. He needs to update the routine ( Danny Glover lived up there 5 years ago...so what?) and update his personal hygiene routine too.

This was an entertaining and informative trip back to the late sixties and it was great to see where all the well known names like Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Charles Manson hung out. Also incredible to see where the Hells Angels lived - across the street from the Dead! It was a delight to see that the spirit of the psycadelic 60's is still alive with stories to be told and landmarks to be admired. Friendly guide Kurt explained that rather than bringing flowers as exhorted by Scott McKenzie, teenagers across america would have been better off bringing medical supplies and footware for the summer of love.

Great idea well-delivered. Thanks !