San Francisco Experiments With Climate Tourism

The city does have famously mild weather

San Francisco
San Francisco, California.
Jesse Collins/Unsplash

As you might have noticed, temperatures all over the country have been steadily increasing over the years. It’s led to countless issues for people dealing with weather, from the need for more cooling centers to serve vulnerable populations to the way that heat can make certain public spaces uninhabitable. It’s not surprising to know that plenty of people with the time and money to do so have embraced traveling to more moderate climates during summer’s most brutally hot stretches.

Now, an unexpected destination is emphasizing its own famously cool temperatures as an incentive to stop there on your next cross-country trip. That destination is San Francisco — which has the advantages of a moderate climate combined with all of the amenities of a large city.

As Dani Anguiano reports for The Guardian, the city sees an opportunity in its climate — or, as San Francisco Travel Association head Joe D’Alessandro dubbed it in an interview with the newspaper, its “natural air-conditioning.”

“San Francisco has always been a cool break in the summertime and as the rest of the world starts to deal with the effects of climate change, I think it becomes even more compelling,” D’Alessandro told The Guardian.

The article points out that this strategy is a kind of extension of the role San Francisco has played to residents of other, warmer California locales. And while San Francisco isn’t immune to the effects of climate change, it may be less affected by them than elsewhere. It’s not hard to see the appeal, especially when the weather around you turns sweltering.

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