SAN FRANCISCO – A new analysis ranked San Francisco as the number one, most popular U.S. vacation destination for 2025.  

The global car rental and travel site SIXT conducted its research by analyzing Google travel search trends.

What we know:

San Francisco had the most searches, with more than 2.7 million hits.  

“San Francisco topping the list of 2025 travel destinations comes as no surprise—it’s a city that perfectly blends culture, innovation, and iconic landmarks, making it a must-visit for travelers worldwide,” said SIXT Director of Communications Joseph Gerbino.

Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming (and extending into Montana and Idaho) and the Grand Canyon in Arizona came in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.

Yosemite National Park also made the list. 

“Yosemite National Park, ranked as the seventh most popular travel spot, highlights the natural beauty that’s just a few hours drive away from the city,” Gerbino said.

California was the most represented state on the list, with two other cities named among this year’s top U.S. destinations.

San Diego came in 9th, and Anaheim, home to Disneyland, was ranked 12th.

San Francisco also ranked by Tripadvisor  

San Francisco was also ranked in another, more comprehensive analysis– one by Tripadvisor, which analyzed thousands of reviews shared by its global community of travelers.

The site’s annual “Travelers’ Choice Awards Best of the Best Destinations” listed the City by the Bay as the 7th must-visit city in the U.S. this year. 

New York City (1), Hawaii’s O’ahu (2), and Las Vegas (3) topped that list.  

San Francisco also made Tripadvisor’s best food destinations rankings, coming in 10th place after San Diego. 

The site noted that travelers across the globe were “most excited” about the culinary offerings as part of their vacationing experience.  

New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., and New York City were named the top three best for food destinations.

Dig deeper:

The Travelers’ Choice Awards Best of the Best Destinations also identified the top “trending” vacation spots in the world, which was Osaka, Japan.

In the U.S., it was West Palm Beach, Florida.

And to mark its 25th anniversary this year, Tripadvisor named the top travel destination of the last quarter-century.

London took the crown, with the capital U.K. city also being named as 2025’s top must-visit destination in the world.
 

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — One person is in jail in connection to a Sunday night multi-vehicle accident that killed a man and his dog in San Francisco.

At least seven people were taken to the hospital after at least seven cars were damaged.

Person and dog killed, several hurt in San Francisco multi-car crash, authorities say

“All of a sudden I hear sounds of explosions like I thought we were getting bombs dropped on us,” Aki Star said.

He is describing the multi-vehicle accident scene at 6th and Harrison. Star took video showing the wrecked cars as emergency crews were arriving.

“After the first impact it was multiple like, boom pow pow boom boom, it was unbelievable so I was like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” Star said. “So I immediately ran outside and came right around the corner and saw the devastation. I saw all the cars and smoke starting to come out of the cars and I heard moans and screams and crying coming out of the cars.”

The wife of the man who died was at the scene Sunday night and in tears over what happened.

A Waymo vehicle waiting at the stop light was hit from behind and had extensive damage. A Waymo spokesperson sent a statement Sunday saying that a car two vehicles behind the Waymo was hit by a speeding car going 98 miles per hour, which caused a chain reaction crash. Police haven’t confirmed that speed but witnesses reacted.

“For the noise to be that loud the car must have been traveling 90 or close to 100 miles per hour,” Star said.

Jail records show that a person is being held on vehicular manslaughter, vandalism, and speeding. Also, CHP says they responded to a hit-and-run accident on 280 just prior to the crash here. While that second case hasn’t been officially linked, both incidents involve a black Tesla.

A deadly, multi-car collision in San Francisco on Sunday evening marks the first time in the U.S. that a truly autonomous vehicle, with no one in the driver’s seat, has been involved in a fatal collision, according to federal transportation records.

A self-driving Waymo car, which is not being blamed for the crash, was among six vehicles struck when a fast-moving vehicle slammed into a line of car stopped at a traffic light at the corner of 6^th and Harrison Streets, about a mile south of the city’s famed Union Square.

While the Waymo was empty, a passenger in one of the other struck vehicles and a dog were killed. Several others also suffered injuries, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

“An unoccupied Waymo vehicle operating autonomously was in a line of stand-still traffic when it was struck from behind by a vehicle that was impacted by another vehicle traveling at an extreme rate of speed,” a Waymo spokesperson wrote in a statement.  “The trust and safety of our community remain our top priority, and we are coordinating with local safety officials.”

First responders were on the scene of a multi-vehicle collision involving a Waymo robotaxi Sunday night in San Francisco that killed one person and injured seven, according to the fire department. Alyssa Goard reports.

NHTSA tracks frequency of driverless car collisions, but not who’s at fault

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires self-driving car companies, like Waymo, to report each time their vehicles are involved in an accident, regardless of whether the autonomous vehicle was at fault.  According to NHTSA, which began collecting such data in July 2021, Waymo’s driverless vehicles have been involved in about 30 different collisions resulting in some type of injury.  Waymo, however, has noted that nearly all those crashes, like Sunday’s collision, were the fault of other cars driven by humans.  While NHTSA’s crash data doesn’t note whether self-driving vehicles may have been to blame, Waymo has previously noted that it only expects to pay out insurance liability claims for two previous collisions involving its driverless vehicles that resulted in injuries.

In December, Waymo touted the findings of its latest safety analysis, which determined its fleet of driverless cars continue to outperform human drivers across major safety metrics.  The report, authored by Waymo and its partners at the Swiss Reinsurance Company, reviewed insurance claim data to explore how often human drivers and autonomous vehicles are found to be liable in car collisions. According to the study, Waymo’s self-driving vehicles faced about 90% fewer insurance claims relating to property damage and bodily injuries compared to human drivers.

Another self-driving car was also involved in a fatal wreck in 2018

While Sunday’s collision marks the first fatal crash involving a driverless car, it was nearly seven years ago when another autonomous vehicle was involved in a deadly collision with a pedestrian, though that self-driving car had a human safety driver behind the wheel.  The accident, which occurred in March 2018, involved an autonomous car from Uber, which sold off its self-driving division two years later to a competitor.  The car struck and killed a pedestrian who was jaywalking at about 10pm. In a 2019 report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board, investigators cited an “inadequate safety culture” at Uber, and noted “inadequate safety risk assessment procedures, ineffective oversight of vehicle operators, and [a] lack of adequate mechanisms for addressing operators’ automation complacency.” Other contributing factors, according to the NTSB, included drugs being found in the pedestrian’s system and the “failure of the vehicle operator to monitor the driving environment and the operation of the automated driving system because she was visually distracted throughout the trip by her personal cell phone.”

Waymo’s self-driving cars first hit public roadways, without anyone in the driver’s seat, back in 2015. The company’s fleet of autonomous vehicles have traveled more than 33 million miles and have provided more than five million rides across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin.  San Francisco alone is home to about 300 driverless Waymo vehicles, though they’re not all on the road at the same time.

In California, there are more than 30 companies currently permitted by the DMV to test driverless cars on the open road.  While most are still required to have safety drivers sitting in the front seat who can take over when needed, Waymo remains the only fleet of robotaxis in California to move past the state’s testing phase to, now, regularly offer paid rides to passengers.

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