Culture + Travel

It's been over two years since I took a virtual test drive inside a Waymo Robotaxi in San Francisco — and many of the same problems remain, now in IRL form. Any denizen of the Bay Area is annoyingly familiar with fleets of autonomous vehicles crisscrossing our dilapidated roadways. Big players in the race toward the distant driverless future continue to throw millions of dollars (and press emails) toward vying to monopolize this tech sector that may not truly come to fruition for many decades. Joining Cruise, Voyage, and others already operating in San Francisco, Waymo—a subsidy of Google, whose parent company is Alphabet Inc —announced the launch of a fleet of its autonomous taxis in San Francisco last year, with employee volunteers behind the wheel. (This was the first expansion beyond...

A picture’s truly worth a thousand words, then this Reddit upload from u/Maxposure of a surfer tackling a gnarly wave underneath the Golden Gate Bridge at Fort Point is a whole-ass Zadie Smith novel. The image wows not just because of the great composition, light, and timing — but because it makes you go: “Wait, do people actually surf under the Golden Gate?!” And, obviously: They absolutely do. While most surfers turn their attention to places like Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, others venture into the Bay itself. But dangerous rip tides and record-breaking Maverick waves can, however, make the waters of San Francisco’s Pacific-facing coastlines equal parts awe-inspiring and downright intimidating. This is all true, especially off Fort Point and Ocean Beach, another famous su...