Hotel Drisco Pacific Heights — which sits over two miles from the bustle of SF’s Union Square and the drama swirling around Twitter’s headquarters — is a *chef’s kiss* staycation choice.
We can’t wax on this enough: San Francisco is the second most densely packed city in the country, second only to NYC. Mass media companies either harp on the general dystopia seen in SF’s downtown or pedestal this seven-by-seven slice of Northern California as a presiding, urban oasis — the only orchestra cutting through Karl The Fog being fog horns and the chime of cable cars.
This, alas, is not the case. Walking around San Francisco leaves you exposed to an average decibel reading of about 77; this would be akin to sitting in a living room with a running vacuum cleaner. Heavy traffic usually tips the scale at 80 decibels — so that previously written figure isn’t far off from it.
San Francisco is not a quiet place… that’s for sure. But, ironically enough, one of the country’s quietest hotels is located right here… just on the border of the Presidio.
Because just over two miles from Twitter’s downtown headquarters sits the calmer, more serene, less vociferous neighborhoods of the Richmond District, Outer Sunset, and, of course, Pacific Heights. And it’s the latter SF neighborhood where one of the quietest hotels in the country apparently is addressed.
According to an earlier report from Morning.co.uk, a UK-based sleep quality company, crunched data points from TripAdvisor published by thousands of user reviews, examining them to understand what the hotels in cities across the world were among the quietest. Marriott’s Sabal Palms in Orlando is thought to be the best for low-noise domestic stays. More than a quarter of all Tripadvisor reviews said that the hotel was quiet. A similar percentage — 24.4% — of user reviews have also described Hotel Drisco Pacific Heights as rather quiet, as well.
And months after that report, Hotel Drisco Pacific Heights still ranks as not only the quietest SF hotel but the best overall hotel to stay in San Francisco. Of the 1,757 individual reviews presently posted on TripAdvisor for the hotel,1,512 of them are five-star reviews — denoting an “excellent” stay.
“First, Mornings.co.uk compiled several seed lists: capital cities, US states, holiday destinations, top 20 UK cities people visit, top 20 US states people visit,” wrote Mornings.co.uk in its methodology of the May 2022 report. “Using the TripAdvisor search bar, the team then looked for the keyword ‘quiet’ in each location from the seed lists and gathered the data from the hotel’s tab. Later, the team scraped the number of reviews overall and the number of quiet mentions for each hotel then calculated the percentage of ‘quiet’ mentions and grouped the data according to the seed lists.”
Even though most of those data points were collected over nine months ago in February of this year, they still hold up. If anything: The rating and overall positive sentiment of Hotel Drisco Pacific Heights has only gone up.
“Aiming to focus on only hotels, Mornings.co.uk manually cleared our final lists from resorts, lodges, RV parks, hostels, BnBs, etc.,” the report continues. “The team also calculated the average number of quiet mentions for multiple UK and US hotel brands.”
Built in 1903, the Edwardian San Francisco hotel features 48 individual rooms, with 16 of those being deemed full-fledged suites. Among its many harped-on nices from past guests include, gastronomic extras (“from a gourmet continental breakfast”) and an evening wine reception. There are also apparently free bikes to borrow to allow.
With nightly stays at the 2901 Pacific Avenue hotel fitting of its upscale categorization — good luck finding a deal for anything less than $550 a night for Hotel Drisco these days — it’s by no means a budget-friendly option for a staycation. But sometimes… you’ve just got to treat yourself. And staying in one of the best hotels for park picnics in the country, according to Oyster, is a convenience worth taking advantage of.
“I can’t say enough good things about this hotel,” reads a review from Scott29inSeattle published in October. “[The hotel] is located in a quiet and beautiful neighborhood. The rooms are very comfortable. I had a city-view room that looked out to the south over the city. Staff is extremely helpful.”
The user later went on to write something rather salient and unquestionably fitting re: the hotel’s price in relation to the city: “This place isn’t cheap but nothing in San Francisco is cheap.”
You *said it,* cott29inSeattle. It’s a remark that’s by no means fallen on deaf ears.
Feature image: Courtesy of Hotel Drisco Pacific Heights
Very cool place in an equally cool neighborhood.