Place to see: San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, California, United States

About this place:

San Francisco International Airport is located 13 miles (21 km) south of downtown San Francisco, California. The airport is adjacent to Highway 101, and it is also served by BART train service for access to destinations throughout the Bay Area.

SFO is the fourteenth busiest airport in the United States, and the twenty-third busiest in the world. Standing at an elevation of 13 feet in reclaimed San Francisco Bay land, the airport first opened in 1927, when it was known as Mills Field.

Today SFO has four main runways. Passenger facilities are located in four terminal buildings. Terminals 1 and 3 are for domestic flights. A new, $1 billion International Terminal was opened in 2000. Terminal 2 (the original SFO terminal built during the 1950s) is closed for renovation.

Flights to and from Canada (except for Qantas) depart from and arrive in the domestic terminals.

SFO is a major hub for United Airlines, and United flights depart from Terminal 3. and it is also home to a major United Airlines Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility at the north end of the airport grounds.

Beginning in 2007, several discount carriers began offering service to and from SFO, including Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, and Virgin America.

The airport is also an accredited museum, with dozens of professionally curated exhibits about popular culture and aviation history scattered throughout the airport complex. There is a dedicated Aviation Library and Museum space in the International Terminal. It's a nice place to relax during long layovers.