The trail runs from the Old Mint on Mission Street through the Financial District, past the sites of Gold Rush-era businesses and banks, into Chinatown and North Beach, and along the waterfront to Aquatic Park. Along the way, markers identify locations significant to the city's history: the site of the original shoreline (now buried blocks inland by landfill), the locations of notorious Barbary Coast saloons, the buildings that survived the 1906 fire, and the immigrant communities that rebuilt the city. The trail passes through several local history museums, making it possible to combine outdoor walking with indoor exhibitions.

The bronze medallions are the trail's most distinctive feature. Set into the sidewalk at intervals of about a block, they are easily overlooked by pedestrians who are not looking for them and immediately compelling to those who are. The arrows point the way forward; the medallions mark significant locations. This approach to public history -- embedding it literally in the ground rather than mounting it on walls -- suits San Francisco's character. The city's history is not contained in museums but scattered through its streets, available to anyone willing to look down.

The Barbary Coast Trail takes roughly two to three hours to walk at a casual pace, covering neighborhoods that span San Francisco's entire history. Starting at the Old Mint, which survived the 1906 fire, the trail passes through the Financial District where Gold Rush fortunes were made and lost, into Chinatown where the oldest Chinese American community in the country endures, through North Beach where the Beat poets gathered, and along the waterfront where ships once unloaded the goods and people that built the city. The trail's genius is connecting these disparate neighborhoods into a single narrative, revealing that San Francisco's history is not a collection of isolated stories but a continuous thread.