Walking tour of Haight Ashbury's iconic Painted Ladies

This humble home once played host to OG Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. He spent a part of the 60s writing a book called "Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang" and this is where he lived while he spent time getting to know the members of the notorious gang. His neighbors were reportedly not thrilled to have Hell's Angels stopping by at all hours of the day and night, but Thompson was able to hold his own with the rough and tumble motorcycle gang members. Thompson drifted apart from the gang and moved out, although the book launched him to fame and success.

Janis Joplin lived in two different houses in the Haight. The first place she lived was in an apartment in this old Painted Lady on Ashbury Street. She lived here for four months with a roommate... who later published a book about her time living with Janis.

So how did a motorcycle gang like Hell's Angels wind up living alongside a bunch of hippies, anyhow? We have the Grateful Dead to thank for that. The rockers hired the gang to serve as their bodyguards, and the Hell's Angels took to the neighborhood... might have had something to do with the fact that they were able to unload some illegal substances on the hippies.

This purple Painted Lady is the house where the Grateful Dead spent a summer. It's been kept in impeccable condition since it's still a residence, but you can take a picture of front, and see the sidewalk art dedicated to the Dead.

Hashbury has been attracting stars even beyond the psychedelic 60s. In 1978, notorious rock star Sid Vicious overdosed (but survived the ordeal) at this Haight-Ashbury Victorian after the last Sex Pistols show at the Winterland Ballroom. Kind of a creepy stop, but not as weird as the next house on the tour.

If you don't know the full saga of the Symbionese Liberation Army, it's worth a Google. The radical revolutionary activist group committed murders, bank robberies, kidnappings, and other acts of violence, all in the name of peace and equality. Their most famous crime? Kidnapping heiress and socialite Patty Hearst, who became a victim of Stockholm Syndrome and was reportedly brainwashed into committing a bank robbery with the group. She and other SLA members hid out in this house on Masonic Avenue for awhile, before they were found, arrested and sentenced. Hearst was later pardoned for her role in the robbery.

After Janis moved out of her home on Ashbury, she moved into this building on Lyon Street, and this is where she was living when she shot to stardom at the Monterey Pop Festival. Imagine what the Haight was like right at the edge of the counterculture movement... it seriously must have been a crazy place to be at that moment.

You've done a lot of walking, so pop in the Toronado Pub for a beer. It's small, and cash only, but it's one of the best places to find the most covetable beers in the US, and is consistently rated as one of the top beer bars in the country.

The next famous person's house you can see is the former home of Charles Manson. Before he moved to LA to make it big as a musician, he lived in this San Francisco Victorian with some of his earliest followers. He found it a little tough to compete with the other cult leaders in the SF area to gain followers and influence, so he moved to LA, where he and his band of drugged-up hippies went on their famed Helter Skelter killing spree, driving the final nail into the coffin of the counterculture movement.