Not everyone will believe you when you say you’ve been to Oakland’s Chinatown. They’ll think that you meant Chinatown in San Francisco. Yet Oakland has its own pan-Asian neighborhood next to downtown. Look for the bilingual street signs stretching east of Broadway toward Madison St., and south of 12th St. toward the I-880 Freeway. Chinese immigrants first arrived in Oakland during California’s...

If Oakland has a tourism hub, this waterfront district is it. Take a sunset walk or a bicycle ride past the moored boats bobbing in the bay or hop aboard FDR’s private yacht, the USS Potomac. If you want to paddle out into the Bay on your own, talk to California Canoe and Kayak. Afterward, peek inside the recreated Yukon gold rush cabin...

If you follow Piedmont Ave. all the way north to where it dead ends, you’ll encounter the imposing gates of Mountain View Cemetery. Some of the Bay Area’s most famous names from yesteryear are buried here in regal style. Poke around long enough and you’ll find the tomb of Samuel Merritt, a 19th-century physician who was once the mayor of Oakland, and...