Everyone has probably heard of Alcatraz. It is one of the top attractions in San Francisco. I'm sure there are plenty of other journals here describing the ins-and-outs of the island. But, this journal is to show you how to make a potential profit when visiting Alcatraz.

Alcatraz is insanely popular, which means lots and lots of people want tickets to the island. Because it is an island, that also means there are limited tickets, since boats can only make a certain number of trips there each day. To make sure you get to the island, it is highly recommended that you make online reservations. This can easily be done by visiting the Blue and Gold Fleet website, the tour boat operator to the island.

To make a potential profit, simply reserve more tickets than you'll need. Why, you ask? Summer months are extremely popular, and boats sell out quickly. The travelers who don't plan ahead then have to wait in long lines for the last remaining tickets the day they planned on going to the island, if there are any tickets remaining. If you're like me, when you go to pick up your reserved tickets, you'll bump into frustrated travelers who do not want to wait in line for a slim chance at getting tickets, or they already know that the boats are sold out for the day. Since they are in desperate need of visiting a closed prison, they are almost more than willing to offer you money for your tickets.

During my visit to the island in August 2003, I was approached by a man and his girlfriend who offered me $100 for my two tickets as I got in line to get my reserved tickets. As tempting as the offer was, I declined...since I had no clue if I'd ever go to Alcatraz again in my life, and I had no other time to visit the island.

There is no guarantee that this will work and happen to you. But if I had known that there would be people begging for my tickets, I would have definitely bought a few more.

The rich history of Alcatraz during the penitentiary years and many of the inmates who called "the Rock" home. From the mid-1930s until the mid-1960s, Alcatraz was America's premier maximum-security prison, the final stop for the nation's most incorrigible inmates. Today, Alcatraz is a place of contradictions, with a grim past and an enduring future as one of San Francisco's most prominent landmarks and tourist attractions.

Alcatraz tour boat leaves from Fisherman's Wharf. Order tickets ahead of time (Internet reservations are not available). There is often a very long wait and trips are sometimes sold out for the entire day. Also be sure to try the Dungeness crabs (the huge crabs caught near Alaska) and clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl at restaurants on Fisherman's Wharf (always bring a sweater or jacket!). The Alcatraz tour is self-guided and visitors rent a personal headset with recorded tour information. When it's over, you can try a cup of Irish coffee in a restaurant near the cable car stop.

Even if you weren’t raised on a steady diet of true-crime novels and "America’s Most Wanted," Alcatraz Island, about a 15-minute boat ride off the shore of San Francisco, is a fascinating place to visit.

The stuff of legends and Nicolas Cage movies, "The Rock" housed some of the nation’s most dangerous criminals from 1934-1963, and the guided (via cassette tape) tour through the prison brings you eerily up close and personal with its former inhabitants, many of whom narrate their own stories.

A particularly notable part of the tour is the open cell that you can enter in order to see what it feels like to look out at the world through closed bars.

There are also (live) guided tours on the hill leading up to the actual prison compound, but unless you’re willing to plow through the 50-odd other tourists like a New Yorker trying to catch a subway during rush hour, don’t expect to hear anything. The guides are chipper and well informed, but they don’t wear microphones, and they just can’t compete with the wind. Unfortunately, the 40-minute tour is the best way to get information about Alcatraz that’s not related to its history as a prison.

As warm as it may be back in San Fran, wear a sweatshirt or jacket for your trip out to the island, which was still windy and cold when I went in mid-August. Alcatraz is also, unsurprisingly, a very, very popular tourist attraction, and you’ll have to make reservations in advance. If you don’t care what time you go (ferries run to and from the island beginning at 9:30am and ending at either 6:30pm during the summer or 4:30pm during all other seasons), you’ll probably be fine making reservations the day before. But if you’re on a tight schedule, the earlier you make the reservations, the better. Never underestimate people’s fascination with the dark side.

Trips to the island cost $9.25 (not including the extra $4.00 for the recorded cell tour), and you can make reservations by calling Blue & Gold Fleet at 415/705-5555, visiting their website at www.blueandgoldfleet.com/abcsc.htm, or by going in person to their booth at Pier 41 at Fisherman’s Wharf.

Have you ever been to prison? I haven't until I visited this interesting location.

I recommend ordering your tickets ahead of time as the tours tend to sell out quickly. I also recommend the audio tour as you will have a guide with you who explains the different parts of the prison. It also has interviews with actual inmates. After picking up your tickets at Will Call, you move to get in line for the ferry that will take you to the island. The ferry ride is about 30 minutes.

Once you pull into port, you will climb a hill to the prison to pick up your audio tape player for the tour. This will walk you through the tour, which is about 1 hour long. Sometimes at the pier, a ranger is available to provide a tour and provide history upto the prison as Alcatraz was not originally a prison, but an army fort during the 1800's.

After the tour, you return the audio tapes and can explore a little of the prison grounds. Once you are done, you board the ferry that will take you back to the main land. There are gifts shops on the island as well as back at the pier on the mainland.

You board a boat at Pier 41 for the short ride across to the island itself. When you disembark, a tour guide greets you and explains the routes to take and what to expect, etc. There is quite a lot of walking up stairs and hills, so for those with disabilities and the like, there is a trolley bus to take you to the top.

We started off by going into the "theatre" to watch a film about the history of the Rock which was very interesting. It outlined the various uses the place has had over the years -- by the Army and, of course, the prison to the Indian occupation in the late 1960s -- and how the place has been turned into the tourist attraction it now is.

Your ticket includes a self-guided tour with a tape recorder and headphones. The tape is extremely impressive, with superb stereo sound that makes you feel like you are experiencing all the things you hear on the tape.

You are told of the conditions the prisoners were kept in and hear the echoes of the doors banging shut and the screaming of the inmates etc. You are told to go to different cells and hear stories of how the marks on the door relate to a failed escape attempt or that Al Capone was thought to have been in this particular cell, etc. The voices change on the tape to people who actually experienced Alcatraz, either as a prison guard or an actual prisoner. There are stories of riots and escapes, and you see cell mock-ups of how some of the prisoners tried to escape by digging out of the back of their cells and leaving hand-made heads in the beds to fools the guards. You'll also learn that Robert Stroud was famous as being the Birdman of Alcatraz but never kept birds on the island -- he earned his nickname as a result of keeping canaries at his previous prison, Leavenworth. Al Capone was also kept here, but no one seems to know exactly in which cell.

Apparently the inmates were given good food in order to keep them from rioting, and given hot rather than cold showers to stop them from becoming acclimatised to cold water in case they were tempted to take a swim. There were a few attempts at escape, none of which were said to be successful, although three men are unaccounted for during the escape depicted in the film The Great Escape. There was no evidence of their survival but, no bodies were found either!

When the tour ends you are free to wander the island. Boats leave every half an hour so you can stay for as long as you want. The tour itself takes about one hour, so you really need to allow yourself a minimum of two, so that you can wander at leisure and visit the shops, etc.