Reply With QuoteThe Tram museum was good. We drove down Highway 1, did Carmel, the 18 mile drive at Pebble Beach and Monterey. All of which was great.
Evening all. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of days (3 in total) in San Francisco prior to starting a weeks full on work event and am looking for reco’s on must-sees in such a short space of time. I fly and land Thursday and have Friday to Sunday pretty much free. Alcatraz is a definite and Saturday is likely cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge. (Same day as Alcatraz, is that doable?)
Any advice or insights gratefully received.
The Tram museum was good. We drove down Highway 1, did Carmel, the 18 mile drive at Pebble Beach and Monterey. All of which was great.
Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and Pier 39/ Fisherman’s wharf are lovely downtown.
The Chase Centre where golden state play or Oracle Park to see some baseball for sports.
Muir Woods is utterly beautiful is you fancy a drive over the bridge.
You can look around Stanford University which I really enjoyed for free.
There’s also the option of a lovely drive down Big Sur.
Monterey also well worth a day trip: pebble beach golf course; Clint Eastwood’s home town (nearby), the phenomenal aquarium and the Steinbeck connection.
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Berkeley worth a visit. Take warm clothes. We were freezing in June !!
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Weather forecast is not good...best day without rain looks like Saturday.
Ride a trolley car.
Drive or walk down Lombard Street hill.
Stroll and lunch at Fisherman's Wharf and/or The Embarcadero.
Roam through the 1,500-acre Presidio, which is a huge park facing the Golden Gate Bridge, which long ago was a military fort.
When that fog rolls down it's crazy and the temp plummetsOriginally Posted by dandanthewatchman
Thanks guys, keep them coming. I’m staying at the Argonaut on the fisherman’s wharf.
(Oh and the arc’teryx cerium LT and the Nobis Yatesy parka will be both be going with me. I’m heading to Princeton for a week after and expecting minus something temps, hence the Nobis, the arc for San fran will be enough I hope)
Last edited by tiny73; 28th January 2023 at 23:00.
Posted some suggestions as part of a wider road trip request HERE.
If youre into cycling maybe get up to Fairfax and see the museum - literally where mountain biking started.
Boat trip to Sausalilto also quite nice for an afternoon
Watch out for aggressive begging/addicts.
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If you can ride, and the weather plays ball, rent a Harley for any of the drives suggested above.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Definitely this, both for the boat trip and the beautiful destination.
Muir Woods is a great shout but I think you will need a reservation . They sell out quickly though.
Get the open top bus tour. This will take you through most of th3 different neighborhoods and you can hop on and off all day.
Great places to stop are The Castro district, Mission Dolores Park, Haight Ashbury , The Presidio park and even Golden Gate Park.
It was also very expensive when we went.
Give the piers a swerve…. It’s been corporatised…. Just a load of Disney style concessions which really cheesed me off as any authenticity had been sucked out of it…
Haight St (hippy place) was alright…
I’d also swerve a nighttime stroll through the Tenderloin
I would swerve a daytime stroll too. To avoid the insane cost of parking, I found a lot in the tenderloin to dump the hire car for a few days. It was fully insured so what did I care. In the end I needn’t have worried about the car, but the walk there and back.
Only worse experience was parking on the outskirts of Coral Gables. Fook me, in dodgy parts of American cities/towns they do scary in a proper way, and that is saying something from someone who grew up on a Liverpool council estate.
Mixed feelings about the SF in general. Undoubtedly a lovely location with some great sights, but grit, grime and dirt is taken to the next level.
Never been to such a filthy dirty city when you step one block from a tourist area.
Last edited by noTAGlove; 29th January 2023 at 12:58. Reason: Additional comment
The Alcatraz is very cool, but remember to book tickets well in advance, like a month before your visit.
I second the recommendation for the tram museum, it was also very interesting.
Stayed near there and it was the first thing the concierge mentioned. Walked through daytime and it was OK but full of homeless druggy people.
We rode bikes from the centre, through Presidio, over the bridge and then got a boat back from Sausalito.
Agreed - not my favourite city by a long way.
avoid at anytime.... strolled through there thanks to google maps a few months ago and it really is a shocking place to see. The addicts and homeless are literally sprawled over the sidewalks off their faces.... took a different route back!
Yeah, the homeless situation in SF is really shocking and desperate. The sheer scale of it makes you realise that they will never be able or willing to properly tackle it.
Since you're cycling across the bridge, you should spend a few hours on the other side in Sausalito as it's a fabulous place.
In SF proper I really like the Japantown and Pacific Heights next to it. The neo-Victorian/gothic houses in that area are stunning if you're into that kind of thing. The walk from Japantown to Fisherman's Warf is really fantastic as you go over the hill and drop down towards the bay. The Wharf itself is so touristy that I find it kind of unbearable, but it's a must see at least once.
I was also distinctly underwhelmed…. Awful issues with homelessness…. Unforgivable in the richest country on the planet…
When I went to Haight Ashbury (20 years ago, mind) it was run down and felt unsafe.
Anyway, assuming it’s too late for the OP to switch out for LA…
Ghirardelli‘s does a reasonable ice cream :)
Not sure LA is much of an improvement…
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
A few years back I hired a bike, rode to Muir Woods (via Mt Tamalpais - a biggish hill but not a mountain… I managed it on the heavy sit up and beg cheapo hire bike) and then rode back to Sausalito to catch the ferry back across the bay. A memorable day out, I think you might well be pushing to combine that with Alcatraz in one day.
I once walked through the Tenderloin too, it was midday and I wouldn’t rush to repeat. In general though I’d love to visit the city again.
Agree, pavements full of tents less than a mile from $100m houses.
San Fran was lovely 30 years ago, now it’s full of the dregs of humanity dumped there to keep Hawaii looking pretty.
My Sons fiancé (Californian native) refers to it as The Crime & Grime Capital of America. Strongly recommended to avoid it when we were talking about going back there recently.
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True. There’s probably as much if not more grimness, but it doesn’t pervade the whole place in the same way and is easier avoided…
Same with all West coast large cities; Vancouver, San Francisco, LA and San Diego.
Vancouver was the most surprising as it is marketed as a clean living city, and you don’t expect the hell hole that the east side of the downtown is.
There’s been a steady rise in recent years of tourists and photographers getting their gear stolen in SF. 10-15y ago I went several times to conventions in the city and did a lot of street photography, but there’s no way I’d do it now.
Personally I’d hire a car and head north, south or east to one or more of the glorious natural and small-town attractions within a few hours drive, and stay there for a couple of nights. Several have been mentioned already (Carmel, Monterey, Muir Woods) but I’d add Olema (and Point Reyes), the Redwood forests to the south, and Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras, all life-enhancing rather than distressing, grubby and just plain nasty.
Some places I’ve stayed and enjoyed:
https://vacationrentalspointreyes.com/
https://www.nps.gov/places/000/the-ahwahnee.htm
https://jabberwockinn.com/
I went in September 2022 and we had also visited in September 2019.
It’s an amazing place, just avoid Union square. Ironic that it costs more to stay around there than anywhere else.
If you need restaurant recommendations let me know.
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Or daytime for that matter.
I went to SF about 8 years ago, SF was a bucket lost destination for me prior to going, what I experienced was really disappointing. The city was filthy and full of drugged up homeless pan handlers even then. Overall I found SF a very boring city with not much going on. Now I have been I wouldn't bother going back again through choice.
As also stated by others, warm clothes are essential; as the saying goes - coldest winter I ever had was a summer in San Francisco. Lots of the tourists shops in SF sell a huge amount of winter clothes and hoody's to cash in on the tourists who mistakenly thought SF was a sunny location during peak summer.
Alcatraz is a great visit, make sure you book an actual tour of the prison and not one of the boat trips that just circles the island. We also did the Victorian homes and architecture walking tour, that was a very enjoyable couple of hours.
Again as said by some others Carmel and Monterey are great locations to visit if you have a hire car. The Big Sur drive is breath taking.
Last edited by dustybottoms; 30th January 2023 at 13:35.
I didn’t find it anymore breath taking than walking the Cornish coastal path. And it is 6000 miles closer.
Plus there only seems like a couple of hotels actually in the Big Sur area and they charge multiple thousands of dollars per night.
That means staying in Monterrey on one side or San Luis Obispo on the other with no time to linger in between unless you are a dot com millionaire.
Beaches are crap in California and water is freezing even as far down as San Diego.
The mountains are where it is at. Loved Yosemite and the drive from there to Lone Pine along the back of the Sierra Nevada.
Yes, the weather is great. But the only reason I’d go back to California is for the truly epic mountain scenery and wilderness.
The cities are meh, and if you want great beaches go to Greece, where you will get great culture as well.
We stayed in Morrow Bay to break up the coastal drive to LA. Oh and ate at Nobu in Malibu. That place is a joke.
I have been a few times. A few nice things to do, however the real stand out are Alcatraz and the Aquarium in Monterey. Nob Hill is worth a visit.
I first went in 1987, the last time was in 2015. The difference is remarkable. From a chic hippy town, to something like a zombie movie.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Alcatraz !
One of the best day outs I’ve ever had… ever !
The other was Kennedy Space centre.
Monterey is wonderful, so too Carmel.
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