4 days in San Francisco
When we first started planning the start of our big round the world trip we thought we’d ease back into full time travel and have quite a relaxed start to it without too much running around sightseeing.
I had already spent nearly a month staying across the bay in Oakland way back in 2007 so had already seen a lot of the area and Dayna was happy to skip a lot of the main popular touristy things like Alcatraz (despite me saying they were pretty cool). We also didn’t really do any of our usual brainstorming and planning before we left so we were expecting some chilled out days hanging out in nice cafes etc. Maybe we would go to a movie to fill in time…
As is pretty normal for us, things didn’t work out exactly as we were thinking they would and we ended up with a packed itinerary for our 4 days in San Francisco. It was a great little start to our travels though – here’s a few highlights of our time in San Francisco.
Day 1 – Walking tour of San Francisco
The best way to get your bearings in a city is on foot so we took off early on our first full day in town to explore. We stayed at HI – San Francisco Downtown hostel because it is in a great location nearby Union Square so it was a great spot to start a walking tour (also, they thankfully included unlimited free earplugs at reception which came in handy as it was a really noisy spot!).
Day 2 – Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge
The weather forecast was pretty miserable so we were grateful to not do any sightseeing on foot. Uncle Steve picked us up in time to drive around the bay and sneak a few photos of the Golden Gate Bridge in before the rain set in and hid everything.
We ended the day with a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to see where we’d be biking the next day.
Day 3 – Biking across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito
We got up bright and early on a beautiful sunny day to go down to Fisherman’s Wharf to pick up bikes for the ride.
There were some great views of the bridge on the ride.
Day 4 – Painted Ladies, Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park & Baker Beach
This was another busy day of walking.
We started the day by heading to Steiner St & Alamo square; the home of the Painted Ladies. They maybe sound a bit more exciting than they are (the ladies in question are actually houses) but this is a must see if you’re a fan of the 90s TV show Full House (you’ll probably recognise the shot from the opening credits of the show).
It was a nice way to end our time in San Francisco and get one last view of the bridge we seemed to be so obsessed with (we ended up getting photos from pretty much every angle!).
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Alcatraz was my highlight of San Fran….just means you will have to go back, aye Dayna?! Looks like an awesome start to the travels guys!
I tried to convince Dayna it was worth visiting too! (it is one of the few tours I’ve done where I actually enjoyed the audio guide) Next time we’re in San Francisco I think we’ll try staying for a week to make sure we get there (and everywhere else we missed on this visit).
San Francisco looks amazing; we are already talking about a return trip to the US and this city is high on our list. Sounds like your journey is off to a great start!
It is! One of my favourite cities for sure. We’ve just flown from US to Canada today and are also filled with ideas for our next return to the US (it’s just so good for road trips and has so much to see).