San Francisco Travel Forum

Any suggestions for easy day trips from San Francisco without a car?
We'd like to visit a small area/town and return in the evening.

k.

I would suggest taking one of the ferry boats across the San Franciso Bay to a place like Sausalito. Here is a link to Sausalito to give you an idea of what to do and see in that town. http://www.sausalito.org/visitor/attractions.

Hi K - I agree with Rich's suggestion of Sausalito but I suggest picking up bicycles from around Pier 39 (Fisherman's Wharf) and riding across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. When you're done visiting Sausalito you can bring your bikes on the ferry back to SF. Have a great time!

how safe is to ride a bicycle in SF?

It's a nice ride from the pier to the bridge - then there's a bike lane on the bridge so no hassles. You'll have a lock for the bikes to use in Sausalito. It's a nice trip. Check the site to get an idea - www.blazingsaddles.com/.

Donna, Another reason I now have to get back to SF, although with those hills, I'll have to train a little harder.

Biking to Sausalito is a great idea. Another fun short trip is the ferry to Angel Island (no town, but a lovely hike around an unpopulated island with killer views - take sandwiches and have a picnic.)

If you want to really explore our public transportation system and see the sights from a train/bus window, check out this link http://iridethebus.org/dest/sf/ It will take you to Santa Cruz, a cute beach town with a great boardwalk and a pier with some excellent old-fashioned fish restaurants.

You could take a really pretty ride down the coast on Sam Trans (San Mateo County transit.) You can catch the DX in downtown San Francisco to Linda Mar and connect with the 294 from there to Half Moon Bay. This would take you down fabled route 1.

Rich - I'll tell you my secret....rent a tandem bicycle and be the back seat driver!! ;-)

Ferry to Sausalito would be my first suggestion also.
You could also take the BART to Berkeley (cool area to walk around), CalTrain to Palo Alto (nice town, lots of cafes and restaurants, free shuttle to Stanford) or a series of buses to the Half Moon Bay area to go to the beach, although the beach in San Francisco is certainly not bad.

1)Great! Donna & Rich Sausalito is on my list now! What about Tiburon? Does it worth to cycle from Sausalito there or it will take us a lot of time. From what I see there is a return ferry from there too.

2)Linda is there a direct bus to Santa Cruz? Or do I have to change to train?

3)Colin thanks so much for the suggestions, I think I will have great time in SF but what is BART and CALTRAIN?

BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit. You would consider it like the Metro in Paris or Tube in London or the "L" here in Chicago. It runs underneath the SF Bay from Oakland to SF and also the surrounding area. Caltrain runs south from San Franciso along the bay and is more like a commuter train. Here is the Caltrains website: http://www.caltrain.com/

Here is the area map for BART also: http://www.bart.gov/stations/index.aspx.

An interesting area for you to visit in the SF area would also be Palo Alto which you can reach by Caltrain. It is the home of Stanford University.

Re: the bus to Santa Cruz

There's a Greyhound bus, but it goes through the east bay - way out of your way. Connecting via the train would be faster (there are bullet trains from San Francisco to San Jose). The trains are double decker, so you would get a good view of the peninsula, for what it's worth. I think there are also private bus tours that go to Santa Cruz.

Those CalTrains are actually "Baby Bullets" and don't even come close to the real bullet trains in France that I rode to Switzerland last fall. Baby Bullets are still under 100 mph for the most part while the French Bullet train I rode on between Paris and Bern reached up to 220 mph.

If you enjoy music you may want to visit several places within The City itself. The Haight-Asbury neighborhood was home to many of San Francisco's musicians in the 60's and 70's. You might wish to visit the web site for Amoeba Music as well. There are outdoor musical performances at the Stern Grove Music Festival, The Fillmore Jazz Festival, and the North Beach Jazz Festival. During the summer there are busses, (the Redwoods Exress), that run to the Muir Woods,(www.nps.gov/muwo), just to the north of San Francisco. Within San Francisco there is also the "Culture Bus", which I believe is route 74X. It travels to several museums and also the Golden Gate Park which has several more museums, the California Academy of Science museum, the Conservatory of Flowers, a botanical garden ,and a Japanese Tea Garden. Gary

Make that Haight-Ashbury. That's what I get for typing at 4:15 AM. Gary

It also would be the 'Redwoods Express" bus, lol.

Thanks Gary! I'm pretty sure that we will spend most nights listing to live music like we always do in big cities (in NY we did this every night, from small blues clubs to Madison Square Garden). We'll be there in October though so I dont know, probably we will visit only venues with live music and not outdoor gigs...

If you know any clubs (blues, jazz, rock, metal) in downtown it would be nice to tell me.

I haven't lived in San Francisco since 1992, so my venue knowledge would be hugely out-dated. A few web sites that might give you some ideas though (1) www.popularnoise.org/live.shtml, which is a good links pages. (2) www.livenation.com/venue/the-fillmore-tickets. (3) www.whatsonwhen.com. Gary

Another web site that could be helpful: (www.sfgate.com). Gary

Try Biscuits and Blues for music

I would recommend a day trip to Sausalito. Just purchase your ferry ticket at The Ferry Building. Ferry ride is just an hour away and Sausalito has a beatiful marina of yachts, hillside houses and Mediterranean inspired cafes.

For more information on how to get there and to see more pictures, please read my article http://www.ehow.com/how_5066581_use-san-franciscos-alcatraz-sausalito.html