San Francisco Vacation

Living on the East Coast, I’ve made it a practice to vacation go someplace warm and sunny in the winter months. Lately, we’ve been vacationing in San Francisco. This year, we decided to take another San Francisco vacation in March. We were lucky to have great weather. It was blue skies all week long, with temperatures averaging about 70 degrees. Perfect for our San Francisco vacation.

As this was our second visit to the city by the bay, we didn’t do all the typical San Francisco vacation stuff like riding the cable cars, going to fisherman’s wharf or climbing up to the Coit Tower.

Instead, our vacation in San Francisco was about seeing the things we missed in our last San Francisco vacation. During our San Francisco vacation, we also connected with old friends and tried to discover the city’s hidden gems.

A San Francisco Treat

After checking into our Green San Francisco hotel, we met our friends Doc and Celia, who live right near the famous “seven sisters,” San Francisco’s beautiful and famous Victorian homes. People who vacation in San Francisco are always stopping their cars to take a picture of these picturesque houses, said Doc. On the weekends, tour busses are always dropping off vacationing tourists who want to capture the spirit and architecture of San Francisco.

Since we were vacationing in San Francisco, we began our evening with a bottle of wine that we had brought with us from our excursion in wine country. My husband couldn’t contain his enthusiasm and bought the first bottle of wine he tasted on his vacation. It turned out to be a great bottle of cabernet that we tasted at the Simi winery in Sonoma.

Hitting Vacation Mode

The first thing that happens to Dave and I when we vacation in San Francisco, California is an instant downshift. Suddenly we both become more relaxed and mellow. I call him “Vacation Dave.”

Celia took us to her favorite Indian restaurant in Hayes Valley, which is a hip neighborhood featuring unique shops and boutiques, along with cutting edge art galleries and upscale restaurants.

Add it to the Itinerary

We ended up bumping into a group of their neighbors who were not on a San Francisco vacation, but friendly nonetheless. They urged us to go back to the Golden Gate Park, which is enjoyed daily by locals and tourists taking a vacation in San Francisco. It includes the Japanese Tea Garden, Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum, a bison paddock, and more.

This neighborhood is located near City Hall, Civic Center Plaza, United Nations Plaza, Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, and the War Memorial Opera House, so we made sure to put this area on our San Francisco vacation agenda. We also wanted to see the Asian Art Museum, which houses one of the houses the largest collection of Asian art in the world.

A vacation to San Francisco is not complete without a tour of Alcatraz. You can get an audio tour, which features interviews from actual Alcatraz inmates and guards and takes you inside the former cells of the infamous “Birdman of Alcatraz,” and notorious mobster Al Capone. We met another group of people who were vacationing in San Francisco from Seattle, and we all agreed that the audio tour gave a chilling account of what life must have been like at this prison.

Our San Francisco vacation included a visit to the historic Cliff House, a landmark hotel and restaurant perched on the Pacific. The child in me wanted to check out the Musee Mecanique, a collection of old-fashioned mechanical amusement park games dating back to the 1800s. This popular, San Francisco attraction features amusement park games where you can play a real penny arcade, test your strength and get your fortune told.

Later, we had a visit to Chinatown, where we enjoyed an authentic and delicious dinner. We weren’t the only vacationing tourists who thought that after walking around the mostly uphill streets of San Francisco, we deserved a good hearty meal.

Commune With Nature

Although we were tempted to spend our whole vacation in San Francisco, we did take a few side trips out of the city. We went on a hike inside the breathtaking Muir Woods, where the enormous redwoods are hundreds of years old. Nearby is the beautiful Muir beach, where the cliffs meet the ocean. This is the part of our California vacation where we enjoyed the beauty of nature.

Muir Woods and the beach are located in Marin county, so we made sure to explore this area as well. This amazing region features plenty of hiking trails and camping areas, craggy marshes, tidal lagoons, coastal scrub, and rocky shoreline, not to mention fantastic views. It was spectacular. No wonder so many San Francisco vacation guidebooks urge you to visit this region. Director Steven Spielberg is said to have a home here.

The region also includes the Point Bonita Lighthouse, an active lighthouse open to visitors. A precarious, steep, and often windy walkway leads to the lighthouse, but it’s worth it: inside you’ll see images of the construction, history and keepers of the lighthouse, plus a fantastic view of the Golden Gate Bridge and bay. Don’t miss it: it’s a real hidden gem and a great thing to see on your San Francisco vacation.

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