Beyond SF for 2/3 days
 

Hello!

I am headed to San Francisco for the last week of August but want to venture beyond SF for 2/3 days.

Any suggestions? Preferably non-touristy stuff. Am a college student who can't drive, so bus/ cheap flights/ train will be ideal!

Not driving will limit your ability to move around California. There are organized tours you can take, that will take you to the wine country, or Yosemite, or the Carmel Monterrey area. It depends on what you are interested in. Check with your hotel to see what they might suggest.

How long will you be in San Francisco?

What do you want to do that's outside of San Francisco?

If your time is limited, I'd suggest spending it all in San Francisco. There is a lot to do right in SF itself.

If you are looking at beaches, SF has a beautiful stretch of beach.

If you are at hiking, there are plenty of places to hike - the Presidio, for one.

The only thing that you can't see in SF and need to get out of town to see are the redwoods. Take kleroux's suggestion and get a tour to Muir Woods.

You can take a ferry to Sausalito, and walk around the shops there, have lunch by the water and return by ferry to SF; or take a ferry to Angel Island and do some hiking there for one day.

You can take buses (not tour buses which tend to be pretty expensive) to Lake Tahoe, or Sonoma. Or you can take BART to SFO and then catch the Airporter bus to Monterey.

For a college student I'd probably choose 1) Tahoe (which has a great bus system for traveling around the Lake itself) or 2) Monterey/Carmel.

Bear in mind - the end of August is the high season and accomodations will be expensive and hard to find in both places.

If you want to fly somewhere - check out southwest which flies out of Oakland and San Jose and has really good fares to lots of places

But to be honest - you may be better off just staying in SF.

Santa Cruz might be an option; it is a beach/college town, reachable by a combination of commuter train/bus via San Jose. Berkley can be interesting for a day (via BART transit from SF).

Oh - yeah - Santa Cruz would be a good choice.

But again, you'd need to lock down accomodations ASAP.

I agree with Berkeley & Santa Cruz. Both easy enough for a day trip, especially Berkeley via BART. Santa Cruz you could go a night or two if you wanted to do so.

Check Amtrac. You could go to Yosemite. From SF, there will be an Amtrac bus to take you to Oakland train station, then train to Merced, then Amtrac bus to Yosemite. There are inexpensive lodging options in Yosemite including camping or tent cabins.

Or Amtrac to Auburn (foothills, gold country) or Truckee (high Sierras near Donner Lake and Lake Tahoe).

Thank you!

Will be staying around the SF area and explore day trips to Tahoe and Berkeley etc.

Looking forward v much to my trip :)

Thank you so much for your responses :)

I think I will stay in SF and take short trips as per your suggestions!

Have to confirm my accomodations soon.

Good choice. I'm sure elnap didn't realize you were talking about Aug when he suggested staying in Yosemite. The Park has been pretty much booked up for many months.

you could take greyhound to Ashland, stay in the yputh hostel on N. main-PNW in a nutshell. and walkable. then, back to SF.

Ashland is a lovely place and the theaters, shopping and dining are great - BUT it is nearly 400 miles from SF . . . .