Hi Everyone!
My friend and I will be on a 10 day vacation in California in September. We are planning to stay in San Francisco for about 3 or 4 of those days and use it as our "hub" and make day trips from there while still seeing San Francisco. Can anyone suggest hotel for our stay that keeps us near the center of San Fran activity (the first trip to CA for both of us), a good central location for our day trips, and something that isn't extremely expensive. We are on a budget - is there something around 90 - 120 dollars a night...or less...that is all of those things and a nice place to stay (clean, safe, tourist friendly)?

Our favorite little hotel is the Andrews...very affordable..each morning on your floor there is a buffet with muffins, bagels, juice, coffee, tea... in the evening there is a free glass of wine and the staff is extremely helpful...very old fashioned place, but walking distance to trolleys and the cabs are fairly inexpensive....

Try http://www.180096hotel.com/

Amy, Bless you for giving an actual dollar range, there are so many postings here with terms like "moderate","reasonable","not too expensive","won't break the bank", etc. with widly differing definitions of what that means. Couldn't tell for sure though whether you are going to have a car.Sounds like it. If so , that could make a BIG difference on possible recommendations as parking in downtown is EXTREEMLY difficult to impossible and /or expensive. If you could clear that up it would help us in giving you ideas. In the mean time here are some sites you might find useful: sanfrancisco.sidewalk.com , citysearch7.com ,both have hotel info,as well as great tourist info, but I find citysearch more helpful as it gives all properities in SF and does an "independent" profile on most of them that are pretty accurate. Also for food sfgate.com/eguide/food and hooked.net/users/jhum for great free city tours. Best way to see Chinatown , though they are all good. Sept is a great time to be here ,our summer.Enjoy.

Dear Stosh - Thanks very much for the great web site addresses! They are very helpful, but with so much information I'm almost starting to feel overwhelmed! Well, to answer your question - yes, we will be renting a car for the length of our trip. I'm glad you reminded me of parking though, that is another good question and something I didn't think about. Would most of the hotels in my price range have parking - or would I have to find some sort of pay parking lot for the time we are in San Fran?
Thanks for all of your help, I really appreciate it!!

Amy, This is tricky without knowing your plans ,but you would indeed have to pay for parking at hotels, I'm guessing around $15-$20+. For tourists in SF a car is unnecessary and an expensive nuisance. I might consider spending the 1st 2-3 days here without a car as there is plenty to keep you busy and traffic in and getting in and out of SF is a problem. Napa as day trip makes sense but I'm not sure what else you would want to see with this as a base considering how little time you have.If you must have a car I would look at motels. The Royal Pacific Motor Inn on Broadway would be about $85-$90. There is no discernable charm here but it is a AAA 3 diamond 5 story safe ,comfortable,tourist friendly motel,exciting location right in Chinatown,easy walk to NorthBeach and Wharf ,relatively easy acccess to Golden Gate and Bay Bridges and you have PARKING.All room rate have an additional 14% hotel tax{ouch}.Check sidewalk and citysearch,think about what you want to do,can e-mail me direct if I can be further help.

Visit www.sfvisitor.com Order their visitors guide (and peruse their website) to get answers to many of your questions. You will love San Francisco. There is so much to see, and it is so easy to get around, you should plan to stay for at least 3 days. Then pick up a car and head on your way.

Two years ago, we stayed at the Cow Hollow Motor Inn & Suites on Lombard Street in San Francisco. The room was pleasant and reasonably priced (about $80 at that time) and parking was free. It served as a good base for day trips and was close enough to walk to a number of San Francisco sights as well as restaurants.

Hotels/motels along Lombard Street typically have free parking. The more centrally located ones typically charge $15.00-$20.00 /nt for parking. There are a variety of accomodations along Lombard that fall within your budget. It is a decent area but out of the main stream of San Francsico. Bear in mind that San Francisco is very compact so it is not very far to anything. It is just that you won't have the cable cars running closeby nor will you be able to walk to very much. There are suitable hotels within your budget that are more centrally located. The problem is the parking.

If I may be so bold, I would strongly suggest that you do NOT rent the car for the week. A car in San Francisco is a liability and not an asset. It is a difficult city to drive in and parking is tough. They have excellent public transportation. You may want to try some of the many excellent tours of the SF Bay area. You could rent a car only on the days that you absolutely needed it. It may sound like a hassle but with proper planning it will work. This will give you a much better choice of accomodations. Some of the smaller, centrally located hotels don't even have parking at all. You have to use a parking facilty that may be a couple of blocks away.

Adding to the previous poster's recommendation: there are tons of rental car locations within a couple of blocks of Union Square. Many "Deals to be Had" are available. You could very easily stay inexpensively and centrally in SF for 3-4 days, then rent a car for the rest of your trip at a discount price.

I'd like to thank everyone for all of the helpful & insightful posts! I read a lot of posts that suggested not renting a car - but I will already have one since San Fran. is not the first leg of our journey. We are flying in to Orange County for my best friends wedding in Dana Point. From there we are traveling north. So, I guess my best bet would be once we get to San Francisco to park the car and just leave it, until we need it for our day trip to Napa/Sonoma area. While in San Fran we will definetly use public transportation, much easier on us and the locals!! Thanks again!!!

Hi Amy,
We are going to San Francisco in two weeks and we did a Hotel reservation at the Adelaide Inn. It's 5 Isadora Duncan on Taylor Street phone.441.2261. So you can't be more downtown for only $66/night. There is only 16 rooms so you have to make a reservation as soon as possible. Some Belgium Friends who went there last year told us that it was a nice place for this price. In my french travel guide they say that is very calm for a downtown hotel. try to find more informations about this hotel on citysearch.com (you can see a picture).
Hope this help.

bruno - www.pimico.fr/ab