San Francisco Day Trips (without a car)

ixoy

I've a good few nights booked in San Francisco, beginning in a couple of weeks. Part of this was an overnight stay in Yosemite. Since it's quite possible it'll still be shut down by then, can anyone suggest where might be worth visiting as a day trip instead?

I won't have a car so I'll be limited to public transport or tours and I've no interest in wine either so the wineries are ruled out.

Are any of the satellite towns - Oakland, Dublin - worth a look or other ones?

Hoping that the BART strike doesn't go ahead either as that could knock out even my back up plans!

iusedtoknow

It's pretty difficult to say...There is a public bus up to Muir Woods, but that could be shut as well. It's pretty difficult to get down to Santa Cruz etc on the bus.

Anywhere East of Oakland (dublin, livermore, walnut creek etc) are all dormitory towns, not really of much interest. Oakland and Berkeley are around 20 minutes from SF. Both worth seeing, however you can hop over there in no time, so it isn't really a day trip.

I would suggest the following: Go up to Sacramento, it has a nice/strange old west Old Town and some good museums (history of California/transport museum) It's the state capitol and is pretty enough. I think it's about 90 minutes on the train. You can buy tickets on Amtrak. You get the free shuttle bus from the ferry building over to the Amtrak station in Emeryville. From there you take the capitol corridor train up to Sacramento.

The BART strike won't really affect you, also it looks like it won't happen. They're still talking and the trains are still running even though the strike was supposed to be from Monday. In SF the MUNI and Busses will still be running. BART only has maybe 5 stops in SF city itself and are the same stops as MUNI on Market Street ( montgomery, powell, civic center, embarcadero) .
Areas like Mission etc are easily accessible via MUNI. If you want to go over to Berkeley, there are busses and also the ferries over to Jack London Square, then a shuttle bus from there to Berkeley,

tricky D

Could also visit some places in Golden Gate Park: National/California Academy of Sciences ($30 and has aquarium/planetarium/earthquake sim), Japanese Tea Gardens, De Young Museum and Conservatory of Flowers are close to each other. MUNI stop, N Judah line is around 8th/9th St.

iusedtoknow

tricky D wrote: »

Could also visit some places in Golden Gate Park: National/California Academy of Sciences ($30 and has aquarium/planetarium/earthquake sim), Japanese Tea Gardens, De Young Museum and Conservatory of Flowers are close to each other. MUNI stop, N Judah line is around 8th/9th St.

All are in my neighbourhood!. The thing is though, I think OP was talking about day trips out of SF...a lot of those things are rainy day things to do in the city

tricky D

True, but still a good option I reckon. Did it myself just last week instead of Alcatraz due to shutdown. A nice day out, kind of in the city.

You Chris Isaaks neighbor??? Saw him at hardlystrictlybluegrass just a while back. 'I just live 3 blocks from here.'

iusedtoknow

sort of...he lives down on 38th Avenue across the street from a friend of mine. You see him pretty regularly walking along the beach and at one of the coffee places on Judah/La Playa. I live up on 14th Avenue.

Bluegrass was pretty good this year - though Sunday was jammed - we left before gogol bordello - i think the LSD/E was kicking in with a lot of the people there.

InTheTrees

It looks like the shutdown will be over today.

InTheTrees

You can take a ferry to Sausalito. Its a nice yuppie little suburb with marinas, cafe's etc.

Also to Angel Island, which is a state park. Probably nice views from the ferry too.

InTheTrees

One of the best views of the city from within the city is from Twin Peaks. Not sure exactly how you get there without a car, bus and walk? Or a cab? Well worth it anyway especially at night.

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=37.754582,-122.446404&spn=0.005972,0.01104&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=37.754681,-122.446436&panoid=V6O2K7rC5wFMII_OoM2iUQ&cbp=12,46.93,,0,7.08

dave2pvd

InTheTrees wrote: »

You can rent a bike and ride it to Sausalito.

^ modified to show a different option

Cycling across the Golden Gate is pretty amazing. There is a steep, short hill up out of the town, but that's about it as far as difficulty goes.

ixoy

Thanks for the feedback - appreciated. Hopefully this last ditch effort to end the shutdown will go through tonight and I'll wake up to some good news but seems like there's some interesting choices here.

InTheTrees

ixoy wrote: »

Dublin - worth a look

Eugh. Its an insult to the name. Surburban sprawl with a mall. Characterless.

iusedtoknow

InTheTrees wrote: »

Eugh. Its an insult to the name. Surburban sprawl with a mall. Characterless.

yep, all of those towns are pretty bland - commuterville - it's would be like going to Blanchardstown for a day trip