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All of us receive visitors from time to time and we take them around to see some Bay Area attractions. I think it would be interesting to compile a list and put it up in the Useful Information Links section on the front page.
All of us have some standard tours on which we take the visitors and some of us may know of some unique things which others may not know about.
Which are the places that you take your visitors to usually? These places would be within 3-4 hours from the Bay Area so that it can be completed within 1 day if required.
This will be a permanent post with link provided to it from the Useful Information Section.
Our standard tour for San Francisco is as follows:
1) Goto Lombard Street (Crooked Street)
2) From there goto Coit tower since the same road goes to Coit tower
3) From Coit tower Golden Gate Bridge
4) From Golden Gate Bridge to Palace of Fine Arts (The Exploratarium)
5) Then we park at Ghirardelli Square. And Eat The awesome icecreams at Ghirardelli.
6) Then take a walk on Fisherman’s wharf
7) While on Fishreman’s wharf we visit Boudin’s bakery where they have bread sampling as well as an outside window from where you can see bread being made.
8) We walk till Pier 27 which is the pier that extends out right into the sea.
9) Return back home
Overall takes about 6-7 hours or so.
You dont have to believe in Jesus to appreciate the architectural centerpiece on the stanford campus – the Memorial Church.
The frontside of Memorial Church is decorated with colorful mosaics (there are over 20,000 shades of color in the tiles).
The church’s ornate interior boasts stained glass windows, intricate stonework, gold leaf decoration and redwood ceilings.
Scharffenberger Chocolate Factory in
Berkeley. It is a great tour and they let you walk through the actual working factory. Also, they let you try LOTS of chocolate
during and after the tour!
Tour Review
Will be nice to take a tour someday, whatsay KV ?
Our hot favorite with our parents and cousins from East Coast…Mystery Point and Boardwalk in Santacruz…..
Also Hearst Castle is a good place to take people …take a scenic drive on highway 1 and then a tour at the Castle…..always good to book the tour in advance…usually the seats fill up very fast
Can be done in a day…
Last weekend we went to Lake Del Valle. near Livermore. In the first 2-3 months of the year there is hardly anyone there and we have the whole park almost to ourselves.
You can rent a boat (motor-boat or paddle boat) and go up the lake between the moutains. We saw some deers and lots of squirrels.
On the way back we stopped at Livermore Hindu temple. Livermore Hindu temple has prasadam for visitors which includes various dishes. Of course donations are encouraged.
Overall this becomes a nice trip. Takes about 4-5 hours to cover both.
Sausalito, quaint town North of Golden gate bridge is worth stopping.
It is right off the ocean so even driving through it is fun. You can see row of houses on the small hills on the other side.
Come on people Reveal those secrets. Surely there are more places that you have been to around the bay area and which are interesting for visitors.
Remember the 2007 mantra: “Contribute in addition to Consume”
Muir woods – closest redwood’s from the bayarea. A trip to napa valley winery tour, can shop at the outlet malls on the way back home
Closest redwoods from the bay area??? What about Big Basin. Those are redwoods too right?? I have not been to Muir woods I think but I have been to Big Basin. So question for those who have been to both “Muir Woods” and “Big Basin” which one is more attractive and Why?
Last time that we went to Big Basin we had schedule like this:
Big Basin
From Big Basin goto Santa Cruz boardwalk.
A visit to the caves is another place that your visitors may find interesting. Some of the caves offer a walking tour which is suitable for elderly people. Some of the caves are within 2.5 hours of the bay area.
http://www.caverntours.com/
Oops i forgot about Big basin(yes it’s a redwood). Muir woods is a national monument. We’ve been to both. Comparison – They both are redwoods :), i can hardly recollect any major differences(went there long time ago) – which means a trip is necessary to refresh.
a) Monterey Bay Aquarium
b) Driving for part of the way on 17 mile drive (Basically drive along the ocean)
c) Carmel city (Cute little city and a good walk thru the downtown). They have a great Italian restaurant there whose name I forget but which Dimple can fill in.
Should take 7-8 hours overall – a whole day.
IKEA store – Mountain View or Berkeley
For visitors from India, even a visit to IKEA is like an attraction. They get exposed to this unique way of selling furniture.
4-5 hours needed.
Golden Gate Park – San Francisco
You will have to make 2 trips to SF if you want to cover GGP also.
Can easily spend half a day in GG park. They have the Japanese tea garden in there as well as Conservatory of Flowers. Plus they have a museum, a lighthouse and lots of walking trials.
From the GG Park you can goto the beach also which is nearby.
Alcatraz
I have never been here. But seems like you need to books a few days in advance. Just putting it down here for the record. 🙂
Not a one day trip but check Sequia National Park. Amazing large (ht and width) trees with huge diameter trunks.
http://www.nps.gov/seki/
While you are there try Kings canyon also. There is a cavern out there too.
Golden Gate Park – has lake where one can do rented boating, biking. Then if you keep going towards Ocean Beach, just before beach windmill like one in Amesterdom, in beautiful flower garden. From Ocean Beach you can drive up the cliff, pass Cliff House & reach at top for birds view. There is also SF Zoo near Ocean beach which needs additional day.
One of my friend tried “lassen tours” for her parents. They do sight seeing city tour around the bay area.
check out http://www.lassentours.com
Best part is pick-up/drop-off was from/to Milpitas. Her parents liked the SF city day tour. While there are other tours but they mostly operate only from/to city.
Not around Bay Area but as Sandip mentioned about Lassen tours…we had booked a 6 day East Coast tour for our parents in August 2005…I guess it was provided by one of the operators of Lassen tour…It was a good tour and covered all the “Tourist Spots” in East Coast…Also with flight tickets the tour coast us like$550 per person….The hotels were very good ones and also the bus was very comfortable…The only problem was food….as most of these tours are operated by Chinese they tend to stop for meals in Chinatown….and vegetarian food is not that easy to find in East Coast…we had packed lot of stuff from home……
(1) Crissy Fields is right under Golden Gate Bridge and is an awesome place to picnic in the summer. Maybe the Kutchvalley spring picnic can be there this year!
(2) California Academy of Sciences in GGP is great as it has both a museum and a planetarium – ideal for a few hours with kids.
(3) Angel Island – great day trip: you can rent bikes and go around the island. Also, nice hikes. Ferries leave from pier 39.
(4) Coyote Point on the San Mateo/Burlingame border has something for everybody – good spot for body surfing, nice golf course, environmental museum, sailing club and a huge park area for picnics (fcfs). Entry fee is $5/car (I think).
(5) For a special treat – the Ritz Carlton resort at Half Moon Bay – best spa in the area and a kids club so that they are occupied while you enjoy your his/her massage overlooking the ocean. Their brunches are very good as well.
Jayesh’s cousin sister is visiting here and we booked some tours for her. Sharing it here as i thought it would be helpful if you have any visitors.
One day tour through Lassen tours (website posted by Sandip in the earlier comments) for monterey/17 mile drive – It was a 16 seater mini-bus and pickup drop off was very convenient from cupertino. There were couple of Indian parents as well in the monterey tour. Aquarium ticket is included in the price.
There are other tour operators that start from south bay, most of them seem to be going on the same days as Lassen Tours.
http://travel.ec-t.com/mall/c101/s26079/travel_main.aspx
http://www.todotravel.com/english/vacpkg/v-us-west-0.htm
Todo Travel does not have a straight forward credit card payment, either a BOFA transfer or Paypal.
Other tour that we tried was through grayline, starts from San Francisco, they pick up from Cal train station as well. Best part about this was no pre payment required, pay at the main office after reaching Pier 39. The tour had a 30/40 seater bus.
http://www.grayline.com/Grayline/destinations/us/sanfrancisco.go
Both the tours were satisfactory.
Jelly Belly Factory in Sacramento is also a trip worth doing. They have guided tours all day long to take you through the entire plant. While waiting for the tour, you can sample all of their various candies – a lot of coffe flavours (great for coffee lovers).
California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento is also a fun place to go. We have not been there but have heard very positive remarks about it.
Trip up Calvares Blvd (237) into the mountains behind Milpitas in the evening is worth doing. Watching the sunset from the hills is breathtaking and waiting for a while to let the darkness set it allows for an excellent view of lights and life of the bay. There is also a lake up there where one can picnic.
The Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton, is another attractive place for star lovers.
A trip to Stanford Linear Accelerator Center along with It needs planning and advance booking.
This is from from Via Magazine. I have not been here but seems interesting –
Bamboo Giant Nursery, 5601 Freedom Blvd, Aptos.
15 min. souh of downtown Santa Cruz. 20acre grove where 60 varieties of nonnative bamboo raise & sell. Pick up free map of the canopied paths that wind thro’ a junglelike landscape with koi pond, shady gazebo & oriental gong. Lot of benches for picnic lunch.
Angel Island State park is place which reminds me of almost annual routine of taking trips to ” Borivali National Park” when I was younger. At times it felt outright boring but now looking back it seems I actually had a lot of fun spending time with family & friends.
It was déjàvu when I visited it the first time. Its a short ferry ride away from a lot of locations in Bay area, I took the ferry from Tiburon, one of my favorites things to do was rent a bike and take the trails along the island.
Couple of museums in Mt. View –
– Computer History Museum
More than 600 artifacts on the history computing & computers.
– Moffett Field Museum
Impressive collection of various NASA & miltary artifacts
– Jehning Family Lock Museum
If you have fascination with locaks, keys, locksmithing tools, safes and more.. 🙂 Admission is free
1. Twin Peaks – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks_(San_Francisco,_California)
It is the most scenic view of San Francisco. A must visit place.
2. Mitchell’s Ice Cream – http://www.mitchellsicecream.com/
The Tropical flavors are too good.
One of our relative visited Bay Area for couple of days and this post help us to plan and where and what to c in SFO.
Good post.
Bhavesh had sent this link for local tours – http://mitrmilan.com/