Blue Skies Sunny Days Travel

Aside from wine & cheese, there are not many pairings better than a visit to beautiful San Francisco & Napa Valley for a long weekend trip. Read on for a sample 6-day intinerary to San Francisco & Napa Valley, on a budget.

Note: This post was originally written in 2014.

6-Day San Francisco & Napa Valley Itinerary

Day One: Travel Day
Accommodations: Days Inn, San Bruno, CA

On our way! We landed at the San Francisco airport just after dinner time. Our evening accommodations were the Days Inn in San Bruno, about a 5 minutes ride on the hotel’s free airport shuttle.

Day Two: Calistoga, California (Napa Valley)
Car Rental: Enterprise, San Bruno, CA
Accommodations: Calistoga Inn, Calistoga, CA

Napa Valley or bust! With a two hour drive from San Bruno to Calistoga in Napa Valley and an afternoon full of wine tasting ahead of us, waking up bright and early was a must. First on the agenda was picking up the rental car we would use for the next few days of the trip. Since the San Bruno Enterprise was a few miles from our hotel, Enterprise conveniently sent out someone to pick us up and drive us to the Enterprise location to rent our Nissan Versa (the cheapest rental car available!). Everything about the car rental was easy, and we enjoyed a pleasant 1 hour 45 minute drive to Calistoga.

After eating a quick lunch in quaint, downtown Calistoga (imagine Calistoga as being almost exactly like Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls, just not as cold), we checked into the Calistoga Inn and began our afternoon of wine tasting. We took the free Calistoga Shuttle to visit 2 wineries, Castello di Amorosa and Sterling, and a tasting room across from our hotel called Vermeil Wines.

Day Three: San Francisco
Accommodations:   Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, San Francisco, CA

After a 45 minute drive, we arrived in San Francisco. First on our list though was riding down Lombard Street, the curviest street in the world (okay, not sure if that’s true, but it was very curvy!). As we navigated to the hotel, we learned there’s nothing much scarier than trying to drive a tiny compact car up and down the very hilly streets of San Francisco!

We checked into our hotel at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, parked at a nearby parking deck so we could keep the rental car, and then uber-ed to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner where we enjoyed award-winning chowder at Fog Harbor Restaurant. Though the restaurant was nice, I think we all would have preferred something a little more local for dinner. There were tons of food stands set up around Fisherman’s Wharf that I think would have been good to try. Oh man – Fisherman’s Wharf is a tourist trap if I ever saw one.

Day Four: Twin Peaks, Muir Woods & Sausalito

We still had our rental car so we used day four to take advantage of some sights located just outside the city. We started the morning at Twin Peaks, the second highest point in the city and a place that not so coincidentally offers fantastic views of the Bay Area. A 40-minute drive took us to Muir Woods National Monument, one of the few coastal redwood forests left in the world – and the place where all the apes escape to in the 2011 remake of Planet of the Apes.

It’s a humbling experience to stand at the trunk of a very, very tall tree in Muir Woods!

We took about an hour to walk among the majestic redwoods and then continued our day in Sausalito’s, a 20 minutes drive away. We arrived in Sausalito just in time to enjoy a seafood lunch at Salito’s where we enjoyed a peaceful lunch on the deck, overlooking the water. Sausalito is a cute town full of tourists, bikers and ice cream.

No time to stop now! From Sausalito, it was about a 20 minute drive back to the city to Fisherman’s Wharf where we returned our rental car. Though the Enterprise location closed early on Saturday, Enterprise had a very easy way to return the car after cars.

We caught a very windy and cold (but still fun!) Blue & Gold Fleet Boat Tour from Fisherman’s Wharf. We saw the Pier 39 sea lions and rode underneath the Golden Gate bridge. We even got to ride very close to Alcatraz which we were excited about since we were unable to get tickets to go to the island. Advice: if you want to visit Alcatraz, definitely book your tickets before you arrive.

On our way back to the hotel to change for dinner, we stopped by Coit Tower and took a quick photo op to recreate Abbey Road on the hilly streets of San Francisco…because why not?

We enjoyed dinner and drinks at Mikkeler Bar, a pub in the Tenderloin. Then we stopped by a pretty cool rooftop bar in Mission district called el Techo de Lolinda that we recommend checking out.

Day Five: San Francisco & Travel Day

One of the hardest things about traveling is feeling the pressure of picking a great restaurant every time you eat and today proved no different. After searching on Yelp for a nearby restaurant for lunch, we decided on a hole in the wall restaurant near our hotel, which turned out to be pretty good, at least for a quick bite to eat.

Our tour continued with a ride on the infamous cable cars (including the opportunity to hang off the sides). We took the cable car from near our hotel to Ghiardelli Square where we just had to stop for Ghiardelli ice cream and enjoy a view of the bay!

We took a leisurely walk along the Bay to Fort Mason to the Presidio, a park that rests in the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge. I was struck by how many people were working out, relaxing, socializing and playing football at the Presidio. The Palace of Fine Arts, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, was just around the corner. After admiring the architecture, it was time, once again, to eat.

We had several bottles of wine from Napa Valley that we couldn’t take back with us on the plane so we found a BYOB Thai restaurant just off Ellis St. in Tenderloin.

Day Six: Travel Day

Time to return home. What an amazing trip. If you’d like to read more details about all of the places we visited on this trip, make sure to click on the hyperlinks in the article above to learn more.

We truly left our hearts in San Francisco and can’t wait to go back!