San Francisco, Here We Come

I can't believe I haven't found the time to blog about this until now, because I am really so excited about it! A month or so ago I came home from work to find my husband with a mischievous smile on his face. For several days he had been researching flights, lodging, rental cars and attractions in the San Francisco area and had loosely mapped out a 7 day itinerary for our next vacation. We had talked about our next trip being to San Fran, but we hadn't discussed any of the details or dates, so it was quite a surprise to come home and find that Chad had done much of the legwork and planning!

We had decided on San Francisco as our next vacation destination after our friend Dante went on a trip there and loved it so much he went back again six months later. Our friends Jake and Amber went on a San Fran vacation soon after, and they loved it so much they are already talking about going back too! Since neither Chad nor I have ever been, we thought it was the perfect place for our next big journey--we just hadn't really talked about when we were going to go. Chad decided that it would be the perfect anniversary present to each other, so he scheduled our vacation right around our upcoming 14th.

Because my husband knows me well, and knows that I'm a planner who loves details, he didn't actually book any of places he'd picked out. He knew I'd enjoy that part of the process, so we spent the next couple of nights pouring over some of the different hotels and bed & breakfasts Chad had researched on the Internet until we found exactly what we wanted, where we wanted. We booked our flights, all of our lodging and our rental car, and got a general idea of what sites we wanted to see while we were there. Our plan might sound kind of crazy, but here's what we'll be doing: first, we're flying into LA (yes, LA). The flight was not only super cheap, but we thought it would fun to spend a day with my brother and also to make the scenic drive up the coast. We'll stay there the first night, then get up early and take our rental car up the coast to Carmel, which is about 6 1/2 hours away according to Google Maps (although most people have told us it will take quite a bit longer with all the stops). Night two, which will be our anniversary, we'll stay at this Bed & Breakfast in Carmel.

The next day we'll travel the final 2 hours or so into San Francisco, where we'll stay for two nights at this hotel on the south side of the bay. We'll keep the rental car for those days and see all the bay area sites that are outside of downtown. After those two days we'll head into the heart of San Francisco, where we'll stay three more nights at this hotel.


We'll drop off the rental car at this point and stick with trolleys and our own four feet, since we kept hearing about how difficult and expensive parking is and we don't mind walking at all. There's so much to see and do all within 6 miles of our hotel: Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate Park, all sorts of shopping, the ferry to Alcatraz, and tons of other things. We prefer to be busy on our vacations, so we're excited to see as many sites as possible while we're there!

Since we haven't really nailed down exactly what we'll do and see each day, we're still totally open for suggestions. If there's one thing you think we just can't miss in the San Francisco area, let us know--we'll add it to the itinerary!