San Francisco Trip Recap
Photo by Billy Hunyh on Unsplash
I’m so excited to finally have found some time to recap our weekend getaway to San Francisco a few weeks ago. This was my first time to San Francisco and the thing I was most looking forward to was the cold (it did not disappoint! 😬). If I miss anything you want to know more about, please ask and I’ll try my best to answer.
Angel and I are huge Oakland Raiders fans and in August, he brought up the idea of us going to a Raiders game in Oakland before they move to Las Vegas next year (2020). Luckily we both had enough miles to fly roundtrip from Hawaii to San Francisco so we booked it!
Where’d You Fly In To?
We flew straight into San Francisco airport (SFO) from Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines and caught the BART into the city. We usually rent a car, but we learned from a few friends that live in the Bay Area that parking in San Francisco is pretty much non-existent or expensive. We knew we were going to be in the city most of the weekend and when we needed to get outside of the city, like when we went to Prisdio to visit The Disney Family Museum, we caught a Lyft.
Our most memorable mode of transportation was riding the cable car (standing up!) from Hyde & Beach St. back into the city. When we arrived in San Francisco, I saw an ad at the airport to download the MuniMobile app to purchase tickets to ride the cable car or bus. (I used it for the cable car.) Tickets cost $7 one way and it was good for 180 days. If you didn’t want to download the app, you paid the driver cash upon boarding.
Where’d You Stay?
We stayed in a cozy mid-century room at Hotel G in between Geary and Mason Streets. I booked the room for $130/night (which I felt was a pretty good deal considering that the other hotels I researched were upwards of $200/night).
The room was tinier than a normal hotel room, but they did a nice job renovating the place with new furniture making it feel warm and inviting. My favorite part of the room was the bathroom with it’s floor to ceiling glass shower and mid-century modern vanity and HUGE mirror. (Anyone that knows me knows that pretty bathrooms are my thing.) The amenities were great, too! Guests have access to the gym, a complimentary Box Water, the comfiest bath robe (you can take it home for $125), your very own pair of house slippers and more.
What Did You Do in San Francisco?
We did a lot of walking! (I swear we walked five miles a day.)
When we arrived, it was 5:30 am on a Friday. We ate breakfast at our go-to travel restaurant, Denny’s, and then walked around the city waiting for shops to open. We found a Trader Joes and spent some time in Old Navy’s flagship store. (I love Old Navy!) We pretty much walked around until it was time to check in to our hotel, then we took a nap and ate dinner at Chipotle.
The next day we had breakfast at Plow. Located on the outskirts of San Francisco, Plow is an intimate restaurant with the most amazing breakfast potatoes! 😍 I ordered The Plow with a mimosa and the flakiest buttermilk biscuit with honey butter and Angel ordered the chorizo and eggs. After breakfast, we made our way to The Disney Family Museum in Prisidio. Man, that city is beautiful! Luckily, the fog wasn’t around and the view of the Golden Gate bridge from the museum was breathtaking.
We spent the entire morning visiting interactive stations learning about the creation of Mickey Mouse as well as Walt Disney’s life and family. When we were done, we made our way down to Pier 39.
Pier 39 is like the Waikiki of San Francisco but 1,000 times busier. I was immediately turned off walking through, but my favorite part was taking a moment to watch the sea lions. After that, we walked over to Boudin at The Wharf for lunch. We ordered the fish and chips and the Boudin burger to share. The fish and chips was delicious — the outside of the fish was crispy and the inside flaky and flavorful. After lunch, we walked over to Ghiradelli Square for hot cocoa and people watching, then we caught the cable car back into San Francisco.
On Sunday, we woke up early to catch BART into Oakland. Even though we had no idea what we were doing, we eventually figured it out thanks to all of the other Raider fans catching BART from the city. When we got to the Coliseum, the energy from the thousands of Raider fans was nothing like I experienced before. Sure, I’ve been to a few high school and college football games before, but the Raider fans are die hard. After the game, we caught BART back into the city, visited the Friends Pop-Up, grabbed dinner at Chipotle and headed back to the hotel to pack.
Where to Eat in San Francisco
We didn’t plan where we were going to eat out well, so we ended up at Chipotle quite a few times. However, here’s what was on our list (asterisks = where we ate):
Liholiho Yacht Club
Nob Hill
Plow*
Cracked & Battered
Tratto
Ice Cream Bar
Boudin*
Golden Boy Pizza
I saved all of my pics and videos from our trip to my SF Instagram highlight. I hope you enjoyed this recap of our trip to San Francisco! Is this something you’d like to see more of? You can read about my other travels here.
