You might be a little overwhelmed by the idea of visiting San Francisco in just 3 days. There’s a lot of decisions to make when you have to decide where to stay, what to eat and which landmarks to visit. Having visited San Francisco as part of our Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip, we feel pretty glad about all the activities we packed into our 3 days there. This includes:
Where To Stay In San Francisco
We arrived in San Francisco late afternoon and the immigration queue at the airport was a 2+ hour ordeal. However, I knew the effort was well worth it when I tucked into my first Californian burrito later that evening. The Little Chihuahua was the perfect place for a relaxed evening bite after a long flight from Manchester (£300pp return).
It was across the road from the Metro Hotel where we were staying in San Francisco. This hotel is located in the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood, a residential area of the city. It was nestled among coffee shops, restaurants and bars and less than 15 minutes into the city centre by tram, so the location is ideal.
For a relatively reasonable price of $512 for 4 nights, we had an economy room, although compact in size it was clean and comfortable. The staff were also super friendly and really helpful, so I would give the Metro Hotel a 5-star review.
Places To Eat In San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury
Also nearby the Metro hotel, and worthy of a mention, was
- Little Star Pizza, which gave me my first experience of a true Chicago deep-dish pizza, which in my humble opinion are amazing.
- Ragazza was literally next door and shared a garden with the Metro Hotel. This was a great dinner option if you really didn’t want to walk far after a day out.
Breakfast Options In Haight Ashbury
- Oakside Cafe which provided our daily breakfast bagel and coffee most days.
- Bean Bag Coffee House was another great breakfast for amazing breakfast burritos and even better coffee.
- The Grind has a good offering of a range of dishes from pancakes to scram.
The Best Way To Start Your 3 Days In San Francisco
There’s no better way to start exploring San Francisco than by jumping on it’s historic trams and buses. Although, despite this we still still clocked up about 18km of walking.
We visited Fisherman’s Wharf & Pier 39 with its Sea Lions before stopping for my first ever In-N-Out Burger. A burger place, native to only California, so make sure to stop by and check out the secret menu. I recommend the animal fries.
This was followed by a visit to China Town, the oldest and most established in the US. This was full of quirky shops and some cool street art, as you can see towards the left of the picture below.
After China Town, we moved on to Lombard Street. This winding road has a 27% incline and would be too steep for a car to drive down in a straight line. The answer to this is 8 hairpin turns to allow cars to safely make their way down the hill. The residents take pride in planting beautiful flowers along the side of the road which makes it a great spot for a few extra snaps of the City.
The main event of the day was the Alcatraz Night Tour. This was facilitated by the ship’s captain and a mixture of personable guides on the island combined with the self-guiding audio tour. This turned out to be my highlight of visiting San Fransisco in the 3 days that we were there.
This a really enjoyable and immersive experience which really gives you an insight from the prisoners and guards perspective. An example of this is the cell door shutting demonstration in the video below.
The added bonus of visiting Alcatraz is that it’s also a great view-point for the city, where you can see the roads wind up and down the urban hills of San Francisco.
Day 2: Napa Valley & Sonoma Valley
We decided to book onto GrayLine’s wine tour after reading the reviews and comparing prices on various sites. The tour was around £70 each and started at around 8.30am and we were dropped back to the city for around half 5.
We visited three vineyards throughout the course of the day; Nicholson Ranch Winery, Jacuzzi Family Vineyards, Sutter Home. This was in addition to a lunch stop at the town of Yountville.
Nicholson Ranch Winery
The first vineyard was my favorite due it’s an authentic family-run feel and the nature of the tour. We walked through the vineyard and tasted the grapes straight off the vines!
Most importantly we had a wine tasting in their tasting room at the end of the tour and sampled three different types of wines. They were very informative about their specific history, the wine production process and the surrounding wine regions.
Final Thoughts On The Napa and Sonoma Valley Wine Tour
Overall the tour was a good introduction to the wine region. The scenery made for a special place for a few glasses of wine.
The tour guide was incredibly informative and continuously supplied interesting facts. Such as how many millions of dollars per square ft some of the vineyards were worth, along with the history and gossip surrounding the vineyards and their owners.
If you do decide to stop for lunch when visiting Yountville, I’d recommend the inexpensive Yountville Deli for some fantastic Pastrami sandwiches.
Day: 3 Sausalito
If I had £1,000,000 or maybe £10,000,000 to spare this might be the place I’d chose to buy a property. Luxury houses set overlooking the bay and are just a 20-minute ferry ride from San Francisco waterfront.
This is a perfect place for a sunny afternoon walk and a spot of lunch. We stopped at one called Sausalito Bakery and Cafe. Where we had some incredibly fresh tuna and prawn nicoise salads.
I hope this article has given you all the information you need to fully enjoy San Francisco In 3 days. There is so much to do both inside and out of the city, from historic sites to scenic excursions, not to mention the awesome food. San Francisco is a great city and loads of fun. This was a great start to our Pacific Coast Highway road trip, as I hope you’ll read onto find out.
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