How to make the most of San Francisco in a day.

This article will be all about my vision of how to make the most of San Francisco in a day. First, get to San Francisco, if you need to spend a few nights in SF and would like to find a place well located and affordable, I would recommend Infinity Hotels: https://www.infinityhotelsf.com/ It’s a nice enough hotel about 10 min walk from the pier.

Then in the morning, start your day by getting a good coffee and a pastry at Le Marais Bakery: https://www.lemaraisbakery.com/ (French side of me talking there) and then make your way to the sea. This day is going to be intense but trust me you will remember it. Enjoy a nice and preferably early walk along the water. Enjoy the view at Aquatic Park Pier, check out the fisherman at Hyde Street Pier. Keep going until you reach San Francisco Bicycle Rentals. There you get the idea, it’s time to rent a bike and let the adventure begins.

The best loop or at least what I think was the best is to ride along the water. You will pass some stunning areas. The good thing with bikes is that you can stop at any time for a little break or a photo. Then keep going until the famous Golden Gate bridge and the whole point is to cross it. If you are very not confident at cycling avoid it as it is extremely impressive. But if you are an ok rider and don’t fear height then go for it it’s incredible.

Be careful when you get there it can be pretty busy and some people like to go super-fast on it. Make sure you leave some space on the side to cross people and to potentially be passed by people. Also, San Francisco can be quite grey but don’t be a fool, the sun is still there somewhere behind the clouds. As you will go quite high, make sure to protect your skin before you go. Apart from that enjoy the ride and the view.

Once you passed the bridge, you can add a little difficulty and go to Battery Spencer to get an amazing photo and impressive scenery of SF. The way there is steep just FYI. And it can be very cloudy there so you might end up not seeing much. As you can see on the photo below, we didn’t see that much but still enjoyed the journey.

Once you get back, the next step will be to cycle to Sausalito. It’s a nice waterfront city that looks like Italy we had lunch in an Italian restaurant, Poggio Trattoria: https://www.poggiotrattoria.com/. It was beautiful. If it’s still early in the day and you feel like cycling for longer, you can explore the area. Or cycle back to SF. But if you want to chill you can walk along the water, have ice cream, get postal cards… Later on, either get the ferry back to San Francisco or the bus. The ferry will give you a stunning view from the water but the bus is going to cross the bridge and that is pretty special: tough choice!

Then it’s time to bring back the bikes for the better and it should be late afternoon by now. My advice is to use your energy left and go for a lovely walk to the Painted ladies through Fillmore Street. You will be blown away by the architecture all the way up (and down). And even more, once you get to this lovely park. The surrounding is just so beautiful, if you are very prepared, you would have brought a picnic and a bottle of wine (or something else) and find your perfect spot to relax for a while. If not on your way back you can stop at the corner between Steiner street and Chestnut street where you will be spoiled by choices in terms of food. I recommend Saiwalks, a very good Vietnamese Restaurant: http://www.saiwalks.com/

This is just an example of a wonderful day to have in San Francisco but there so much more to see and do, you can visit Alcatraz, hike in the Golden Gate Recreation Area, chill at the beach, do some shopping, visit museums… The most important is that you’ll have fun visiting this beautiful city and make a lot of memories out there. If you want to pursue your California trip, have a look at my article: https://elvinechloe.com/the-best-of-the-california-coast-road-trip/