Looking to take a trip to wine country and san Francisco this summer. Thinking 2 nights in wine country and 3 nights in San Francisco.

Never been but trying to see Candlestick park, Alcatraz and redwoods.

Looking for suggestions on places to stay and wine tour suggestions?

A lot to cover here:

I am not a fan of San Fran, having been there several times. Now I just land there on the way to Napa Valley. It's not my trip, but I's switch the day count if you are more interested in wine.

Muir Woods are worth the time go out and take a hike through the redwoods. If you are staying in the downtown area, stick with Nob Hill. Lots of history, and the true downtown area (Union Square, Financial District) are not great places.

The Wharf and Ghirardelli Square are dirty tourist traps.

In Napa Valley: we stay up valley (St. Helena) because it's a good mid-point, is more "quaint" and has some great restaurants. The city of Napa is fine, but it's generally more crowded and, unless you just want to walk to tasting rooms, doesn't have that much of the wine country experience to offer. If you let me know what type of wine you like and what you are comfortable spending on a bottle, I can give you some winery suggestions.

I wouldn't go to more that 3 wineries a day (we typically do 2). Hopping from place to place doesn't really give you time to talk and learn and gives you palate fatigue. The tasting rooms at the bigger places are staffed by people that really don't know that much more about wine, much less what you are tasting, than you do.

Something to consider: stay in Monterrey instead of San Fran. Amazing place with some great views and drives to make. You can spend a day in Carmel while you are there.

By the way, Candlestick was demolished a couple of years ago. It was a crappy, cold place anyway.

My advice is not to fly in and out of SFO unless you have to. OAK and SMF are easier options. SFO is a pain, especially if you're renting a car and trying to exit the city during working hours. Returning from Napa or Sonoma back to SFO can take 2+ hours in the morning.

While there stay north of Napa, St Helena or Yountville would be my suggestion. There are also a few chain hotels in Union if you're doing points.

Those two towns have most of the restaurants you're likely to want to go to, as well as plenty of tasting rooms and easy access to/from a lot of wineries.

2-3 tastings a day is plenty. Everything out there is expensive, so plan accordingly.

pasquale said:

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Looking to take a trip to wine country and san Francisco this summer. Thinking 2 nights in wine country and 3 nights in San Francisco.

Never been but trying to see Candlestick park, Alcatraz and redwoods.

Looking for suggestions on places to stay and wine tour suggestions?

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I would recommend Oracle Park (formerly at&t and a handful of other names). Go during a day game, not night. Fantastic way to spend a Sunday afternoon even if you don't love baseball.

You're out of luck on candlestick though. You're a couple years too late. It was torn down a year or two ago.

Fly in/out of Oakland, stay in Healdsburg, visit Armstrong redwoods state park.

Thanks for the airport tips. I apparently need to research more since I thought candlestick was still around.

Wife is the wine drinker , not me so 2 nights is probably good for the wine country for us.

Recently did 4 nights in SF, one in Napa. Loved both. There is so much good food out there.

Neither of us are big wine drinkers, but we enjoyed the wine tour we took at Silver Oak. I want to go back and do just Napa (and Sonoma).

Muir Woods is awesome. Highly recommend for seeing redwoods.

We did Alcatraz as well. It's worth it. Cool to see, great views of city and Golden Gate Bridge. Book it early.

AgOutsideAustin said:

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Fly in/out of Oakland, stay in Healdsburg, visit Armstrong redwoods state park.

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How do you go from Oakland to Healdsburg? Across the Golden Gate Bridge or around the bay?

Expect to pay a lot for hotels in San Fran... we did the mystery hotel package deal type thing (you choose 5-star or 4-star hotels as option and you commit to it before knowing what it is), and ended up with decent hotels in the Financial District... I would do that again to save money...

Wife and I just got back from weekend in SF. I'm there almost monthly for work, was nice to play tourist a bit.

We havenot been to SF since 2015. It is our favorite city in the US, but have heard it has really gone down b/c of the homeless defecating in the streets, syringes all over the place,ect. Is it really a lot worse than it was a few years ago?

We did Napa/San Fran a few years ago for a longer weekend.
2 nights in Sonoma/Napa and then 2 nights in San Fran. When we go back it will definitely be just Napa area - I think SF can be seen and done in a few days once.

We stayed at the Marriott Resort in Sonoma and it was very nice and we loved it. Loved that it was in the smaller town of Sonoma and not very touristy. When we go back we want to try and stay in the St. Helena or Healdsburg area - just as others have posted.

We used Platypus Wine Tours but have heard that they have recently gone downhill in terms of tours and service. Have had friends just use Uber and that is probably what we would do if we returned.

On the way up to Sonoma we went to Muir Woods - would highly recommend. It does cost money as it is a national park so be prepared for that. We also went to Santa Rosa to Russian River Brewing and really enjoyed that, we wanted to spend more time in that area.

In SF we did Alcatraz and loved it. The Wharf is VERY touristy; we ate there but I would not recommend it. We have some friends who went to SF in the fall and were disappointed in everything basically because of all the homeless people.

SW AG80 said:

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We havenot been to SF since 2015. It is our favorite city in the US, but have heard it has really gone down b/c of the homeless defecating in the streets, syringes all over the place,ect. Is it really a lot worse than it was a few years ago?

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Only if you enjoy walking through the tenderloin. We walked over 10 miles, didn't see one syringe or feces. Did have one guy with his pants at his knees high as a kite.

We did a VRBO in SF and it was great.

If you've never been I highly suggest booking a tour with Vantigo. It's an all encompassing morning tour in a 1960s VW bus. You'll hit all the popular spots then be able to decide where you want to go back and spend more time.

They also have a sister company that does wine tours in Napa in a VW bus and it was cool too. Small personal tour in a VW bus with three winery stops and includes lunch.

For food I suggest The Progress in SF and Torc in Napa.

Little off the beaten path gem in SF is the antique arcade game museum down on the wharf. We stumbled on it while killing time before Alcatraz and had a blast. It's just a big room full of arcade games dating back to the 1920s. Take a handful of quarters and enjoy.

San Fran and the surrounding area is amazing. But extremely expensive

We are hitting up San Fran in early July at the first part of a PCH tour of Cali.
We will start with Yosemite for three days and then hit up San Fran for a couple before heading down the coast.

Plans include Alcatraz and a SF Giants game plus time without the kids at Bourbon and Branch and a solid meal to be decided on. Also will be going to Muir Woods and Sausalito area for hikes along with biking the Golden Gate Bridge
We are finalizing our first part of the trip this weekend when our daughter comes back from grad school for a long weekend as she and her boyfriend will be joining us for part of our trip. Maybe a day at Napa but we have been and with the kids might be put off for this trip unless we can find someway to include them which isn't optimal for a wine tasting tour