San Francisco / Bay Area

*I haven't been a tourist here in a long time, but here's a post based on an email I put together for my brother's best friend who asked for summer San Francisco visit recommendations...

FYI summer is cold in SF. As Mark Twain is famously misquoted, "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" (apparently he never said that). The rest of the Bay Area though, Peninsula and South Bay, Marin and Napa/Sonoma Counties up north, are all wonderful and sunny and summer-like.

Big picture, you probably want to think about what you want to do on the weekend… everywhere is crowded on the weekends in the summer, but wine country is probably less pleasant with a lot of people. Just make sure you check with the wineries about what days are off (a lot of them have Monday or Tuesday as their day off). Same with Muir Woods or Point Reyes, better without a lot of people.

San Francisco
It’s probably easiest to stay closer to downtown and the touristy areas, lots of more options. There is a new chain of trendy “W”-like hotels that are reasonable priced, they’re at www.jdvhotels.com. Clift is another boutique hotel. Probably want to stay away from anything near Moscone (big convention center), not too close to Union Square but around is fairly central.

I hear Alcatraz is pretty cool (again would avoid on weekend), and probably worth walking around Fisherman’s Wharf. You can drive down Lombard St (the zigzag road). Walk around the Castro and Haight area, fun shops, more east village-y. The Mission has the great Mexican food (actually all around) and fun shops and bars. Go up to Pacific Street, highest point of that side of city and great views. If you want to be healthy, go for a run on the Embarcadero or over by the Marina along Crissy Field, really pretty and great view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Blazing Saddles is a bike company, all around SF, and you can rent bikes for the day. I would take one day and bike over the Golden Gate over to Marin County (other side of the bridge) and down the hill to Sausalito and Tiburon, which are super cute towns there (kind of like waterfront Darien ish). Great place called Sam’s which is really popular for day time boozing, a lot of SFers will take the morning ferry on a weekend day and hang out on their patio all day. Town has nice restaurants and shops too. There’s a ferry that goes back to SF so you don’t have to climb the hill back to the bridge and SF

Eating and Drinking
San Francisco and the Bay Area are fantastic for eating and drinking. There's a great range of dining options, from food trucks to Michelin stars, and every ethnic cuisine out there. SF has great fine dining, the Mission is known for best Mexican, and I think the South Bay has the best Asian.

Look at Yelp for dining options, it's very robust here. This is my SF favorites eats post, and all of my Yelp reviews are here.

Here's a quick list of places for cocktails by location. I haven't been to all of these, but here's the SF Cocktails Yelp list.
• Bourbon and branch, Rye – Civic Center/Tenderloin
• Rickhouse, Burritt Room – Union Sq
• Comstock Saloon, 15 Romolo – both near Columbus Ave/N Beach
• Prospect, Bar Agricole – SOMA, nicer bars
• Maven, Blackbird, Churchill, Alembic – Lower and Upper Haight
• Armory Bar, Elixir, Locanda, El Techo – Mission, Armory is a little risque but my new favorite

Here's a good list of places to get beer.

Wine Country
Napa and Sonoma are actually kind of far apart and a little different, so you can pick one or other, or you can spend one day in each (though I think two days of wine tasting might be a bit much). Napa is the more famous of the two, with more wineries and more recognizable wineries. Pretty easy to get around but probably more commercialized and slightly more expensive. Sonoma has some cute downtown areas and good wineries that are more chill, but harder to get around since it's more spread out. Here is a Sonoma & Napa post with more details

I highly recommend that you get a car to take you guys around for a day. You can either drive up that morning, check in and have the car meet you, then spend night there, or come up in afternoon, have a nice evening, booze all next day, and spend night (I would do latter if expenses work out).

I think there is a range of nice hotels (Fairmont in Sonoma) to more bed and breakfast types that are in downtown Napa and Sonoma, which would put you closer to the restaurants and stuff.

You can also rent a house if you have more people, or just want the option to cook for more than one night stay. http://www.vrbo.com/ is a good search site for rentals.

Two car services I'd recommend that I've used.

Sona Bedrosian at Private Limousine Service
1-866-866-7788
1-707-843-4114

Katie at Sonoma Sterling Limo
1-707-542-5444
Btw you can also do wine or cheese tasting locally. The Cheese School of San Francisco is one in SF

Other stuff
Definitely plan some hikes, there’s great nature in the Bay Area. Muir Woods is a park with redwoods in Marin County. Bunch of parks and hikes though

Here are some sites I’ve collected through the years
http://www.parks.ca.gov/parkindex/
http://kevingong.com/Hiking/index.html
http://www.redwoodhikes.com/Bay%20Area.html

Muir Woods is great, that’s the redwoods. Nice hikes in there, and there’s a great little bar in the middle of it, should definitely stop to get a beer there. The NPS sites are pretty good for finding parks and hikes.

Another favorite of mine is Point Reyes. Even if you don't love oysters, but it is super fun to bring a picnic, wine/champagne and chill out with raw or grilled oysters for an afternoon. You want to get charcoal too (or buy some there). Bring cards or board game, really a lazy time. These are the two places. Hog Island you need a reservation, virtually impossible on weekends, and Tomales Bay is first come for picnic tables. Here's a NY Times article on Point Reyes being the next Martha's Vineyard.

You’ll have to pack a lunch for half of the hikes, and for Point Reyes. Also wine if you want. Blue Fog in Pacific Heights (north end of SF) has great sandwiches

All across the Bay Area is awesome golf. Here are my favorites.

Finally, depending on when you are coming, you might be able to catch the weird SF events… Bay to Breakers just happened (half marathon with naked people and beer floats…) and Urban Iditarod was a few weeks ago (people are the dogs, shopping carts with kegs are the sled, path is, well the streets of SF). There are some great street festivals and stuff in the summer. Here’s a SF site for official events. Being the home for the company, Yelp is pretty big out here too.