California 2022 (Part 1) San Francisco - Yosemite

Here’s the latest instalment from mine & Mrs H’s travels around the world. This time: San Francisco, National Parks, Los Angeles - October 2022. It feels like ages since we had a big adventure. Firstly, I need to update you on a new development. There are three of us travelling now. TC (Travel Counsellor) Ted is our new companion. He’s already well travelled, having been to Paris & Rome with our granddaughters earlier this year, and now regularly travels with my customers too. Travel Counsellors enters anyone who uploads pics of TC Ted on their holidays to the TC socials into a Prize Draw so it is well worth the cost in bear snacks for the chance to win. Just ask if you want him to accompany you on your next trip. We travelled economy to Dublin and from there to San Francisco. There’s a 7hr time difference, so we needed to readjust on landing. But easy to do when it is 24 degrees and sunny! We stayed in the Chancellor Hotel Union Square which was well situated for amenities such as shops, restaurants etc and a Cable Car stops directly outside the hotel. Cable Cars are great value, especially with multi-day passes. We paid $30 for 3 days. The streets are unbelievably steep, but the Trolley Buses are great fun and save legs! Mrs H had chosen our first pre-booked tour, “The Love Bus”! We explored the streets of San Francisco in an old VW Campervan, listening to 70s love songs. We even dressed up! It was great fun and gave us our bearings, taking us round the top areas quickly. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street (famously known as the crookedest street), Mrs Doubtfire’s House (2640 Steiner Street for the Pub Quizzers amongst you) and The Golden Gate Park. In the afternoon, we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39; a must-visit for the bustling atmosphere, bars shops and restaurants. Because we knew there were certain things we wanted to see in our short time in San Francisco, we pre-booked all our tours. Our second tour was a smaller city tour (15 people) where we saw more of San Fran including City Hall, The Palace of Fine Arts, Chinatown, the Painted Ladies ($3-4 million dollar houses built in the gold rush, so called because they had to be painted a minimum of 3 colours) and many more. We travelled across the Golden Gate Bridge (too foggy for pictures!) towards the State National Park, Muir Woods, filled with thousand-year old Redwood Trees, stopping in a small town called Sausalito for lunch on the harbour. Smaller tours are great for seeing places in more detail, getting to grips with local history and getting the lowdown on the best places to go. We then went to Pier 33, which for me was a personal highlight. It’s where the boats depart for Alcatraz. The ride across takes about 20 mins and then the audio tour around the island takes about 90 mins. It costs around $45pp and HAS to be booked in advance as it is incredibly popular. You’ll be pleased to know the TC Ted got himself a black and white stripy T shirt so he looked the part, and he managed to escape! We finished this day by stopping at Pier 39 to see the seals. We purposefully left our last full day in San Francisco free, knowing there would be places we had seen on our tours that we would want to revisit in detail. Lombard Street, which we’d seen from The Love Bus, was one such place. It’s all crooked, like a slalom, and fascinating to see; pictures don’t really do it justice, although this video link https://youtu.be/zyyQWvXqJXs might help. We ate in “Eight AM”, voted the 2nd best restaurant in San Fran and had a delicious all-american breakfast. We were sad to leave San Francisco; we’d highly recommend and would certainly visit again. But, all good things come to an end, and it was time to pick up our RV (mobile home). As you will know from previous posts, we have done this before. Granted, it’s not for everyone and like everything, has great advantages and disadvantages. We love the flexibility of it – being able to stay longer in places you like and move on from those you don’t. This RV is bigger than our previous one (turns out that bear takes up some room), so I was slightly apprehensive about manoeuvring and parking. Our first stop was Yosemite Lakes RV Campground. The scenery on the drive was breath-taking, even if the steep drive on the way was a bit hairy at times! In total, we spent two days in Yosemite National Park. I’d say this had to be the best scenery I have seen anywhere in the world. Miles and miles of granite rocks, forest, waterfalls and hiking trails. An absolute must for all nature lovers. El Capitan, a huge granite rock which towers above the woodland, was full of climbers. The weather had been hot and dry, so the waterfalls weren’t as heavy as perhaps they might have been. If you plan on visiting a few National Parks, it is well worth it to buy an annual membership at only $80 per year per vehicle. It would have cost us $35 Entrance in Muir Woods (San Francisco), $35 in Yosemite (and we’ve been for 2 days) and we still have on our itinerary Sequoia Park, so the Yorkshire man in me was chuffed at the savings. You have to make a reservation during peak season (May-Sep) to enter the parks and Yosemite also had a free shuttle bus around the various routes. TC Ted was particularly pleased about free access into the woods. He was often disappearing into them, muttering about having some bear business to attend to… Our next stop after Yosemite was Lemon Cove Campground, just outside Sequoia National Park. 4 hours drive down the mountain and on to the state highways. When you holiday in a RV you have the choice to stay in campgrounds, costing around $70 per night as the time we travelled, which allows you to use all their facilities (washrooms, showers etc) and connect to their water supply, electricity and soil waste. All campgrounds do vary, some with better facilities than others, some cost more than others and the other option, of course, is you can just park of road but do make sure you are allowed.