San Francisco is like the Bangalore of the U.S., with many techies living in the Bay Area, innovating and promoting a strong startup culture.
True to the city’s character, almost all the ads on the billboards were related to AI. The Moscone Center had directions all over the city leading to it, largely because of Dreamforce, which was also advertised on billboards and LED boards everywhere, even at the airport.
Day 1: Yosemite, Sequoia tour from San Francisco
We had booked the Yosemite Sequoia Grove tour on day one. Initially, we had booked it through Incredible Adventures, but found that Extranomical Tours was offering it marginally cheaper with guaranteed departures. We shifted to that a week before, through Viator which was cheapest post discounts
Their nearest pick up point was Hilton Union Square San Francisco, so we chose a hotel next block.
Honestly, we liked the Sequoia Grove more than Yosemite because none of the falls had water in September. The views were good, but not worth traveling so far for. Sequoia Grove was peaceful, and we saw some of the largest trees there.
Day 2: Pier 39 at San Francisco
One of my relatives had visited Pier 39 in San Francisco, which is famous for its sea lion colony, with raving reviews- so I made it a point for us to get there. We tried out Waymo, which was super cool for us, since we were riding in a driverless car for the first time. We had seen a lot of them on the roads, but it was fascinating to get into one and see how it moved. The steering wheel moved automatically, and it seamlessly dropped us at the destination.
Pier 39 was cool. We had seen a decent colony on the webcam before. It was noisy, chaotic, and entertaining, and we could almost have spent a day there if we had enough time
Day 2: Muir woods from San Francisco
We had also booked a tour to Armstrong Woods, but unfortunately, it got cancelled the previous day because there were not enough people. We did expect this might happen because we had been monitoring how many slots were booked on TripAdvisor. We decided to go to Muir Woods on our own.
A lot of reviews did mention that getting a ride back could be tough. Fortunately, it was not too crowded that day because it was a weekday, so the Wi-Fi worked well enough at the visitor center for us to book a ride back to town. This turned out to be much cheaper than going on a tour, costing about $40 per person versus $100 otherwise on a tour.
Muir Woods was not too crowded, and we had a very good experience there. The trees are similar to those at Armstrong Reserve, so the atmosphere was not very different. The main difference was supposed to be the crowds, but since it was only reasonably crowded that day, I think it was on par with Armstrong Reserve.
We also saw Sausalito on the way. We did miss some of the California coastline, but we were happy to be back by 3 p.m. and get some good rest.
Flight terminal
Our flight was planned to depart from T3 at San Francisco Airport, which typically does not have any United operations. We entered through T3, had to walk all the way to T2 to check in our bags, and then walk back to T3.
Where we stayed in San Francisco
We stayed mainly at Super 8 Wyndham Union Square San Francisco because our pickup point was at the Hilton right next to it. This was reasonably priced, although the reviews mentioned homeless people hanging around the premises, which we were aware of, so our expectations were set up front. The rooms were okay, and the breakfast was standard. They had water filter on 5th floor which was useful
Surprisingly, the suite on day one was cheaper than the usual room on day two, although the difference was not much. It had a small extra room to place our baggage, which was not there on the second day. It also had a bathroom between the living room and the bedroom, which was weird because we had to pass through the bathroom to move between the two rooms.
The hotel took a deposit of $100 and returned it immediately after checkout. They also stored our bags for free on the day of checkout. There was a Dreamforce conference over the next three days, which pushed room prices up to about $25,000 per night. It seemed absurd, given that they were half the price on the first two days. So, we moved to North Chapter, San Francisco, on day three.
Chapter San Francisco was surprisingly clean and good. We had a room on the ground floor, with many bathrooms just opposite our room. So, even if one was occupied, we could use another one. All of them were incredibly clean. The rooms had individual pods with a lot of privacy, and we had a sound sleep that night despite the homeless people yelling around outside.
Chapter is a well-thought-through hostel. For example, the cups were really easy to clean and never got soiled too much. The privacy was also very thoughtfully designed and quite unique, something I had never seen elsewhere, because of the individual chambers rather than bunk beds. We had a room of our own. They also had coffee in the common area and plenty of condiments.
The check-in and check-out process seemed a bit rigid. We never got an email because we booked through an aggregator website, but we had to scan the QR code on the door to complete the check-in. The lady would be there only until 2 or 3 p.m., before which we had to bring in all our luggage.
Thankfully, she agreed to let us wait inside before check-in, and since they had to clean the common area, they gave us the rooms an hour before the standard check-in time of 4 p.m., so we were able to enter by 3 p.m. The checkout was automatic, and we were a bit scared that we might get locked out if we did not check out on time, so we left promptly before 10 a.m.