San Francisco
San Francisco
- Subject: San Francisco
- From: Hank Harken <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 13:49:08 -0700
Jim Foster inquired...
>
- Seems pointless to rent or even have a car in NYC, but in SF I will
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be coming with three other people who are mostly there to vacation and
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shop, not participate in MacWorld. Should we plan to rent a car or is
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this area of SF a walker's (or public transit) paradise? (We will be
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flying into SF.)
Don't get the car and save yourself the rental fees and also spare yourself
the parking headaches. San Francisco has a great public transportation
system and you can get almost everywhere in the city though the use of BART,
trolley, and bus. Go to one of the newspaper/magazine stands and
buy a city transit map.
I have to warn you that though the cable cars are picturesque, the
ones between Mission and the Fisherman's Wharf area are crammed
with people riding it merely for the experience and oftern there is a long
line to get on it. If you need to get between places in a reasonable
amount of time, take a bus. Pay your fare, ask for a transfer and
you can move between buses and trolleys. Historic trolleys run along
Mission Street and are fun to ride but underground below Mission is
another set of tracks with light rail transit lines which converge in the
downtown area from various parts of the city.
If anyone is getting ready to make travel arrangements for MacWorld
Expo in SF, you might want to compare airfares between arrival
into SF International Airport and arrival at Oakland International.
Sometimes you can get better fares at Oakland. To get to central
San Francisco, there is a shuttle bus (small fare charged) which takes
people to the BART station. There you can take a BART train into
San Francisco. Reverse the process for the trip home.
I understand you can now get to a BART station from the San
Francisco Airport. Access to public transportation used to
be a problem for that airport.
For a longer but different way to arrive, you can also fly into
San Jose, take a bus to the CalTrain station and take the
train into central San Francisco (about an hour train ride ?).
You have to like to travel at a more leisurely pace if you do that.
I have to warn you that if you plan to visit Cupertino and the campus
of a certain computer company ;-) public transportion is a little
more difficult but I have taken a bus to the HQ of our favorite
fruit company. It's outside San Francisco and you take the buses
for the regional system for the peninsula. The name of the transit
authority escapes me at the moment.
>
- I enjoy staying in the Hotel where UGU is being held, like the New
>
Yorker in NYC. But the Argent is quoting me $199.00 U.S. per night and
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I am wondering if that's about right or if there are significantly
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better values still within reasonable distance of Moscone and Argent.
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in other words, does anyone have alternative recommendations for
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accommodations and why?
Check sites like www.placestostay.com for alternatives to the
overpriced hotels. I've stayed at a small family-run hotel only 3 blocks
from Union Square a couple of years ago. It wasn't fancy but it
was safe and reasonably priced. For breakfast, there was a
restaurant/diner just a few feet from the front door of the hotel.
I'll leave it to others to describe the tourist stuff but I can recommend
the Moon Handbooks (a series from Avalon Travel Publishing).
The Moon site...
http://www.moon.com
http://www.moon.com/catalog/san_francisco.html
http://www.moon.com/catalog/california.html
These are terrific guides and will provide you witih very useful
information on places to stay, eat and see. They should be
available at the better bookstores with good travel collections
I'm not associated with the publisher or authors but I'm a very
happy user of their guides for my exploration of the
western states.
Have a great trip. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities and
I've seen a lot of them. Bundle up if you take a harbor tour.
Hank
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