San Fran

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So, if we can get our act together (which is looking less and less likely as the days and weeks pass), Matt and I are thinking of visiting San Francisco in late October. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to stay?

6 thoughts on “San Fran”

  1. I have stayed at a hotel called Hotel Union Square (www.hotelunionsqure) which has a great location…just a block off Union Square, and a block off of the Cable Car station and Market Street. Right there at Market Street you can catch the MUNI up to the Castro. It’s a nice small hotel owned by a local owner. I enjoyed my stay there. Check out the web site. It was a few years ago so I am not sure how the rates are now and what kinda budget you have…

  2. My boyfriend and I found a great flight/hotel combination deal on Expedia.com two months ago. The hotel was The Hotel Vitale (http://www.hotelvitale.com/?gst) – a nice new boutique hotel across the street from the Ferry Building on the Embarcadaro. It is a bit of a walk to Union Square (you can take the muni though), but it was worth it as the hotel was really nice and I love walking over to the Ferry Building (a great place to meander and people watch) in the early AM and grabbing some coffee (plus some good running routes just outside the hotel doors).

    The pricing on the hotel was somewhere between $100 – $130 (as it was bundled with the flight we backed into this figure based on what flights were running stand alone). Considering “rack rates” are like $269 a night, it was a total bargin.

    If you want to be closer to Union Square, any of the Kimpton hotels (http://www.kimptonhotels.com/) are generally pretty good and you can find some decent deals on Expedia for these as well.

    Enjoy the trip – SF is such a great place!

  5. When I lived in the Castro, I sometimes had friends stay at the Willows. It’s a nice place, very convenient to everywhere, including the subway and the streetcar.

    Of course, there’s always the notorious Beck’s Motor Lodge, on Market Street in the Castro. Sort of an indoor/outdoor bathhouse. If it’s THAT kind of trip. :P

  6. Still pondering? The cross-country airfares from my city to SFC have suddenly dipped as low as I ever see them — surprising, given fuel costs. A third of the travel costs would wind up being rides to and from airports. And it’s still a better-than-just-good time of year for weather and daylight.

    Since no one else was unhip enough to mention it, let me contribute the entirely conventional Radisson at Fisherman’s Wharf to the list. It’s sedate enough even sitting dead center in Tourist Central, has parking and views and a too-convenient Ben & Jerry’s, and of all the chain hotels at the Wharf, is the one that suffers the least compared to other properties in its chain. (Many hotels nearby have scaled-down rooms, shoehorned into retrofitted older properties — new construction being insanely expensive — as well as reduced amenities and oddly dismissive staff.) The parking can help when renting a car for a couple days, to reach Mount Tamalpais… or Wine Country… or Berkeley… or the Jelly Belly factory… or okay, I’ll stop there.

    To me, waking, departing and returning to the activity milling about that glistening bay is what makes San Francisco. If you haven’t hit the landmarks, buy the CityPass, aim for weekdays, rent the ubiquitous bikes, pocket multiple copies of the free bike route maps, and puzzle out the flater routes to the notable sites, CityPass and otherwise. For couch potatoes from level cities, the humiliation of being passed by a unicyclist while huffing a bike uphill on foot is part of San Fran’s magic too. (Also the Musee Mechanique, though it lost some out-of-the-way charm moving from the Cliff House, and it’s worth catching site of the beaches over yonder.)

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