Need advice for 3 Days In California | GTAMotorcycle.com

Need advice for 3 Days In California

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GagguP

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I'm heading to San Francisco, California for business and will be spending 3 days afterwards (Thurs afternoon - Sunday afternoon) exploring. I want to check out Yosemite National Park and was just wondering if anyone has any experience there that they can share. Camping would be great or a cheap place to stay ~$50. If I rent a car I can drive down thursday afternoon/evening explore stay overnight explore the rest on Friday then head back to San Francisco Friday evening.

Also anyone know of things to do in or around the San Francisco Area.

Is there anywhere to ride/rent a motorcycle?...
 
If you haven't done it yet, I can't recommend Pacific Coast Highway enough. Unbelievably beautiful, you'll want to stop around every corner.

I wouldn't bother renting a bike, when I was looking into it, the fee for a Harley (only thing available then) was around $150-200 a day.

Rent a car, take your time, two days to get to LA. Then back on the interstate or even do the PCH back in one day.
 
+100 for the Pacific Coast Highway. Amazing road, non stop twists and incredible views. You really cant go wrong anywhere, from Washington down to California, its packed full of amazing roads for riding.
 
Yup heading down to cali this weekend myself! :D
doing the PCH1 route from LA to SF.

Got my self a ducati 848 evo for $190/day unlimited miles o_O but it'll be worth it though
place i used is http://racyrentals.com/
 
During my trip to Cali last month, I took mostly 101 to SF from LA, so I can't really comment on the PCH, and didn't have the time to go into Yosemite unfortunately.

In SF tho, I dont know if you rent a motorcycle or a bicycle or whatever, you gota check out Mt. Tamalpais State Park !!

Here are some pics on the last few pages - http://www.gtamotorcycle.com/vbforum/showthread.php?175107-T-O-to-California-in-14days

Btw, $50/night is def not going to happen within the city limits of SF or San Jose or LA or any other major cities like that.
In cities, you'd be looking at $80/night on avg. but booking.com or hotels.com may create an opportunity to lower that price quite a bit. Disadvantage; you get a set location to the end of the night, and it may be restrictive to your short journey, especially if not well planned.
If you want $50/night tho, you gota go outside of the 100km radius of the cities. Then you'd be most likely able to find a Motel 6 at $39.99 a night.
 
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Hey I am going down too tomorrow. Going to theworld superbike race in monterey. If you have time rent a car and drive down, abt two hours, take hwy 1 and go see the race for a day l
 
Don't think I'll be there at the right time for the race but that would have been cool to catch.

Also not sure if its worth it to rent a bike as I'll be hauling around carry on, but I really want to do PCH on a bike, haven't made up my mind yet...

Here's the trek I was planning to take.
Leave Thursday (Oct 3) afternoon around 1:30-2 from San Francisco, head to Yosemite (3-4hrs) and camp overnight explore the area on Friday
Leave for Fresno/LA (5-6hrs) Friday evening crash somewhere overnight and use early Saturday morning to explore the area (LA/Long Beach)
Leave Saturday around 11-noon back to San Francisco along the PCH (10-11hrs) crash somewhere overnight
Explore SF on Sunday (Oct 6), need to be bat the SF Airport by 8:30ish.

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/drRSm

...anyone think its too much??
 
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Was in CA in June for 10 days, in a rented car unfortunately. From LA went through Mojave to Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes, Mono Lake, through Yosemite on 108, then Kings Canyon National Park, then zig zagged NW cross country to SF and then down PCH to LA to return home, about 3,000km all told. With only 3 days...... I'd just head down the PCH until you needed to turn around and back head N to SF. I've driven it N and S and it's great in any direction. If you can, stay in Morro Bay, underrated, great dock area and restaurants. Yosemite was great, but very crowded and roads full of huge RV's driven by old men. BTW..... car rental cost for Impala was $196 for 10 days, unlimited mileage.............. I love US pricing
 
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Check out the various comedy clubs in San Francisco. Most are BYOB and pretty good (nice atmosphere...the one I went to someone had baked brownies and handed them out...I think they were normal brownies). One tip, don't sit in the front row.

Do the touristy thing and head down to the piers where the sea lions hang out. Book a trip to Alcatraz well in advance, that's a great trip out too.

Cheap eats to be found in the Tenderloin but don't walk into a crack deal like I did (I honestly thought it was a line up for a vietnamese sandwich shop). Take a trip on the street cars. There's also a good train ride that takes you out to San Jose via Palo Alto, San Luis Obispo etc. The towns on the way are pretty nice, I think you can break your journey a bit to visit them, but San Jose was a big dissapointment for me, pretty dead really. There's a great museum there though, The Tech Museum of Innovation. Great shop inside for gadgets etc.

Haight Ashbury is interesting to look at for the former hippy epicenter. Feels a little bit forced and fake now though. Good places to eat here too.

Edit: Walk across the golden gate bridge and carry on a bit further to Sausalito. Makes for a reasonable hike and pretty nice too.
 
Gaggu P said:
I'm heading to San Francisco, California for business and will be spending 3 days afterwards (Thurs afternoon - Sunday afternoon) exploring. I want to check out Yosemite National Park and was just wondering if anyone has any experience there that they can share. Camping would be great or a cheap place to stay ~$50. If I rent a car I can drive down thursday afternoon/evening explore stay overnight explore the rest on Friday then head back to San Francisco Friday evening.

Also anyone know of things to do in or around the San Francisco Area.

Is there anywhere to ride/rent a motorcycle?...
Click to expand...

Check out eaglerider.com. I've rented Harley's from them before and rode the PCH down to LA and back up again through the desert. Lots of fun. My next trip out there will be through Yosemite. Have fun.
 
Gaggu P said:
Don't think I'll be there at the right time for the race but that would have been cool to catch.

Also not sure if its worth it to rent a bike as I'll be hauling around carry on, but I really want to do PCH on a bike, haven't made up my mind yet...

Here's the trek I was planning to take.
Leave Thursday (Oct 3) afternoon around 1:30-2 from San Francisco, head to Yosemite (3-4hrs) and camp overnight explore the area on Friday
Leave for Fresno/LA (5-6hrs) Friday evening crash somewhere overnight and use early Saturday morning to explore the area (LA/Long Beach)
Leave Saturday around 11-noon back to San Francisco along the PCH (10-11hrs) crash somewhere overnight
Explore SF on Sunday (Oct 6), need to be bat the SF Airport by 8:30ish.

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/drRSm

...anyone think its too much??
Click to expand...

I have done most of what you are planning but over a few different trips. Personally I would try to cut back, you are covering so much area that you wont have much time to take any of it in. My recommendation would be to leave LA for another trip and just head down to a little north of there...and then head up the PCH Yosemite is a must in my book and maybe Hearst castle north of LA. There are a few cheap motels if you look online...stayed at one near Willow Springs that was a small chain and even cheaper than Motel 6...think they had one near San Jose as well. I have a buddy near San Jose so I stay with him...usually once every winter :)
 
Well it looks like the govt is on strike. Alcatraz is closed and so is Yosemite National Park. That certainly ruins my plans..what to do now lol
 
If you don't have enought ime to go south via PCH go east to Lake Tahoe and visit Virginia City. Around that place are great canyon road and in less than an hour you'll be switching from mountains into dessert.
 
I just came back from the superbike race. Hwy 1 is awesome all the way down to south of big sur. Also hwy 17 that goes over a hill is truly terrifying. I wouldn't want to ride that on a moto . Its a constant twisty left right left right down steep hills with concrete barriers and redwoods inches from your mirror lol. It takes so much concentration I couldn't enjoy the scenery lol
 
If you want to see more nature and less people, go north from SF, past Marin and into Napa and Sonoma, at least up to Ft.Bragg. Beautiful country.
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