Here we go, 4 weeks in California. Aiming to match (or beat?!) our best family holiday yet in Canada two summers ago. We’ve got cities, vineyards, seascapes, volcanoes and mountains coming our way.

First stop San Francisco. As usual, bedding down in the nearest city for a few days whilst the jet lag subsides. We stayed in a little AirBnB in Russian Hill (next Nob Hill no less 🤣).

Regular readers will know that we don’t love cities…and yes we know we live in London. But we were excited, San Fran looked promising – nice climate, stuff to do, easy to get around, Crossfit boxes 😉…

We’d heard about San Francisco fog and that was totally correct. Despite beautiful bright afternoons that reminded us of New Zealand, the mornings were drizzly and chilly.

We weren’t put off, and the following morning after putting on all our warm weather clothes, we headed straight to Alcatraz. A short ferry hop from the mainland with the real highlight being the self guided audio tour. Total result that we didn’t have to list to an overly excitable American talk for an ever lasting time (unbearable even without jet lag). Instead we heard from actual prison officers and inmates as we toured the main part of the prison. The prison conditions were ghastly, near full time cell confinement (5ft by 9ft) and a taste of what the pitch black isolation cells would have felt like – totally horrific. It was also weird to hear about the inmates – Al Capone, the Birdman but also others that aren’t famous but had committed awful crimes. You can’t help but wonder what must have happened to a person to lead them to a life like that. It all sounds very morbid but it did captivate James…albeit not as much as the ~5k cormorants nesting on the island. He adored them despite the stink!

We staggered through the rest of the first full day, choosing an open top bus tour as the best way to see the city whilst also taking it easy as jet lag hit full force in the afternoon. Despite being touristy we love a ‘hop on and off’ bus tour…with the last one being in Cartagena in Colombia 🇨🇴.

We got a great view of stunning parts of the city including Golden Gate park and a big reason for bus ride – a trip over Golden Gate Bridge – on the top deck!

More and more I am finding myself having moments where ‘younger Lucy’ would have had a whole load more fun than this current older version. This was one of those moments…sitting on the top deck, wind blasting across the bay, staring carefully at the middle of the bus, pretending not to have a gentle form of vertigo. Needless to say James thought this was hilarious with my nerves only added to his joy!

We rewarded our survival with burgers and a tasty beer in Cow Hollow. Apparently an area where trendy, affluent young professionals live…we fitted right in 🤣.

The next day was spent at the Exploratorium. San Francisco’s Science Museum for Kids. Happy James = happy parents = guilt free trip to the local wine bar afterwards. Perfect!

We’ve already started to notice how friendly the locals and fellow tourists are. It’s easy to strike up a conversation and people seem super kind, interested and full of recommendations. It also seems to be very kid friendly…as long as you do not let them sit at a bar!!

A final highlight of San Francisco was the autonomous taxis run by Waymo. In the downtown district they are everywhere and even the Uber drivers are complimentary about the their driving skills!

Overall San Fran is a cool city. Clean, safe, nice neighbourhoods and much quieter than London. I would suggest in general staying clear of the very central areas, around the Civic Centre. Like Vancouver (though not to the same extent) it is super sad to see the effect Fentanyl is having on people.

City time complete, it’s time to collect the car and head north…