are you sure you have been? Cannery Row is in Monterey 125 miles south of SF and doesnt smell. The monterey bay aquarium is there. Carmel and the Big Sur coast are incredible. We had a week in SF in November and have been on shorter trips from vegas before. San fran is my favourite US city. We found there was more then enough to fill a week. The ferry building is great as is the entire embercardo. there are world class museums sfmoma the cali academy of science etc. Theres also great shopping including a westfield mall with the best food court I have ever eaten at (the best local restaurants have concessions)

Agree with the comments re the increasing number of homeless though. Apparently SF has the most generous benefits and attracts homeless from across the US

and LA.

I guess if you didn't have a roof over your head better to be in warm Cali than the cold east coast.

Next time you visit, try heading North, I guarantee you will not be disappointed. It's like driving 2,000 miles along the Cornish coastline

rhino Phil is right about that food court. First time I have ever eaten pizza pie. I still haven't completely recovered from the experience.

I did the west coast drive in 09 and went to plenty of beautiful places.

SF is a beautiful city, at the right time of the year. It is probably my favourite US city because of the diversity within such a small location. Chinatown is quite unbelievable and the food there is beyond immense, decently priced too. Union Sq is a great hub and with plenty of places to sit and watch all the madness around you its great and surprising relaxing. Staying in the centre can be a bit pricey but booked far enough in advance the prices are reasonable.

The obvious GG Bridge and Alcatraz are must do's but i think Coit Tower doesn't get the talking it deserves the views from up high are magnificent on a sunny clear day, with views across the Bay and the Financial district. The trams are another thing to experience, the speed and angle they get! Plenty of other things to do including shopping (unfortunately) but Pier 39 is a nice place to eat and hang out too. Fish doesn't get much fresher than that.

A drive up the coast is a must, we stayed in Monterey and Santa Barbara and the like but the best point was the Big Sur. It is stunning.

Vegas is very very hit and miss, if you like tacky exaggerated Americanisation of everything then you will love it. If not then give it 3 days and move on quickly. Yosemite like someone said before is a beautiful beautiful place with so much to see and do and staying within a good hours drive of that area can be cheap and quiet after the hustle and bustle of Vegas and SF and even LA if you choose to go there.

Driving is tough work over there often with little to look at out of the window. But thats just me, i loved it in 2009 and in the summer its arguably one of the best places to be.

We got married last September and had a 2 week honeymoon in the states.

We booked with Virgin Holidays and they were great at sorting out flights, transfers and hotel changes etc.

We started with 3 nights in Vegas, followed by 7 nights on Oahu Hawaii, ending with 4 nights in San Francisco (flying from Gatwick). (We'd got engaged in Vegas, and were keen to go back on our Honeymoon. Incidently, we're heading back there for our first anniv).

We stayed at the Palazzo in Vegas, and knowing what to expect from Vegas we had a cracking mad start to the Honeymoon. Plenty of drinking, eating over indulgent American portitions of food, and a bit of gambling. I think it's been mentioned on this thread already about what to expect from Vegas, but it's like a giant adult playground, and if you like a laugh and don't take it all to seriously it can be incredibly fun. One tip for Vegas is to head down to Freemont Street at night for the lights show.

On Oahu we stayed at the Kahala. It's a fantastic hotel on it's own just up the coast from Waikiki so that you can avoid the hussle and bustle when you want to. It's a very romantic place and perfect for a Honeymoon. We hired a car whilst there and drove around the island. I loved where we stayed on Oahu and also enjoyed all of what Waikiki had to offer but for pure beauty you couldn't beat the quiet beaches on the east coast and north of the island. We also found a Botanic garden on the east coast whilst driving around that had a natural waterfall lagoon that you could swim in. It doesn't get much more romantic than that!



We stayed at the Fairmont in San Francisco, right at the top of Nob Hill. It was my first time there and I loved it. To be honest, given the choice again we may have chosen a different hotel. As although the Fairmont was very grand, it was also a bit impersonal. I far prefered the more informal hotels closer to Fishermans Wharf, where you didn't have the hill trek back to the hotel everytime you went anywhere. San Francisco is a fantastic place and I was surprised by how european it felt compared to the rest of America. There are some fantastic breweries there and plenty of bars to drink the beer in.

If you do end up there, definitely do one of the bus tours around the city and over the Golden Gate bridge, and Alcatraz at night is fantastic. You can buy the tickets quite cheapily on the net before you go.

are you sure you have been? Cannery Row is in Monterey 125 miles south of SF and doesnt smell. The monterey bay aquarium is there. Carmel and the Big Sur coast are incredible. We had a week in SF in November and have been on shorter trips from vegas before. San fran is my favourite US city. We found there was more then enough to fill a week. The ferry building is great as is the entire embercardo. there are world class museums sfmoma the cali academy of science etc. Theres also great shopping including a westfield mall with the best food court I have ever eaten at (the best local restaurants have concessions)

Agree with the comments re the increasing number of homeless though. Apparently SF has the most generous benefits and attracts homeless from across the US.

I have mate. Many coastal towns on the western seaboard, had a " cannery row", obviously warehouses or workshops where the food was canned. The Monterrey 1 being the most famous due to the Steinbeck novel of the same name. The 1 in SF is, ims, around the corner from Pier 39, think it is now some inside market.

If the OP must stay in SF, then Sausalito Bay, across the Golden Gate Bridge is nice. ps/ Book your Alcatraz trip well in advance, due to popularity.

If staying in Southern California, then Laguna, between Seal Beach and San Diego is a must. Very Scandinavian, very romantic, and not at all American.

Why would anyone go to the USA in the hope of finding somewhere that was "not at all American"?

It's nice, in the way, that it is not American. don't recall seeing any Maccies, overweight people. Ims, a Scandinavian family developed it in the 1800s. A very pleasant surprise.

So a bit like some sort of theme park then? Seems more like the USA than you would suggest.

After 40 years of visiting the USA on vacations, extended stays and working in the 38 states that I have visited, I found many places that didn't have a Mucky D and you don't tend to see overweight munters in most places off the beaten track.

Sorry but I'd put finding somewhere in the USA that was "not American" was similar to finding a Full English in Corfu

SF does not have a Cannery Row. It has [iThe Cannery[/i which is along Jefferson from Pier 39, not far from Hyde Pier and the historic ships. It's now a combination of small plaza, indoor market, and hotel. The plaza boasts Jack's Bar which has around 100 different types of beer. No part of Fisherman's Wharf smells, and I go there in mid July every year.

Sausalito (no Bay) is indeed a lovely place to visit, but I wouldn't recommend staying there unless absolutely minted. There's also not a great deal to do there except admire the scenery. Or go shopping for a seaplane.

I don't recall it smelling either. I remember it raining though. Heavily. That bar is OK but 100 beers isn't amazing by American standards, at least 90 will be lousy too. I have no desire to ever go back to SF. 3 days was plenty.

The worst weather I've experienced there is the fog that rolls in on short notice. Boy does the temperature drop!

Jack's Bar is pretty good IMO, and maybe unusual in that a large number of those beers are actually well worth drinking. There's plenty of US beers that are of excellent quality nowadays, and they carry lots of European beers as well.

Kosh;
I stand connected on Cannery.

Cod'ead
No theme parks in Laguna, just a lovely unspoilt seaside resort.

They had Rugby Union on when I went in ergo I don't like it

The weather in SF is like a big game isn't it. Don't take a coat and you'll feel the chill but take one and its wall to wall sunshine. The fog is quite amazing at times, watching it roll in from the top of Coit Tower is a great sight.

Sorry to jump in with my 2 pence about Jacks.......

They had the football on when we were there, and there were quite a few english locals so it felt like an English pub.

We found a place further up the hill near North Beach called The Rogue. It was a cracking pub with lots of decent beers on.

I foolishly went out wearing a shorts and t-shirt (cocky English person abroad attitude), walked around Fishermans Wharf in the sunshine etc, 30 minutes later its absolutely bucketing down, so we had to go into Jack's for a pint. After 2 beers, we went out to catch the cable car (still raining), the queue was absolutely massive, people stood there absolutely drowning. So we went back to Jack's, later flagged down a taxi, which was much faster, must cheaper and far more comfortable.

The area at the end of Pier 39 where the sealions hang out did stink a few years ago but most of them have disappeared now. There were probably no more than 10 there in November.

Laguna is a real gem - one of the nicest places in the country.

The sea lions are only there in numbers at certain times of the year - there's never many there when I visit in July but when I visited in April one year there were loads of them. And yes - it does honk a bit when all the platforms are full.