teriyaki

So i'm travelling through SFO next week, and I have a good 10hour layover in San Fran with us arriving at 7AM (Took a lot of work to get this long layover booked).

I've got a pre-liminary list of things I'd like to do from poking around on FT, but so far its pretty disjointed and from my shallow understanding of the transportation system in SFO, the bill for transportation is already racking up pretty big.

So far, my list stands at:

Golden Gate Bridge
Alcatraz (likely early bird tour)
Taking the "trolley"?
Ferry Ride to Sausalito (just for the view as recommended by FT)

Even with just these 3 activities. I'm looking at:

RT fare for the BART from SFO
Separate fare for the trolley (does this have on-off priviliges? i'd make a quick stop in Chinatown if it did)
RT Fare for the Sausalito Ferry Ride

There's 3 of us going in the family, so we've considered renting a car, but i'm apprehensive of it because of unfamiliarity, parking costs, and I just have a darn good time taking different modes of transportation (Can't say the same for the rest of the family)

Would it actually be more cost-effective to rent a car though? Considering parking costs, tolls i'm not aware of?

malsf1

There is a bus which allows you to hop on/off at various tourist sites.

https://supersightseeing.quicksecure...699dd87e3eda60

The benefit of a car is being able to control the timing of your itinerary. If you rely on SF public transportation (MUNI), you may have a lot of waiting time to get from one point to another (plus transfer times). Also, the cable car system is having improvements made this spring..
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mfleet/Cabl...Spring2011.htm

Given the limited time and what you want to see, I would recommend a car.

manneca

Parking is hard to find in SF and expensive in garages. Tho I did hear the SF now has an iPhone parking app. Actually, I've had good luck finding on street parking near Houstons which is on Bay, I think, near the Embarcadero.

I've never done the trip to Alcatraz, but I would imagine that the view is similar to the view on the ferry. I would think you could see the GG Bridge from the ferry and from the island. I don't think with limited time I'd do both Alcatraz and the ferry to Sausalito.

What do you want to do on the Bridge? I've walked across it and got cold. If it's foggy, then it's miserable. A lovely place to see the bridge and the city is the Legion of Honor. It's generally easy to find parking around the museum. The view across to the Marin Headlands is beautiful.

Get a good map and see where you want to go and make sure you know how to get there. My Garmin GPS doesn't work in downtown SF, though my iPhone app does.

norse_aztec

No, probably not. BART is $8.10 each, so about $49 r/t for the 3 of you. Depending on what you decide to do, having a car would only eliminate those costs. Including gas and parking (no tolls unless you cross a bridge), a car is likely to be more than that.

Now if you consider the cable-car fare and the ferry fare, then the car would be cheaper. But you can't replace the cable car or ferry experience with a car.

If you take BART to the Powell St. station, then you can catch a cable car to Fishermans Wharf. There are no on-off privileges, but the walk from Chinatown to the Wharf can be done in about 30 minutes. From the Wharf you can walk to the piers where the ferries depart to Alcatraz or Sausalito (or Tiburon, Angel Island, or a Bay cruise).

A 10-hour layover is not a tremendous amount of time. You could probably do BART-cable car-Alcatraz and have time for a quick meal, but I wouldn't plan for anything more than that. If you decide to go to Alcatraz, I strongly suggest pre-booking. And while Alcatraz is one of the better tourist attractions in the area, a stroll around Union Square (before getting on the cable car) and then through Chinatown, North Beach, and the Wharf (after getting off the cable car) and then back to SFO after a meal is an option that may be less stressful from a timing standpoint.

koroleon

An alternative to BART to get to SF is the KX bus line: http://www.samtrans.org/pdf/Schedule...X_04-10-11.pdf
Ticket is $2.00 vs $8.10. I haven't tried it yet, but I think I'll start doing it to protest BART's ridiculous pricing.

cblaisd

Did you take a look at the wisdom from other FT members?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/san-f...hlight=layover

rjque

Renting a car could be a wash if the car is inexpensive enough ($20 or less), and I don't think you'll get a rate like that for a one day rental. Bart is going to be easier but not inexpensive.

Also, 10 hours is not enough time to do all of those things, at least, not enjoyably. I'd jettison either Alcatraz or Sausalito as both are a good three hours each given ferry schedules and actually looking around. If you can make it happen (meaning book now), I'd pick Alcatraz and just make sure you know exactly which ferries you need to be on.

Finally, add a bunch of extra time to get from the Alcatraz ferry pier back to Bart, because San Francisco's local public transportation (Muni) is not at all reliable. It will cost a bit more, but consider taking a taxi back to the airport rather than trying to get back to the Bart line from Fisherman's Wharf. That should save a great deal of time and make the trip more enjoyable.

Eastbay1K

What day of the week is this? I ask because I am assuming you will be getting off a long flight, and you will be dealing with morning commute traffic getting into the City. (It isn't horrible typically on 101N, but just something to consider when tired and in unfamiliar surroundings). I also assume you won't have any luggage with you. (I ask because while I am thinking of several walking suggestions, if you have any luggage, it isn't really a great idea.)

FYI, Chinatown starts not too far from Powell St. BART station (not far from Union Square).

Other random thoughts - renting a car (getting to the car, and then on the way back, getting gas, returning the car, taking the train back to the terminal) is going to eat a lot of time. Also, you could end up in parking lots that will eat up the budget if you don't know exactly where to go. Finding freeway onramps to leave SF can be tricky, and by 3pm, can get pretty bad on a weekday.

Given the hour of your arrival (assuming a weekday) and that you may want to eat in a pleasant setting, I'm thinking that taking BART right to Embarcadero Station and having breakfast at Boulette's Larder (or something else that might be open for breakfast in the Ferry Building) would be a nice way to start, and then you can take a nice walk up the Embarcadero to the Wharf. Or you can take the Sausalito Ferry right from the Ferry Building.

norse_aztec

Actually, service between SFO and SF is considered express service and it's $5. Between Palo Alto and SFO it's local service at $2 pp. I've used it often and while not as comfortable as BART, it's not bad. Be aware that they limit luggage. If travel is outside of the commute times, I think the KX bus is faster than BART.

squeakr

and i say this as someone who doesn't throw money around very much

If you really want to see these few things, and you wangled a 10 hour layover do do it, either rent a car (which you drive in a any big city, it's not not much worse in SF) and drive around all these spots without stopping anywhere in SF itself

or

price limo companies who would give you a 4 or 5 hour tour. stop for a late lunch in SF and take BART back....

i just don't see these things being doable on public transport without coordinating it very closely, and one late connection would mess up your whole day.

eeeee

I'm going to second all the suggestions to rent a car. You can see a lot more of the city more efficiently in a car. Even parking downtown isn't too expensive if you use the city-managed lots. They are about $3.50/hour, the same as you'll pay at most meters.

teriyaki

Thanks for all the help guys. I had an amazing time in San Francisco with some of the tips I found here. The day trip went mostly hiccup-less.

Heres a rundown (mini trip report) of what I did, might help others in the future.

SFO Airport

Arrived at around 7AM on time after our red-eye flight. Went into the first washroom we saw and got freshened up. We had to put away all our bags so we made the trip to the International Terminal to the only place that holds bags. It's pretty pricey. $13/carry-on and they count each bag separately so if you've got duty-free items, small purses, stuff them into one bag to save some money.

BART

Took the BART from the terminal into the city. The ticket purchasing system is one of the most confusing systems I've used to date. We had 3 people, and the system just isn't made for "batch" tickets. Nevertheless, we figured it out and we were on our way.

Powell Station

We disembarked at Powell Station hoping to find some good cheap-eats. This was one of the few things I think further research would have helped with. Aimlessly walked around until we couldn't help but sit down, ended up at Jack in the Box. (kind of special since we don't have any in Canada)

Chinatown

We considered taking the cable car, which would have taken us straight to chinatown but the price and long line-up (even in the morning) were reason enough for us to choose walking. We didn't really know how far we'd have to walk but it before we knew it we were in Chinatown. It's huge. We walked down several streets and this is when we regretted eating fast food earlier. So much food on every block.

Coit Tower

We continued down our original path, heading north with no regard to what street we were on. Fortunately, after some more grueling uphill battles, we spotted Coit Tower and decided to take the slight detour up. Completely worth it. The views were spectacular. The surrounding neighbourhood is very calm and interesting as well.

Alcatraz Landing

We were able to get our bearings after Coit Tower and we headed for the pier where the boats left for Alcatraz. Tickets were readily available for all sailings, we were pretty lucky. We got on the next boat for Alcatraz. One note, food and drinks were insanely expensive around this area. Thankfully we grabbed our fill in Chinatown for cents on the dollar.

Alcatraz

Very glad I went here. The audio-tour was simply superb. We spent 3 hours here without even realizing it. Completely worth the hype. Sidenote: All 3 of us fell dead-asleep on the boat ride there and back due to our sleepless red-eye flight.

Backtracking

With Alcatraz being the highlight of our sightseeing day. We started to turn back towards Powell station. We made a brief stop-over at Fishermans Wharf, which was a complete tourist trap so we just snapped a few pictures and left promptly.

We considered taking a bus, but since we wanted more awesome food from Chinatown we walked all the way back across the city from the piers. Stopped for random bits and bites from different restaurants and bakeries in Chinatown. I'm envious of how vibrant this community is (coming from Vancouver where our Chinatown is on life-support).

Powell Again.

This is where we met a slight snafu. After repeated attempts at different machines to buy more tickets, we kept coming across errors. We had to ask the attendant and apparently there is a limit on each credit card for 2 round-trips per day. We had to end up using seperate cards and cash, but crisis averted.

SFO

Also to note we boarded the wrong train enroute to SFO. We boarded a train to Millbrae thinking all trains would pass by SFO. We were wrong and had to disembark and wait for the right train. So a heads-up for future would be BART takers.

And that was our layover in SFO. Couldn't have asked for more really. We might have seen "more" with a car but we absolutely loved walking down the streets and watching the scenery change with each neighbourhood we passed. I'll definitely be back for a more prolonged trip one day in the future.

rjque

That's a full day! Well done - you managed to see a lot more than I would have, given the limited time in SF.

goalie

Nicely done all around ^ and sorry about the two minor "mishaps" regarding Bart and the fare machines but don't feel too bad as even seasoned riders who don't have a monthly pass have the same problems and yes, many folks think the Millbrae train goes to SFO (but as you know, it's an easy fix once you are at the Millbrae station)

squeakr

I have to disagree on tickets- BART is modeled on DC"s system which is very similar and no one seems to get confused by DC's ticketing. Once you figure out
each person needs a ticket
fares are zoned specifically and it's a different cost for each destination

this is not at all about the OP, just to reiterate it's not rocket science...