Highway 1 and San Francisco, USA
We left LA and drove up Highway 1 towards San Francisco, and if you’ve ever seen a photo of the California coast and thought “that can’t be real,” I can confirm it is. The drive is stunning. Winding cliffs, the Pacific Ocean stretching out endlessly to the left, and these little coastal towns that look like they’ve been pulled out of a postcard. We stayed overnight in San Simeon, a tiny spot near Hearst Castle, which was a solid place to break up the journey. It’s the kind of drive where you want to stop every five minutes to take a photo, but eventually you just accept that no camera is going to do it justice and you put the phone away and take it in.
Day one in San Francisco started with driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, which is one of those bucket list moments that actually delivers. There’s a reason it’s iconic. That evening we went to a Giants baseball game, and even though I barely understand baseball (I spent most of the game trying to figure out when to cheer), the atmosphere at the ballpark was brilliant. Americans really know how to do stadium food and cold beers.
Day two was the highlight reel. Alcatraz in the morning, which was fascinating and eerie in equal measure. The audio tour is genuinely one of the best I’ve done anywhere — hearing former inmates and guards narrate their experiences while you’re standing in their cells is properly chilling. From there we had lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf (clam chowder in a bread bowl, obviously), caught a cable car, and wandered down Market Street. We ended up on Polk Street for dinner and drinks, which has a great strip of pubs and restaurants.
Day three we were determined to tick off the rest of the list. Another cable car ride, because honestly those things never get old. Lombard Street — the famously crooked one — which is impressive for about thirty seconds and then you realise you’ve just walked down a steep hill and now have to walk back up. The big activity was renting bikes and riding over the Golden Gate Bridge, which is hands down the best way to experience it. The wind absolutely batters you, but cycling across that bridge with the bay on one side and the ocean on the other is something else. We stopped for lunch at Boudin, the sourdough bread place at Fisherman’s Wharf, because when in San Francisco you eat sourdough until you can’t move.
That night there was a pub crawl, which turned out to be a bit of a sausage fest. Not every night can be a winner, but the city more than made up for it over the three days. San Francisco has this energy that’s hard to pin down — it’s hilly, it’s foggy, it’s full of characters, and every neighbourhood feels like its own little world. From there, we pointed the car north towards Seattle.
