San Francisco is one of our favorite cities in the U.S. and we took our daughters there for the first time a few weeks ago. We took advantage of our enrollment in our airline’s mileage plan and used two of our annual companion fare vouchers and waited until they offered screaming deals on airfare from Seattle to San Francisco. Our total air travel cost was about $350 to fly the four of us round trip because we waited for the right deals!
We then had a special free night’s stay at our hotel earned through the points that we’d built-up over a couple of years which meant we stayed three nights for the price of just two. We’ve found that it is so much cheaper (and at times much faster) to take the BART train from the airport and it saved us a huge amount by not paying for a taxi (not to mention the savings vs. having rented a car and paying $50 per night just to park).
We took the girls to Alcatraz, which is still an absolute must when you are there. Be sure to book your tickets early as they sell out much more than a week in advance. And be wary of offers outside of the official ferry company because the cheapest tickets were directly through the ferry service contracted with the US National Parks.
We also took a bike tour from the wharf, across the Golden Gate Bridge, into Sausalito, and back across the bay on a ferry which was a great way to quickly see more of the city and to see the sun when the downtown part of San Francisco was fogged-in. And Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com) provided us with three tremendous dinner locations with very reasonable menus and prices. Eating breakfasts and lunches with what we bought at fruit stands and at markets was so much cheaper than restaurants and we’ve saved so much money on all of our travels by not sitting down to eat except for at dinner! We love the feel and the sights of San Francisco and we had a great time being together as a family for a three day getaway which did not cost us much money.
