Hi San Francisco Downtown Union Square

Having dropped off our car - our 1319 mile tour of the east coast completed - we arrived at Buffalo airport for our flight west. Despite a brief stop-over in Chicago-Midway, the trip from Buffalo to San Francisco looked short on paper but, once the time difference (3 hours) had been taken into account, we had been travelling for about 8 hours by the time we arrived in California. Thankfully, the weather that greeted us was as sunny as where we had left, as well as being a bit warmer! From the...

Stayed at; HI San Francisco (downtown Union Square - 312 Mason Street) We just arrived in San Franscisco! Lovely town so far. Heaps of great music performances on the streets, and a pretty place to stay, as there are old cable trams everywhere and old diners where you can get great cheaps meals. It's only around 14 degrees which is a nice change, compared to Vegas where it was around 35 degrees. We went to the Grand Canyon which was amazing! The other days we just walked around, watched free ...

Long, hard and hot... that sums up the Bus journey from LA to San Francisco Found a hostel pretty quick, after the first one I got to was full, I was feeling kind of lonely, least I had a place in Oakland if I need it, (some chap I met in LA) but I didn't feel like going all the way back to Oakland where there had to be one decent hostel left in the city. How foolish of me not realizing it was "Spring Break" the American word for Easter, where every college student in the USA goes to 'Cali', ...

We haven't got much exciting news today as we have just travelled to San Francisco. We were "randomly" selected at the airport in Seattle for a full security search which means we were both patted down and all our hand luggage was swabbed for expolsives etc Apparently they randomly select 9% of each flight. So that was extra fun. We arrived safely in San Francisco. It is much busier and dirtier than Seattle and Vancouver. Lots more homeless people and beggers around as well. Tomorrow we go on...

Today we spent the day on a tour. For the morning we were on a city tour in a tour bus going round all the main points of the city. We had a tour driver who was from Austria and was very hard to understand! you think they would hire tour drivers who actually spoke clear English! It was quite good to get a good overview of the city. In the afternoon we went to Alcatraz which was also very interesting. We did an audio walking tour around the cell block (it's free) where you where headphones and...

We had a very tiring day today! In the morning we caught the cable car down to Fisherman's Warf and hired a tandem bike. We then rode along the water front and across the Golden Gate Bridge - definitely a test of our communication skills! After that we walked around the Fisherman's warf area and did some shopping. In order to experience all forms of transport in San Francisco we caught the street car and then the underground train back to our hostel. So a very long exercise filled day! Tomorr...

A short flight from LA took me to San Francisco and after a ride on the BART and a visit to one of the hostels in the city that I wasn't booked into I finally got checked back into the world of bunkbeds - can't say I missed it!

During my time in San Francisco I've learned a couple of hints that are vital to an enjoyable time there:

1. No matter what the weather looks like dress in layers! The weather changes not only throughout the day but from block to block. One minute I nee...

USA - California 24th May - 3rd June Days 116 - 126 After the East Coast of the USA, and Cancun and Baja California in Mexico, it felt like we'd already spent a lot of time in American'esque resorts, but we had one final road trip to make in the land of plenty, California. We spent around 10 days traveling up and back down the west coast, and it made for a pretty couple of weeks. We arrived at LAX and left the terminal to pick up our hire car. We'd booked an economy, Ford Focus or similar, to...

How y'all doing?? So Fiji is over - we had a wicked time lazing in the sun, lazing in hammocks, lazing in the sun, lazing....etc etc, but we are now in the land of fast food, shopping & celebrities.......USA! Tuesday 15th April So up early to check out of our dorm at Beachcomber & had planned to relax on the beach for a few hours before catching our boat back to the Mainland. However, as always things didn't work out like that.......ended up spending 4 hours fighting at Reception beca...

De boot genomen naar het tot de verbeelding sprekende Alcatraz, gelegen op 'The Rock'. Zo indrukwekkend! Een rondgang door de cellengangen terwijl je de verhalen te horen krijgt over de beroemde escapes, inmates zoals Al Capone,... But I escaped! Met een cruiseboot dan nog wel. In de namiddag door San Frisco (ja, het kan daar koud zijn!) gewandeld, tussen de machtige wolkenkrabbers, de hellende straten, Chinatown,... en savonds een musical op zn Amerikaans: Wicked, the untold story about what...