We Lost Our Hearts to San Francisco

April 27, 2026 | Dave | USA

We Lost Our Hearts to San Francisco

We really did! We want to come back. We would like to live here. Our stay here was special thanks to Sean and Cricket. Who? You ask. We met Sean and Cricket, Californians, at a Tanzanian campsite on a coffee plantation in 2022 and then on a couple more occasions shortly afterwards.

Tanzania, 2022

Sean said that when we arrived in San Francisco, we were to look him up. And so we did and he was kind enough to let us stay in an apartment in the heart of the city, very close to the Golden Gate Park pan handle.

San Francisco, 2026

On our drive in to San Francisco from Half Moon Bay, we decided to try and camp on Treasure Island, a man-made island in the bay and located half way along the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It made for a great ‘wild camp’ in a carpark with a view of the Oakland Bay Bridge, San Francisco skyline, Golden Gate Bridge in the distance and Alcatraz – all from Big Bertha. We liked it so much, we camped here again on our way out of the city.

Our first problem was finding somewhere to park Big Bertha while we decamped to Sean’s flat in the city. David found a storage company across the bay on Alameda island and we negotiated month’s parking for $82 (bargain!). After depositing Big Bertha in storage, we walked to the end of the road in Alameda to the Seaplane ferry terminal and boarded a catamaran to the Ferry Building in San Francisco and from there we Ubered to Sean’s flat. Already we were feeling the city’s vibe.

Sean’s flat is in the Haight/Ashbury district, very close to the Golden Gate Park and Haight Road – a street full of countless eateries and other interesting vendors. We could not have asked for a better location! The flat itself was decked out in period furniture and knick knacks that Sean collected over the years and was very comfortable. We felt right at home.

Sean’s generosity knows no bounds and he gave over two days of his time to take us for a tour of the city in his attention-drawing 1963 VW Beetle convertible. Given the sun shone for the whole duration of our stay, we could not have asked for a better mode of transport. We would never have got to see some of these places otherwise. Thank you Sean!!

Sean was born and bred in the San Francisco and he regaled us with his ‘Tales of the City’ while visiting the city’s highlights.

Beach Chalet Murals and Sutro Baths

Golden Gate Bridge view points

China Town

Painted Ladies

Coit Tower

Palace of Fine Arts

Fisherman’s Wharf and Ferry Terminal

Miscellaneous VW Tour Photos

Aside from Sean’s marvellous tour, we used the myriad of transport options to visit this fantastic city. We wandered by an arcade with fifty or so old pin ball machines and we spent a surprisingly enjoyable half hour and some quarters playing on the machines. ‘Pulp Fiction’ was Francine’s favourite.

Later in the day we climbed up to the ‘Twin Peaks’ park for a view over the city at dusk.

The cable cars are synonymous with San Francisco and we took several rides and also visited the Cable Car museum which centres around the winding gear that moves the steel cables under the street tracks onto which the cars clamp themselves to be pulled along.

Sean took us for a brief tour of the Golden Gate Park, but recommended that we come back and explore it on foot as huge parts of it are pedestrianised. Francine read about a Japanese Tea Garden in the park where we could take tea.

Before arriving, we started re-watching Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’ and we visited Macondray Lane, said to be the inspiration for the fictional ‘Barbary Lane’.

We returned to have a look at Fisherman’s Wharf on foot. It is famous for the piers and the attendant seals (we were not impressed having seen far bigger colonies in our travels).

We had heard that a cocktail in the bar ‘Top of the Mark’ was the place in which to be seen and so we were. It was a lovely sunset and we poked our noses in the Tonga Room across the road afterwards.

Chinatown here was a lot better that Los Angeles’s with two parallel streets – one for tourists and one for the Chinese. The latter was very much like we remember of our time in Hong Kong – lots of little old ladies barging you aside, small shops stacked with un-customer friendly boxes in the aisles and grumpy shop keepers! It was great!! We found a fortune cookie shop and bought some to go along with our take away Chinese pork BBQ.

We met up with Simon and Marie, friends from our Abu Dhabi days, to enjoy Greek cuisine, then afterwards watch the Chinese New Year parade and round off the evening with a pint of Kilkenny beer at the Irish Pub. Very civilized!

One unique feature of San Francisco is the Waymo driverless cars. They are prolific and, whilst more expensive than Uber (weirdly), we had to try one out. It was very unnerving to be ‘driven’ through the busy city streets, but we both thought it did very well. The whole journey was without human interaction – we ordered the trip on our phone app, unlocked the doors on its arrival using the phone app, got inside and off we went (more in our video below)

And of course we looked up the local Scottish Country Dance group and spent an evening dancing some more complicated dances (Dave watched on this occasion).