How To Have A Great Time In San Francisco

Hello again!

This will officially be my first real travel post, and I can hardly contain my excitement. To start it off right, I figured I would write about one of my favorite cities in the U.S...

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San Francisco!

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Me, on a sailboat	The Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco is a place that I hold very dear. At this point in my life, I have only been there twice, but within those short periods of time, SF has really left its mark. Our first trip to the city was in March of 2016, and our most recent visit was about three weeks ago. And I must say, this visit beat our first by a landslide. This time around, we figured we would do a few more "touristy" activities, which included taking a ride on a double-decker bus throughout the city (including over the GGB), going to Pier 39 for some good food and games, and going on a sailboat.

Our day began with a rather frustrating chain of events. In order to get on the big two-level bus for a tour, we first had to find a bus stop. Simple enough, right? Well, fate had a different plan for us that day. We happened to pick the one bus stop that was defying the normal bus schedule, due primarily to various road closures. This minor detail ended up being a MAJOR detail, which ultimately led to us walking around for over an hour like a litter of lost puppies.

Although that experience was not exactly what we were expecting, we eventually found a stop and flopped into the bus, most likely scaring a majority of the other tourists in there. It was stressful at the time, but we now look back on this memory as being hilarious! That's what life is all about, isn't it?

A very tourist-saturated area in San Francisco is Pier 39. It's for this reason that we didn't spend too long in the area. We could only take being squashed together like sardines for so long. This pier is home to a plethora of activities: rides, arcade games, movies, food, you name it. It can also be quite fun to just walk around the entire pier, popping into all of the different stores and such, which is what our main course of action was.

If you start walking towards the back-end of the pier, you might start hearing some strange sounds. Dogs? No. Weird people yelling at each other? Close, but no. When you get to the end you'll come to discover that the noises are coming from a considerable amount of sea lions! In the water, right over the edge of the deck you stand on, there are wooden planks floating. These planks are usually full of sea lions laying all over each other, barking like horn. It's quite a sight!

The tour was a nice little touch to our visit, and the pier was quite fun, but they were certainly not what I was looking forward to the most.

I have always loved the water. Whether it's a lake, pond, stream, river, or ocean, I always feel a calmness come over me when there's a body of water. The Pacific, in particular, has become a sort of comforting presence on this crazy RV trip. It may be colder than a toilet seat in winter, but I will always be in that ocean, and loving every second of it. So, you can probably understand how thrilled I was when I heard we were going sailing off the coast of San Francisco. And let me tell you, it lived up to expectations.

My little brother Aaron and I sailing the ocean blue

The experience of sailing the Pacific Ocean lit a fire in me; a fire of passion and determination. As soon as we got out on the water, the only thing running through my head was, "This is it. This is the goal."

I have made it a dream of mine to one day own a sailboat and sail whenever I may please. And just so you know, my entire family will certainly be partaking in the eventual culmination of my goal. They also felt a strong pull towards sailing, and now we all want to get out on the water every chance we get. The service that we went with is called Adventure Cat Sailing Charters. If you ever find yourself to be in San Francisco, you won't regret taking a trip with them. They all seem like very cool people, and if you were to see them on the street, it would most likely be obvious that they're sailors. With long hair and nice beards, you could say that I'm a bit jealous of them. When you mix sailing, cool people, and good music together, a great time is inevitable.

Part of the sailboat with the GGB

There you have it! That's just a little slice of this trip, so there will be much more to come. If you want to keep updated with all of my family's travels, follow me! Let's make a community of people who have a love for travel, people, and a good time :-)

~ Josiah T. B.