Hidden gems within 4 hours drive of San Francisco?

[Spellfish]

We’ve got the possibility of cheap flights to San Francisco in August - me, DH and DC 11 and 14. Can anyone recommend something other than the stuff that comes up in Google - Yosemite, Alcatraz, Sequoia?

Happy to do those, but any hidden gems would be great. We like hiking, food that isn’t fast, wild swimming and anything mechanical (oldest DC’s favourite thing in NY was the subway museum). Not keen on super long drives of massive crowds. Can anyone recommend places to stay or activities that you’ve done and were great?

Doesn’t need to be luxurious, but not camping and not super crowded if possible. Ideally self catering in one or two of the National Parks, I think, plus a couple of days in the city.

Drive up to Mendocino county and see the redwoods and some small off the beaten track towns

Definitely Roaring Camp Railroad to see the redwoods. Fantastic day out (after that keep driving down to Monterrey and visit the aquarium)

Exploratorium is also a MUST (for the fog bridge alone)

Here are the details of our trip. Some of it won't be your bag but there are some hidden gems on there

affordacool.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/california/

Wow, so many things to look up! Seeing the cable cars turn around, the quieter parks and the tips on the bridge are brilliant. The DC aren’t big on animals (we’ve tried) but historical stuff is good, and I think an observatory would be fantastic. I will go through all this tomorrow properly (doing the post school busyness right now) and probably come back with questions - but thank you all!

Oh, any thoughts on places in National Parks to stay would be wonderful. We want a good few days with not much driving and staying in one place and hiking / swimming / relaxing, was thinking Yosemite or Kings Canyon but perhaps some of the suggestions up-thread would be better?

Monterrey - go kayaking in the bay and you can be close up to sea otters, and do a whale watching trip. Last time I was there I saw an orca from the deck in front of our hotel.
The Hyatt at Carmel Highlands has the most amazing restaurant view where you eat and watch whales

Theres a good aviation museum in SF too

We visited Yosemite 2 years ago but stayed outside the park to keeping the costs down… drove about 20 minutes to get into the park. I have to say it was 40degrees in August so beware of that if you’re not big on heat. We then travelled to Carmel which has a lovely beach but is quite “bouji” for my taste ( an outpost of Tiffany as an example). We were in an apart hotel though so kept costs down that way. We did a drive down onto Big Sur which we all loved… if I were to go back I’d definitely position myself along there. Hidden beaches, rugged coastline and forests. It has a very artistic vibe. The week after we left David Crosby ( from Crosby Stills & Nash) was playing a live gig at the Henry Miller library. I’m sure there’s lots of money around there but it wasn’t quite so overt as Carmel.

I went years ago with a friend and we drove up to the Russian River and did a canoe trip there and stayed at ferngrove.com/ we loved it and would highly recommend seeing the redwoods there.

Nice link @LondonMummer

I've book marked it for future reference.

We have been to SF loads of times. Last time was the whole family - us, the children and grandchildren. We stayed in Sausalito, right on the beach. Seems like a lifetime ago.

Definitely Monterey, the aquarium is out of this world and the fresh seafood was really lovely too.

Also second the cable car museum in SF. In downtown SF you can go into one of the skyscrapers (pretend you have a meeting) and just ride the elevator to see the views

Based on these suggestions, I’ve done a bit of looking at maps and guidebooks, and am wondering whether the timings are right?

2 days in San Francisco - museums, bridge etc
4 days in Yosemite
4 days in Kings Canyon / Sequoia
Overnight in Monterey (to break up the drive back to San Francisco)
San Francisco for a night before getting the plane

I’ve got a few more days to play with as we’re going for 14 - I’m torn between extra days in the parks and one more stop, but not sure where especially as we don’t want to drive for more than 4 hours in a day. I’d love to fit in Death Valley or failing that Mono Lake, but in August I think we’d melt, and it would be a lot of driving as there’s no short way to get from there into Kings Canyon.

If you stay at Esalen you can use their natural hot springs on the cliff edge overlooking the pacific in Big Sur.

www.esalen.org/visit/campus-features