My wife has an overseas flight later this month from SFO (San Francisco) airport, and Iam looking for ideas on how to avoid driving in the big city. Our plan is to park the motorhome somewhere within a hundred miles of San Fran and then take a shuttle or other public transportation into the airport. Any information or ideas are welcome. Also I will be staying behind and I will need a campground for 6 weeks in central CA.

Hang on to your wallet....Friends just got quotes today for the same from west of Bakersfield to SFO and the best shuttle price they found was .........Sit down........$250 each, ONE way. They also contacted car rental companies and with drop off fees, it was $200 round trip from the RV park to SFO and return. You can guess which they are using.

San Francisco Airport isn't in San Francisco so you can come up from the south and get to the airport without any City driving. The airport is right on the freeway. Or are you just trying to avoid driving in the Bay Area at all? As long as you can avoid rush hour traffic times, it's really a fairly easy drive to get in and out of SFO.As for camping for six weeks, it depends on what you want to see and do for that six weeks and how much money you want to spend. You can find RV parks along the coast but they'll be real expensive. There are RV parks in the central valley in the flat lands, and they are probably cheap, but your going to be in the central valley next to the cow pastures and farms. There are RV parks all over the Sierra foothills that are probably reasonably priced.If you want to be close to SFO there is an RV park in Pacifica and I think the name of it now is San Francisco RV Resort or something like that. It's on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It's on the opposite side of the peninsula from SFO and with no traffic maybe a 15 minute drive. I have no idea what six weeks would cost there, but it's one of those hundred dollar a night places for short term stays.

Thanks. The older I get the less I want to drive in traffic, and airports seem to always be a pain to find the right lane to do what you need to do, so I thought about other means of getting to the airport. I see that Bart has a stop there however I just don't know anything about the area. As for campgrounds, I may look at one that is close to SFO for a day or two prior to the departure to make it easy, and then move out to the central valley to wait for her return.

BART does go directly into the airport now, but I've never taken it there. I guess the trick is going at the right time on BART because your wife will probably have some luggage and that can be a pain if the train is crowded. If you're on off commute hours it shouldn't be that big of a deal. There are all kinds of shuttle services to get you to SFO I've just never used them so don't know what to recommend. My main reason for replying was just to point out it's not that hard to drive to SFO to drop somebody off. And yeah, there are lots of roads at the airport, but it's really well marked. Just follow the signs for Departures and look for her airline and drop her off at the curb. I'm assuming you have a toad and aren't going into the airport in your motorhome? If you insist on BART there is a RV park at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds. It's not far from the Pleasanton BART station. It's too far to walk easily, but I think it's less than 2 miles.You also have CalTrain that goes close to the Airport. I think they have a bus shuttle to take you over to the airport from the CalTrain station. It's just on the other side of the freeway from the Airport. CalTrain runs from San Francisco down to I think Gilroy. I'm not sure if it goes further south than Gilroy or not. There are some nice RV parks around Gilroy too. And that wouldn't be a bad place to spend six weeks because you aren't far from the coast and you can access the South Bay pretty easily.

Just for info I looked at the CalTrain website for you and although it does go all the way down to Gilroy, trains only run to Gilroy during the weekday commute times. So if you weren't going to the Airport at Commute time you would have to go to downtown San Jose to get to the furthest South CalTrain station. That's the good news, the bad new is San Jose is a big city and if you're going to drive to downtown San Jose you may as well just stay on 101 and drive all the way to the Airport. It really isn't that bad.

Shuttle service to SFO airport | Good Sam Community

GopherBroke
Explorer
Oct 24, 2013
Thanks I will check them out.
J-mans_Dad
Explorer
Oct 24, 2013
Glad that worked for you. BART strike is done, now the east bay bus system is on a 60 day cooling off. Just more things to keep the bay area traffic interesting.

Off topic - If you're looking for something to do while waiting for DW to return
Home Front National Park - Richmond, CA
Jelly Belly Factory Tour
Western Railway Museum
GopherBroke
Explorer
Oct 24, 2013
Well the deed is done, and it worked like it was suggested. We did a trial run on Sunday and did the tourist thing, which really paid off on Tuesday. We arrived on the bridge at the suggested time and breezed all the way to the hotel with hours to spare, so we did more tourist stuff.
GopherBroke
Explorer
Oct 20, 2013
Thanks J-Mans Dad. We are going in to the city today as tourist and we will check out your route for Tuesdays adventure.
J-mans_Dad
Explorer
Oct 20, 2013
I'd take 80 to 680south across the Carquinez Bridge (non-toll direction) thru Walnut Creek to 580.
580 West to 238 north then south on 880 to San Mateo bridge (hwy 92)
Cross the bridge then 101 north.
If you're coming in Tuesday, and the BART strike is still on, I'd shoot for crossing the bridge around 11:00. Right now the commute is a nightmare anywhere in The Bay Area leading to a bridge to cross the bay.
GopherBroke
Explorer
Oct 19, 2013
Well we have moved to Vacaville and my wife leaves Wed. early AM so we have a reservation at an airport hotel that has a 24 hour shuttle service so that part has been taken care of. My question now is a route from here in Vacaville across the bridges or around either end of the bay? Whats the best or easiest way to get this done?
J-mans_Dad
Explorer
Oct 19, 2013
Well Gopher,
Hopefully your wife made it to her plane on time. BART is presently on strike and gridlock abounds on the Bay highways and cross bay bridges. Doesn't look like any resolution soon between the Unions and Management. Although on the upside, NPS locations around the bay have reopened so you can kill time at Alcatraz, Cliff House and Richmond Shipyards.

For anyone else visiting the Bay Area, plan ahead, the traffic is a bear right now.
pamvanw
Explorer
Oct 10, 2013
And if your hotel doesn't have a shuttle there are taxis.
GopherBroke
Explorer
Oct 07, 2013
You can't get this of good intelligence anywhere else. I would have not known about a pending strike until it made the national news, and possible not even then. We are leaving Bozeman, Mt. tomorrow heading in that general direction. My wife's flight is at 9am so its going to be right in the morning rush, so the hotel with shuttle service is looking more likely all the time.
Bill
TOOBOLD
Explorer
Oct 07, 2013
I recommend BART also. When we go to Raider games we usually drive to the Pleasanton station and take the train in. We had our 30' trailer once and parked the trailer at the Alameda County Fairgrounds that has a campground. You could easily park or camp the motor home and take a taxi to the BART station and BART all the way in to SFO.

The drive into Pleasanton is easy from the Central Valley. If push comes to shove there is a commuter plane from Fresno to SFO.

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