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

J-mans_Dad
Explorer
Oct 07, 2013
Keep in mind that BART (light rail) is poised to go on strike on the 10th and AC Transit (East Bay Bus Company) is pending at the same time.
Gonna be gridlock if both out out at the same time :E :E :E
msmith1199
Explorer II
Oct 07, 2013
GopherBroke wrote:
Thanks all! We have considered going to a hotel that has shuttle service, and with the reports on the roads and area we may well do that, and I will find a cg out in the valley to wait for my wife's return.

Depending on the time of your wife's flight, I still say it isn't as bad of a drive as you think. Avoid rush hour traffic and you would be fine.
msmith1199
Explorer II
Oct 07, 2013
Travelr wrote:
Ill throw my .50 cents in.. San Jose has a Bart. Then stay at Fruita De Casa. Or is it Casa De Fruita.. I am always backwards on it. We use that as a stopping point on our trips up and down CA when on 101 which is a lot more fun than the interstate 5.

Or there is a great RV park just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in GreenBrea.. Our kids live in the city and the other in Marin County so we go often.

BART doesn't go to San Jose. CalTrain does, but not BART.
GopherBroke
Explorer
Oct 05, 2013
Thanks all! We have considered going to a hotel that has shuttle service, and with the reports on the roads and area we may well do that, and I will find a cg out in the valley to wait for my wife's return.
Travelr
Explorer
Oct 04, 2013
Ill throw my .50 cents in.. San Jose has a Bart. Then stay at Fruita De Casa. Or is it Casa De Fruita.. I am always backwards on it. We use that as a stopping point on our trips up and down CA when on 101 which is a lot more fun than the interstate 5.

Or there is a great RV park just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in GreenBrea.. Our kids live in the city and the other in Marin County so we go often.
J-mans_Dad
Explorer
Oct 03, 2013
Depending on what time your wife needs to fly out. You might want to stay at a local hotel/motel in the peninsula by the airport overnight and use the house shuttle to get to the airport. Rent a vehicle and drive in the night before, have a leisurely dinner. You don't want the stress of pushing through traffic to make an AM flight.
Just a thought...:B
deleted-2
Explorer
Oct 03, 2013
Enterprise has one way drop off rentals from SMF to SFO for $98.00 dollars according their website.
msmith1199
Explorer II
Oct 03, 2013
In that case, $250 per person for a shuttle is expensive. But they can still take Amtrak from Sacramento into Oakland and then a shuttle over to SFO.
The_Texan
Explorer
Oct 02, 2013
msmith1199 wrote:
The Texan wrote:
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.

From Bakersfield to SFO is a long way, probably close to 300 miles. I wouldn't even have thought there was a shuttle that would go that far. Why wouldn't they take Amtrak? They can go from Bakersfield all the way to Jack London Square in Oakland on one train and I'm sure there would be an Amtrak bus over to SFO from there. Or why aren't they flying out of LAX which is a lot closer to Bakersfield than SFO is. And they could get a commuter hop out of Bakersfield into LAX too at Meadows Field. I doubt Bakersfield has commuter flights to SFO.
My mistake, I said Bakersfield but meant west of Sacramento. Yes, from Bakersfield that would be a haul.....me bad.
msmith1199
Explorer II
Oct 02, 2013
The Texan wrote:
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.

From Bakersfield to SFO is a long way, probably close to 300 miles. I wouldn't even have thought there was a shuttle that would go that far. Why wouldn't they take Amtrak? They can go from Bakersfield all the way to Jack London Square in Oakland on one train and I'm sure there would be an Amtrak bus over to SFO from there. Or why aren't they flying out of LAX which is a lot closer to Bakersfield than SFO is. And they could get a commuter hop out of Bakersfield into LAX too at Meadows Field. I doubt Bakersfield has commuter flights to SFO.

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