5:30 AM wake-up, Caltrain adventures, In-N-Out in a Waymo, and unbeatable Golden Gate views.
As a European visiting student at UC Santa Cruz, I decided to do a full day trip to San Francisco on Saturday, March 7th, 2026. I woke up at 5:30 AM and took the Highway 17 bus to San Jose Diridon, then hopped on the Caltrain all the way to SF. Total travel time: about 3 hours (1h bus + 1.5h train + waiting). I arrived around 9:15 AM surprisingly fresh — sleeping on the bus and train helped a lot!
My original plan was way too ambitious, covering the four colored areas and all the stops as shown in the images below.
My overly-optimistic original plan 😅
I finally focused on the light-blue and light-green zones, as it was impossible to do everything as in the initial plan. From these two zones these were the ones I actually ended up visiting:
1. Ferry Building & Piers Walk
My first real touch with the city was walking all the way from the station straight to the Ferry Building, following the walking path right next to the ocean and piers.
2. Lombard Street
This is a pretty famous spot from SF which I had to visit, but honestly, it wasn't so amazing. In the end it was just a street, so once you arrive there and take a couple of pictures, there's not much to do. The uphill walk to get there was brutal, but once I was there I noticed that the rest of tourists were using the cable car, which was probably smarter and more fun!!
3. Cable Car Museum
At this point of the visit I met a friend that lives in SF. He showed me this museum (free entry) which shows the huge motors moving the cables that move the cable cars around the city. We spent like 10 minutes there, not too much, but it was pretty cool.
4. Chinatown & Downtown
Nothing mind-blowing, just classic big-city energy. Got a bit lost, as I activated autopilot mode with my friend guiding.
5. Palace of Fine Arts + In-N-Out
We took a Waymo from downtown SF to the area around the Palace of Fine Arts, where there is a very nice walking area right next to the ocean and to the piers. We ate lunch at In-N-Out burger, which was a full American experience for me. I ordered some stickers and a paper hat to the waitress, and she was like "for the kids?", but I was like "Hell no! It's for me!"
A little parenthesis here: Waymo's and Robotaxis. Holly shit, it worked so well. It was my first time going into one of these autonomous vehicles, and I got used to it so fast. I didn't feel any fear at any time. The worst part is that my friend and people in SF was just so used to it, it was normalized! Not sure how long it will take for this tech to get to other cities, but it's definetely going to happen, it just works so well. As a tourist, I 100% recommend taking one of this.
6. Baker Beach (Golden Gate View)
From the previous place, we took a Robotaxi to Baker Beach. The difference between the Robotaxi and Waymo is that Robotaxi has a person inside, which is not driving (as the car goes alone), but it's there for emergencies. In theory this is as temporary position, as the "driver" told us that in the future the cars will just go alone. The crazy thing about the tesla is that it just looks a normal car, not as the Waymo, which has a bunch of sensors all over the place. Whatever, from Baker Beach we could see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a pretty sunny and hot day, so the beach was full of people. At this point, arount 16:00, I separated from my friend, as he had a plan with some other friends. I then continued to one more place and started thinking to go back to Santa Cruz.
7. Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center
As I was not satisfied with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Baker beach, I took a couple of buses to get the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center. The buses were much slower than moving by waymo/robotaxi. However, coming to this place was worth it: the view of the Golden Gate Bridge was so much better. I wondered around in this area looking at the bridge, and started to look buses to get back to the train station at around 18:00.
Finally, it took me almost 2 hours to get to the SF train station from the Golden Gate Bridge. At this point the sun was gone, and the traffic in downtown SF was horrible. For this reason the bus took so long to get to the station. Once in the station, I took the Caltrain back to SJ Diridon at 19:55, and then the same 17 Highway bus to Santa Cruz, arriving home at around 22:30. It was a long day, didn't sleep much, walked a lot, but it was worth it and very fun! I also had a very sunny day, so I'm thankful for that.
What I learned from this trip is that SF is not flat at all: there are a lot of up/down-hills, so prepare your legs or better use the bus/cable-car/waymo's!
My top 3 experiences:
(1) Golden Gate Bridge views
(2) Riding a Waymo/robotaxi
(3) Walking the piers area
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