San Francisco, California

Looking at my 2015 calendar, there are not as many business trips this year! You may remember that I spent a good third of 2014 traveling around the world. My new job required a lot of attendance at conferences and meetings with global agencies last year.

This year will be a lot more travel within the United States, to places that I am very familiar with. First up this year? San Francisco!

My last visit to San Francisco was as a graduate student attending an American Chemical Society annual meeting. I stayed in a pseudo-hostal and subsisted on fast food, convenience store snacks and whatever I could scrounge from the exhibitor booths.

This trip was much different, as I was there attending the JP Morgan Healthcare summit for work. First, my hotel room had its own bathroom and the view you see below...

The conference not only fed us very well (Odwalla juices for breakfast anyone?), but my colleague and I were able to go out for dinner, at real restaurants! I was able to enjoy the seafood of San Francisco, the great variety of options in Chinatown and all the sourdough bread I could handle. I guess I've come a long way in the eight years since my last visit!

Sadly, we were only in San Francisco for the days of the conference. We didn't have too much extra time to wander the city. In our final afternoon in California, my colleague and I walked to the coast, bought some Ghirardelli chocolates and took a boat ride to Alcatraz. We then hopped in a cab and headed back to SFO, being sure to get some Boudin sandwiches for the flight home.

I'd love to spend more time in this unique city. In the two times that I've visited, I have barely scratched the surface. Perhaps I can convince the boyfriend to take a California road trip with me this spring. Start in LA, drive north to SF, eat a lot of food along the way! 

Have any of you done a California coast road trip? I'd love to hear about your experiences!