20+ Best Places to View the Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge.

There's just something special about that international orange span across San Francisco's Golden Gate that pulls at the heart strings. 

Like the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, or Sydney Harbour Bridge, it's one of those landmarks that I will never tire of seeing, no matter how many times I see it. And trust me, we saw it a LOT in our eight years in the Bay Area as we had a view over the Bay from our Berkeley apartment. Every single day the sight of the towers peeking out over the fog made my heart flutter.

I know that this is a pretty common reaction for a lot of people, especially if you're seeing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, so today I'm sharing some of my favorite places to catch a glimpse of the bridge.

Spooky Places to Visit in the USA

Hands up if you wish that the spooky season would never end? I've got both my hands up! 

October may be officially over and the Christmas decorations may be starting to appear all over, but it's still spooky season in my book. It's always spooky season in my book!

Admittedly, I did start writing this post well before Halloween and had every intention to get it out into the world while everyone was still thinking of ghosts and ghouls, but if you've been here a while you'll know that being on time isn't my strong suit. Or maybe I'm just really ahead and this post is inspiration for next Halloween. I'll let you choose!

Anyway, seeing as all things spooky are on everyone's mind at this time of year (or, you know, last week) I thought I'd share some places that we've visited over the years that have a bit of a scary vibe to them. Some are known for being haunted, some are known as places where terrible things happened, and others are just old and kind of creepy. 

Let's take a look...

National Parks Week

This past week has been National Parks Week here in the US.

While we haven't been able to get out and about to explore any of our favorite parks, they have been on my mind. So today I thought I'd share the National Parks that we have visited so far. Some of these have been sprawling parks filled with majestic landscapes while others have been historic parks showcasing important moments from America's past.

Here's a look at the National Parks we have visited by state...

San Francisco Bay Cruise

One of my favourite things that we did with my parents on their recent visit from Australia was a San Francisco Bay cruise. We actually went on two boat rides in the bay with my parents. The first was a Ride the Ducks ride which took us in the water close to AT&T Park (and which you can see here) and the second was a Red & White Fleet cruise which took us under the Golden Gate Bridge and past Alcatraz.

Flashback Fridays: Alcatraz

Today's Flashback Friday isn't going back all that far, or very far away. In fact, we can see it from our apartment building. Today we're going back to our 2012 visit to Alcatraz.

In May 2012 my parents came to visit us for a week. We got out and about and did all of the regular touristy things one does when visiting San Francisco: we rode atop a "hop-on-hop-off" bus trip through the city, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, spent a day at California Academy of Sciences and Golden Gate Park, ate far too much Ghirardelli chocolate, walked up and down far too many steep hills (to burn off all that chocolate!), visited the sealions at Pier 39, took in the views from Crissy Field and spent half a day visiting Alcatraz.

For some unknown reason I've never actually posted about any of this on Little Hiccups. I guess I was just too busy playing tourist and tour guide! Let's fix that by having a look back at our visit to Alcatraz...

A visit to Alcatraz had been at the top of our to do list when we first moved to the Bay Area. However, we knew that my parents would be coming to visit seven months down the track and that it was at the top of their list as well. So we decided to save Alcatraz for when my parents were in town.

During those seven months Ava would ask repeatedly when we could go to Alcatraz. She was so excited about the idea of visiting the island that we could see from our apartment building and just couldn't wait to go. However, as the day approached she started to get a little scared. She knew that Alcatraz had been a prison and she worried that there were still "bad guys" hiding out there. She also started to worry about the boat ride out to Alcatraz. When the big day finally arrived Ava had worked herself up so much about the boat ride that she could not be tempted to leave the apartment unless we promised to take her life jacket with us. I must have looked like the "bad Mummy" on board the boat: providing my five year old, competent swimmer with a life jacket, but leaving my eighteen month old toddler without! In fact, Ava was the only person aboard the boat wearing a life jacket and she continued to wear it after we arrived on Alcatraz - which I'm sure was at absolutely no risk of sinking!

Little Adventures: 2012 Recap

It's the start of a new year and that means it's time to look back on what the last year held.

2012 was quite a busy year for us with so many new things and lots of adventures. Most of those adventures were small ones around the Bay Area and a few saw us heading further afield.

Let's have a look back at the Little Adventures that kept us busy at Little Hiccups over the last 12 months...


January

We started off 2012 with a day trip to nearby Limantour Beach on New Year's Day. A trip to the beach in January for us would usually mean a day of swimming, body boarding and hiding from the sweltering heat under some form of shade. Of course, here in America it's Winter in January so this trip to the beach was very different from what we're accustomed to. No swimming, no body boarding, no sweltering heat. I must say I'm happy about that last bit! I'm not a fan of hot weather.

Cheesy family shot at Limantour Beach