Author(s): Marissa Guggiana

Travel & Maps

The epic beauty and romance of northern California has long been a beacon to the most interesting and adventurous pleasure seekers. Follow in their footsteps and blaze a few of your own trails with this guide to the region's best kept secrets. Within two hours of San Francisco a variety of carefree, invigorating, spiritual, pampering, culinary, and exotic experiences await you. Saunter through Sonoma's Serengeti, experiencing giraffes, zebras, and wildebeests in wine country. Get buried alive in mud, enzymes, or minerals and emerge renewed. Shuck your own oysters right at the source, in one of the country's few farms that encourages champagne consumption. Find your inner shaman in a breath-taking land that has been the home to warriors, poets, and healers from time immemorial. Delight your inner child with wine tasting and kite flying, while your child delights in an amusement park devoted to the "choo-choo". Pack your tote, fill up your tank, switch off your mobile, and get ready to get lost in the wilds and wonders of the greater Bay Area. With 33 off-the-beaten-path getaways from San Francisco to choose from, there's something to sate even the quirkiest appetite.