California vacation: Jan 2026. Sacramento/SF/Berkeley

In My Humble Opinion
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Planing on about a week in California in January. Not ideal for weather, but it’ll be better than Chicago and maybe I’ll see the sun at least once.

It looks like it’s easy to get between the Bay Area and Sacramento via Amtrak. I’ll fly into one and out of the other. Haven’t decided where to start yet.

Here’s some ideas, please provide feedback.

Sacramento. It looks walkable, at least the downtown and old town areas.

I’d like to see the State Capitol and perhaps the legislature if it is in session.

The Crocker art museum looks like an absolute must.

Looks like there is both a Sacramento history museum and a California museum, both worth a visit or is one better than the other?

Two other museums I noticed are a railway museum and a California State Indian museum.

I realise Sacramento is more of a place that you’d visit on a school field trip than fly across the country for, but I liked what little I saw of it years ago and figured it’s worth 2-3 days. I am definitely a museum guy.

It looks like it’s basically chain hotels in my target area which is fine. If the Sacramento Kings happen to be home, I’ll definitely catch a game.

Heading to the Bay Area, is it ridiculous for an adult to tour UC Berkeley?

Is January just too cold to consider a Bay cruise?

I want to ride the California Street Cable Car at night.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is an absolute must.

Are there any good walking tours of various neighborhoods? Particularly the Castro and Haight-Ashbury?

My hotel in San Francisco will be Citizen M 72 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA 94102.

I am a pretty experienced public transportation user and I’ll be using it in both Sacramento and the Bay Area. Any tricks or suggestions I should know?

Also, feel free to give restaurant suggestions. I like Mexican cuisine and spicy cuisine of any type.

I do have friends and some family spread throughout the Bay Area so some of my time will be with them.

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The California State Railroad Museum is definitely worth a visit.
Sutter’s Fort is a great place for history buffs and is right next to the State Indian Museum.
Speaking as a native Sacramentan, I’d give Sacramento one full day and devote the rest of your trip to San Francisco and Berkeley.

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I live in the suburbs of Sacramento, and I have to admit I’ve never been to either of those. But I do second the recommendation for the railroad museum.

Yes, downtown and Old Sac are fairly walkable. The rest of the city is pretty car-centric.

Public transportation-wise, Sacramento’s light rail is decent if you happen to be traveling between downtown and someplace that happens to be along a light rail line. Otherwise public transit is typical of a mid-sized American city, which is to say not great.

Restaurant recommendations: Downtown: Located about a block from the capitol, Frank Fat’s is an old school Chinese-American place that’s been there since the late 1930s. It is very high quality Chinese food, and has won the Michelin Bib-Gourmand award. Reservations are recommended.

In midtown, the Golden Bear is kind of cool, albeit more of a neighborhood bar than a proper restaurant, but they do have pretty good food.

Head down to Gunther’s for some ice cream, ideally at night when their animated neon sign is lit up.

If you’re into that kind of thing, talk a walk around the Fabulous Forties neighborhood in East Sac, where the “blue house” from Lady Bird is located.

Taking Amtrak to San Francisco, you have two options. 1) Take the train to Richmond, then transfer to BART. This is what I always do. 2) Take the train to Emeryville, then an Amtrak bus into SF. Which option works best probably depends on exactly where you’re going.

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In Berkeley, try to time your visit when Sather Tower(aka The Campanile) is open. On a clear day the view from the top is fantastic.

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Could be cold, and very choppy for the seasick-prone, but wintertime is the season to see migrating gray whales:

Still cold, but if you don’t want to go out on the water, the elephant seals will be in residence at Pt Reyes:

Enjoy!

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In SF, definitely walk the Mission area, great Mexican food including biggest burrito, bookstores etc. Castro has old-time Fox-type theatre complete with organ, and good food. SF is foodie-heaven, any cuisine you can imagine. also check out Chinatown. The Haight has become somewhat shaky.

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Seconding or thirding the Railroad Museum, and it’s close enuf to walk to the Crocker. Sutter’s Fort is also good, but too far to walk. I think you can catch a bus (#30,#38) from the train station (where you’ll be catching the train to/from the Bay Area), which is right next door to the RR Musem, and it takes you to a couple blocks from the Fort (28th and L Street). The State Capitol museum it also surprisingly good. Check the hours of all the museums in Sac.

If it’s nice enuf to be outside for a while, consider one of the downtown art walks to check out Sacramento’s murals:

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In Sacramento the California Automobile Museum isn’t too far from the Railroad Museum. I think it was better back when it was the Towe Ford Museum (they had the largest collection of Ford vehicles in the world), but it’s still well worth a visit if your into automobiles.

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There is better Chinese food in Sacramento than Frank Fat’s, although maybe not Chinese-American food. Then again, there is much better Chinese food in Oakland’s Chinatown than in Sacramento.

You’re dead on about the public transportation, though. The light rail system is very good if you’re going where it goes, but otherwise public transit is pretty poor.

ETA: It’s criminal that the light rail doesn’t have a line out to the airport. IIRC, there were political considerations at play.

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There is a BART stop in SFO, so it’s easy to travel between the airport and downtown SF or Berkeley/Oakland. There is in fact a BART station a couple of hundred feet from your hotel (maybe that’s why you picked it?). See bart.gov for planning info. You’ll want to get a Clipper card; after that it’s pretty straightforward.

Nothing wrong with an adult touring UC Berkeley. It’s a nice campus.

Museums in the area that interest me (your interests may of course be different):

  • California Academy of Sciences is a good science museum. And it’s in Golden Gate Park, which is a great park for walking.
  • The de Young Museum, also in Golden Gate Park, is a good art museum and may be of interest depending on what they’re exhibiting when you’re there.
  • Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland is a small but interesting museum focused on space exploration. You can see it all in a couple of hours. I don’t think it’s very easy to reach via public transportation though.
  • The Exploratorium is a very cool interactive science museum. Kids tend to love it, but it’s really interesting for the science-minded adult too.

Personally I think the cable car ride is overrated but I understand that it may be a bucket list item for visitors.

Fisherman’s Wharf is pretty touristy but may be of some interest. I wouldn’t recommend it as a primary destination. Scoma’s is a good restaurant if you’re in that area.

Chinatown is a fun place to walk around.

The weather is a toss-up. It might be rainy, but if it’s not, the weather will certainly be much better than in Chicago. Maybe low 50s at the coldest.

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The best museum in the east bay is the Oakland Museum Of California. Super easy to get to, about 2 blocks from the Lake Merritt BART station.

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What is your recommendation for Chinese food in Sacramento, then? Not being snarky; if there are better restaurants in Sacramento I’d really like to know what they are.

IIRC, when they built the Green Line the intent was to eventually extend it to the airport. But funding became an issue, particularly since getting light rail up to the airport requires building a new bridge across the river, making it more expensive to construct than other lines.

See, I would consider the cable car to be a must do for any visitor, but I am a bit of a transit nerd. It’s much more fun if you can stand on the running board rather than sitting inside the car. On my first visit to SF, 20 years ago, they still allowed as many people who wanted to to crowd onto the running board. Now they limit it to just a few standees. Damn safety rules.

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Maybe my opinion is colored by the fact that when I first moved to the Bay Area, I stayed for a month in a cheap fleabag hotel in San Francisco right on the cable car line. I listened to those damn bells ringing every day from morning to night and got heartily sick of them.

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The beaches and coastline are amazing. Ocean beach, Lands End, Baker Beach. From lands end you can walk to the Legion of Honor Museum which is a great art museum.

Also Golden Gate Park, including De Young museum and California academy of sciences.

Walking the Golden Gate is pretty amazing too.

Personally I would choose the North bay over Sacramento. Mount Tam, Muir Woods, Stinson Beach, Muir Beach, Point Reyes, etc

If you do go to Sacramento “old Sac” is worth a visit. Olde Timey cowboy downtown area, bit of a tourist trap but nice enough.

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Unfortunately, my favorite place in Sacramento had another kitchen fire a little while back and won’t rise from the ashes again, but Hong Kong Islander was good for banquets and dim sum. Asian Pearl on Stockton Boulevard has been good for quite a while, although I haven’t been in about eight years. Journey to the Dumpling specializes in - guess what? Dumplings! New Station Seafood looks sketchy as all hell, but I’ve never had a bad meal there. And there used to be a great place on Stockton Boulevard whose name escapes me but specialized in sichuanese noodle dishes that had a great beef roll.

None of these places are fancy, and some are downright dumpy. If you look around Frank Fat’s when the legislature is in session, you see a lot of lobbyists on expense accounts. OTOH, if you go into any of these places, you see a lot of Chinese faces, many of whom I’d wager are first generation.

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There is also a great - and free - cable car museum where all the cables intersect. Excellent place.

Second the Oakland Museum. I walk right past it on the way to court when I have jury duty. Been there a couple of times also.

Besides the other good museums mentioned, there is a Cartoon Art Museum, and a Contemporary Jewish Museum, which often has good exhibitions. I went to ones on Roz Chast and Stanley Kubrick there. The Alameda County Library sometimes has free passes to museums, and we’ve used them often.

For transportation, BART is good but does not go everywhere in the city. To get to Golden Gate park (worth a visit for sure) there is MUNI light rail. There are also buses, not as fast. All take the Clipper Card. There is an app that tells you when the bus is coming. I did 40 walking tours on flash cards of SF, and I learned the transportation system pretty well. If you go to Golden Gate Park, be sure to visit the windmills on the water side of it.

Before Covid, at least, there were free guided walking tours (tip the guide) like in many big cities. We did the Chinatown one once, when we were new to the area.

Then there is the pinball and mechanical game museum right near Fisherman’s Wharf. (The best thing on Fisherman’s Wharf besides the sea lions, I think.)

Plenty to see.

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Oh yeah, I forgot the Musee Mechanique. Definitely the best thing on Fisherman’s Wharf. Hundreds of pinball machines, old mechanical games, music boxes, player pianos, slot machines, etc, and an amazing steam powered motorcycle. And it’s free to enter and look around. (You pay if you want to actually play any of the games.) A very weird and eclectic collection.

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I was just there for couple weeks a couple weeks ago.

In SF down near the water, say from Fort Mason Park to the Ferry Building there are innumerable places that will rent you a bike or, better yet, an e-bike for the day.

If you just like serendipity while absorbing the urban experience, and don’t mind the cool & probably damp weather, an ebike is great. And they’ll all have maps of scenic routes you can take. Whenever you see something interesting just hop off the bike, chain it to a post, and go in. Parking a car isn’t impossible, but is a lot more hassle. You’ll also cover a lot more city on a bike than on foot.

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I just remembered the name of the place with the beef rolls: Yang’s Noodles. It was the dumpiest of the dumpy, but unfortunately it appears they did not survive the pandemic. They closed some time in the last few years after about a 10-year run.

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I think you’ll enjoy the California State Railway Museum. It’s in Old Town Sacramento, which is a bit touristy but still fun.

The California Automobile Museum is at 2200 Front Street in Sacramento. It’s a bit small, but pretty good. There’s also a museum inside the capitol building.

Whether it’s too cold for a bay cruise in January depends on your cold tolerance. San Francisco doesn’t get really cold the way it does in, say, Chicago. It’s likely to be in the mid-forties to the low fifties during the day. You’ll feel colder when you’re on the water. Also, if it’s rainy or foggy you might not be able to see much.

Why do you want to take the California Street cable car specifically? The Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines are more interesting, IMO. The California Street line goes in a straight line from near the Embarcadero to the top of Nob Hill. My favorite line is Powell-Hyde, which goes through several neighborhoods and ends at Fisherman’s Wharf. Also, both Powell Street lines take you past the Cable Car Museum, which is worth a visit. The Powell lines have turntables at both ends where you can watch the operators manually push the car to reverse directions (the California Street line doesn’t have this). Whichever line you ride, you can avoid waiting in line by going to the first stop from the end of the line. The conductors always leave some room when boarding passengers, so you’ll be able to get on, though you may have to stand.

Bay Area museums and similar attractions that are worth visiting:

Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St, San Francisco
De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park
Palace of the Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave, San Francisco
Museum of California, 1000 Oak St, Oakland
Musée Mécanique, Pier 45, San Francisco (this museum houses a collection of antique penny arcade games and other amusements. Admission is free, though you do have to pay to use the games.)
Alcatraz (One of the most popular attractions in the Bay Area. January weather might limit your enjoyment, though, especially if it's raining.)
Fort Point (A civil war era brick fort that's under the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Outdoors, so weather could be a problem.)

Since you’re interested in walking tours, I think you’d like the Filbert Steps. It’s a long series of stairways that leads from the west side of Telegraph Hill (at Filbert and Sansome Streets) up to Coit Tower. There are great views of the bay and of private homes. Coit Tower has some depression-era murals inside that you’d probably find interesting (the murals are similar in style to Diego Rivera, though he didn’t paint them).

For public transit, get a Clipper Card on your first day. It’s a payment card that works with all the major local transit systems. BTW, you should be aware that BART does not run past midnight.

Since you like Mexican food, I highly recommend visiting the Mission District in San Francisco. It’s where the Mission burrito was invented. Two highly-rated places for this style of burrito are La Taqueria at 2889 Mission St., and Taquería El Farolito at 2779 Mission St. (there are other places called El Farolito, but this is the one you want).

The best Chinese restaurants in San Francisco are not in Chinatown. They’re mostly in the Richmond District, on Geary and Clement Streets. Chinatown is a tourist area, so they don’t depend on repeat business. The restaurants there can get away with serving mediocre food. Just about any Chinese restaurant in the Richmond District is worth going to.

Henry’s Hunan is a restaurant that serves spicy food. They have two locations: 110 Natoma St. and 1708 Church St. The Natoma location will probably be easier for you to get to.