I first visited San Francisco during a whirlwind, three-week perimeter road trip around the U.S. with my cousin Alex in 1988. We stayed in style at the Royal Pacific Motor Inn on Broadway, right on the edge of Chinatown and North Beach, and motored up Route 1 in our 1983 Honda Accord hatchback.
I was so taken with the Bay Area that I moved to Berkeley about a year later, during a gap year between high school and college. I lived with a group of UC Berkeley students on Claremont Avenue, worked with a wine-swilling landscaper, and bought a red 1978 Toyota Land Cruiser—which promptly broke down, though not before I removed the doors and drove it through the Southern California desert.
After a stint at the University of Vermont, I transferred to San Francisco State, chasing a girlfriend. We quickly broke up, and I settled into life as a student in the Sunset District, biking along Ocean Beach and earning an English degree at SF State. I met a new girlfriend, lived in Larkspur, and explored the remote beauty of the Lost Coast far up the Pacific shoreline.
Fast forward ten years—after time spent in Zimbabwe, New Mexico, Vermont, and the Virgin Islands—I returned to San Francisco and met my future wife, then working as an attorney. I found myself once again living on Claremont Avenue, savoring everything the Bay Area has to offer.
San Francisco’s pull remains strong. The skyline, the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate, the sun, the breeze, the eucalyptus, the views—they never lose their magic.
These photos are from our most recent visit in 2024. I flew a DJI Mavic 3 drone for the aerial views of San Francisco and shot with a Nikon D850 using a 28–300mm lens.
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