During our lengthy visit to San Francisco, we had intended to check out two hotels and maybe a couple bed & breakfasts for a single day, but as with everything in our lives, you just never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next. If your yesterday had a promise that today can’t deliver and your budget feels as strained as it is, don’t feel bad, just hop back in the ride and get out of town.
Due to a terrible misunderstanding with the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel, a truly first-rate, 5-star sort of place we wish to heck we could have checked out, we had no accommodations and, due to our seemingly haphazard timeline, the last-minute hotels in town wanted to charge us premium dollars. Well they should, it’s a good business model, but it was bad for us.
I tried to tell my assorted aids, coordinators, interns, publicity reps and senior schedule facilitators that we needed a backup plan for every last minute of our out-of-town adventure, but dad didn’t listen. I’ll admit I may have mumbled a bit, but that’s not my problem and it’s not my point. The net result was that rooms had grown scarce and the rates had soared and we had to do something smart, and that’s just what we did.
We went to Mill Valley. We hadn’t seen the Golden Gate Bridge up close and personal yet, so we chose to get out of town along Highway 101. It was great, we got to traverse what’s arguably the most famous bridge in history, and the eldest to the youngest in our crew appreciated the site of the drive. Once across the bridge, we went out a couple miles, hopped off (in Mill Valley, as it turns out) and headed for the nearest cheap looking motel, and our half dollar in gas was rewarded with loan shark interest.
I hope I don’t get in trouble, I mean, we really did net a ridiculous amount of extra cash by doing it.
Once you get out of town the room rates drop by as much as half, and because you no longer can enjoy such a convenient location as you might on the billion dollar scraps of real estate in the heart of downtown, what you get instead is a hearty dose of extra mile effort. We stayed at a tiny, no name place along the side of the highway, and what we found was that the price was right, the staff was friendly, the room was clean, nothing was broken, and we got a good night’s sleep… and all for the modest price of a 15-minute drive.
The out-of-town motels are not without their disadvantages, though. Bear in mind that:
The best thing for us was not that we got a sound night of sleep (which we did) or that the water pressure and temperature was sufficient (which it was) but rather that we got to drive back across the Golden Gate Bridge again in the morning, with a whole new perspective and a whole new appreciation, since this time it was daytime.
Also, if you’re going to be taking in any of the many attractions on the far side of the bridge, such as the Marin Headlands, Fort Point, the Nike Missile sight, the lighthouse or the Bay Area Discovery Museum (all of which I highly recommend) it really isn’t even out of the way, just quieter and cheaper.
But as with any hotel, make sure you see the room you’ll be staying in before you shine them your credit card or spot them a fine, thin Benjamin. Mill Valley is a quiet town located just five miles beyond the northern stretch of the Golden Gate Bridge. Abundant gas stations, banks, ATMs and restaurants are all conveniently located.
Above – Here you can see this place ain’t much, but that’s okay, it’s you getting what you pay for, but with a short drive in trade for ample quiet… limited quiet? Well, quiet, either way you boil it semantically down.