A quick camping trip is always welcome! Happily there are many beautiful and varied options around the San Francisco Bay Area to head over to see.

Just north of the city, the redwood forests are still standing from the gold rush days of the 1800’s. Some are younger, but there’s a stretch at the beginning of the Pioneer Tree trail where there’s a bunch of old growth redwoods and beautiful streams to hike along.

The park is named for Samuel Penfield Taylor, who found gold during the California Gold Rush and used some of his money to buy a parcel of land along Lagunitas Creek.[3] In 1856, Taylor built the Pioneer Paper Mill, the first paper mill on the Pacific Coast.[4] In the 1870s, the North Pacific Coast Railroad was built between Cazadero and a pier in Sausalito where passengers could transfer to a ferry to San Francisco. The railroad passed near Taylor’s mill, and, ever the entrepreneur, he built the “Camp Taylor Resort” alongside the tracks. A destination for city-weary San Franciscans, the resort offered both a hotel and tent camping, as well as swimming, boating, fishing, and a dance pavilion.[5][6]
– Wikipedia

We also took advantage of all the yummy food in the area. To be honest I didn’t totally feel like it was a legit camping trip since we ate fancy cheese at Cowgirl Creamery (I recommend the Red Hawk and the Mount Tam), had oysters on the half shell in Olema and pretty much nibbled yummy food continuously around the area. But we did have all of the campfires with s’mores experimentation. Substituting chocolate chip cookies for graham crackers was my favorite.

It was great 🙂