About

Purpose

This guide will feature descriptions of outdoor adventures in the San Francisco Bay Area that are accessible without a car. It will provide ideas for enjoying outdoor exercise and experiencing nature for anyone who does not own a car or who just wants to use a car less often. My goal is to make car-free outdoor trips easy and fun by providing route descriptions and logistical details — pulling together information from maps, guide books, websites, and other resources — and by taking the trips myself and reporting on my experiences. I am approaching car-free travel not as a barrier to getting outdoors, but as a fun challenge to find routes linking mass transit with nature and an opportunity to explore the urban-nature and suburban-nature interfaces of the Bay Area.

Coverage

The outdoor areas explored in these trips will include parks and open space preserves, trails, urban natural areas, lakes, creeks, the Bay shoreline, and the Pacific coast and beaches of the San Francisco Bay Area. Multiple trips will be included for some areas, particularly parks with large trail systems.  Some outings will be almost entirely in nature, with transit stops very close to a trailhead. Others will include some urban and suburban walking, with a focus on creatively using paths, stairways, and other interesting routes to connect transit with trailheads. Over time, I hope to have descriptions of outdoor outings from a variety of locations in the Bay Area.  However, parks and trails in some areas are much more transit-accessible than others. The emphasis will be on trips that are enjoyable and reasonably easy to reach by transit.

My initial focus will be on hiking, which involves minimal costs and equipment. In the future, I may expand the coverage to include backpacking/camping, offroad and mountain biking, and other outdoor activities. Most trip descriptions will be for half- to full-day adventures, and will provide the opportunity for physical exercise. In some cases, shorter versions of the route or optional side trips will be included. The route descriptions can also be used as a starting point for your own trips, and many can be used simply for the transit information for getting to a particular location.

All excursions will start and end at a transit stop, with some trips looping back to the same transit point and others connecting two transit stops via parks and trails. Transit systems used include BART, Caltrain, Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor, VTA light rail, ferries, and the several bus systems that operate in the Bay Area. For the most part, outings will use transit systems that run on weekends (i.e., will not use lines that run only at weekday commute hours). All trips described here will be taken by the author before they are posted. In addition to the individual outings, general information will be included about public transportation in the Bay Area, what to pack, recommended books and maps, and additional tips and ideas for car-free outdoor adventures.

Comments and Contacting the Author

Comments are allowed on blog posts. Please keep in mind that this blog is about solutions for getting outside without a car, not a political blog criticizing driving or car ownership. Many other forums are available online to discuss such matters. Readers should feel free to leave comments without fear of judgment. The author reserves the right to remove any comment for any reason.

Please feel free to send email about this blog at:

Jen English: carfreeoutdoors [at] gmail [dot] com

The archive of my previous blog about walking every street in Berkeley is available at Walking Berkeley.

Disclaimer

Transit schedules change, so it is always a good idea to check schedules before embarking on a trip. Trails and other outer areas may be closed due to maintenance, flooding, or other reasons. I advise calling parks or checking the park agency websites for any closures, especially after heavy rains.

Exercise and outdoor activities involve risks and dangers. Trail and route conditions for trips may have changed from the time of writing. The author assumes no responsibility for any injury, accident, or damage to or loss of personal property sustained by any individual while taking these outings.

Copyright

Unless otherwise noted, all content on this blog is © Jennifer English 2009