The Bay Area can get very boring very quickly for non-outdoorsy people. San Francisco is fun but small, and the South Bay is basically a big suburb. I wanted to explore the area but it was hard to find routes that are actually worth the drive. I decided to come up with day trip routes around the Bay Area that can be a good excuse to leave the house and do things with friends other than hiking in the woods.

Day Trips is a result of an attempt to build routes that are good enough by creating a collage of non-touristic and sometimes unknown attractions that would not catch interest otherwise. As a non-outdoorsy resident of the Bay Area, I am happy to share the full and growing list of Day Trips together with the quote below.

i don't like cities that attract a lot of "outdoorsy" types. if the city is good enough, you shouldn't want to go hiking every weekend.

— Sam Adler-Bell (@SamAdlerBell) February 3, 2021

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My dad’s little family library had Jack London novels but I never had any interest in spending time on London fiction. However, in my last trip to Turkey, I was catching up with a high school friend who happened to ask very detailed questions about Oakland and mentioned that he would love to visit one day to see where Jack London lived. It turns out that he is a big London fan. As soon as we finished our drinks, he took me to the nearest bookstore and bought me a little present, a Jack London novel: Martin Eden. I finally got to read it a couple of years ago and decided to make Jack London an excuse to travel around with my friends.

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Russian Colonization route is inspired by the book that I received as a birthday gift, History of the World Map by Map. I was excited to read Russian Empire’s attempt to found colonies in California in the 19th century. I got curious to find out whether there were remains of Russian settlements nearby that I can visit. I was lucky to find out that Fort Ross had been waiting for me!

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