overnight San Francisco

Hi, i need to overnight in SF for 3 night in my motorhome 25? . I have been reading a lot and seems that you are allowed to park for 72 hours without be fined ( but i think you never know and for sure you can be fined, but dont know. How are the laws now???) . So i have find these spots for overnight

- Sausalito (my best place as it is quite near to SF downtown and seems a quite place to sleep)
- Golden Park ( i have read that it is a kind of RV community sleeping there)
- Rest area (crystal spring or Norh Golden Gate)
- Oackland industrial area
- Palo Alto

As i travel with my family i would like to find the best and safest place

hoping somebody can help me

Thanks in advance

http://www.sausalito.com/channel/Parking-for-Visitors/4417
See the RV section near the end of the article.
My brother lives there - nice place to visit but always glad to leave.

To be honest, parking anywhere in that area is difficult. California communities are inundated with people who want to do the same thing and there are lots of local ordinances prohibiting it.  Also, three nights is more than "just overnight" so people might notice you more than if there for one night.  Sausalito is not RV-friendly with small crowded and hilly streets.  I can't imagine anywhere in Golden Gate Park that would be suitable.  The rest area near Crystal Springs Reservoir might be iffy.  Years ago they had a serious problem with men meeting other men there and a lot of people were arrested.  Don't know what it's like now.  I would not recommend an industrial area in Oakland, especially with children.  Palo Alto probably has ordinances against it.  Redwood City has a small RV park between 101 and the bay.  We stay there.  Not fancy but they've upgraded the sites.  It's not a great location but it is safe and doesn't violate city codes.  There used to be parking in the harbor area but both sides are now covered with office buildings and large residential complexes.  The other problem is that the peninsula is surrounded by water on three sides and available spaces are taken for buildings.  We had to leave three RV storage parking areas because the land was being taken over by new buildings.  I think there's an RV park in South San Francisco near the ball park (Hunter's Point area is okay within the park but maybe not outside of it).  Sorry to be so discouraging but maybe someone has more recent experience and will chime in.  We lived in Redwood City for 29 years and parking our RV was one of the reasons we left.

ArdraF

Do yourself and your family a big favor and stay at a campground. Staying/sleeping overnight on the street in most parts of the Bay area is illegal, and will get you woken up in the middle of the night and told to move on. There is also the safety issue you're concerned about, which I won't go into here.

ArdraF brought up a good point about the streets. From what i remember, I don't think I would even try to take an RV through most streets in Sausalito.

When I wanted to see SF I stayed in Marin County at http://www.goldengatetrailerpark.com/ .  It is within walking distance of the ferry to SF. Cheap and easy access.

South of SF is Half Moon Bay that has a state campground.  Close enough to SF. https://nextcampsite.com/francis-beach-campground-half-moon-bay-state-beach/

I wouldn't stay overnight at Hunters Point for any amount of money.  I used to windsurf there and if you weren't out of there by dusk you were in danger.  My wife would not go there with me Ever again affter the first time.

There's a couple of RV parks on the coast.  One in Pacifica, the next is near Half Moon Bay.  If you have a smartphone I recommend the RVParking app.

http://sanfranciscorvpark.com/ 

We've stayed at Candlestick RV park a lot. Probably 20 times over the years. 

You couldn't pay me to stay downtown as the homeless people are really getting aggressive.

Some years ago, a friend was driving his (new) car on the freeway past Oakland with his fiance in the passenger seat late one evening. The car broke down, and they started to walk to get help. A cop came along and told them "if you want to get home alive, get back in the car, close the windows and lock the doors. Wait until I come back for you." 30 minutes or so later, no sign of the cop, so they started walking again. Another cop stopped and told them the same thing.

You still want to sleep in the street in the not-so-nice part of Oakland?

Here's our personal story of attempting to boondock in the street in the quiet area near the Berkley marina.

markutovich said:

Hi, i need to overnight in SF for 3 night in my motorhome 25? . I have been reading a lot and seems that you are allowed to park for 72 hours without be fined ( but i think you never know and for sure you can be fined, but dont know. How are the laws now???) . So i have find these spots for overnight

As i travel with my family i would like to find the best and safest place

Click to expand...

The 72-hour limit you mentioned is a state law, and applies anywhere there's not a conflicting state or local law.  And in the San Francisco area, all the cities I've checked into have ordinances prohibiting sleeping in vehicles or overnight parking of large vehicles or other laws that prohibit overnighting on the street in an RV.

The thing is, the homeless crisis has resulted in LOTS of people living in RVs on the street, sometimes randomly by themselves, and sometimes in large groups that take up entire blocks.  You'll probably see them when you're there. 

They are generally in decrepit areas, near freeway interchanges where there is parking along the access road such that they're not in front of someone's house or business, so there's not likely to be someone who feels infringed upon and therefore likely to complain.  And from the looks of them, some of them have been there for a long time, clearly breaking the law. 

But also from the looks of them, I wouldn't feel safe there, and I'm not a scaredy-cat type.  For example, I would stay at the RV park in Hunters Point if I needed to have the closest RV site to downtown San Francisco I could get.  I wouldn't spend my free time wandering around the neighborhood on foot, but I recently drove through there to check out the RV park and it's a dispiriting area, but I didn't feel unsafe.

But in the colonies of RVs on the street, I'm sure some of the people are fine people who are just down on their luck or can't afford the exorbitant cost of housing there, but that's not always the case, and mental illness and drug addiction can make people act in ways that endanger others, and I wouldn't knowingly put myself in close proximity.  Either my own self, or my unattended RV.

You could probably get away with parking on the street, especially if you moved every night, but without knowing a lot about the area, you'd just be guessing on where it's likely to be overlooked by the authorities, and especially where it's likely to be safe, and I wouldn't want to have that hanging over my (and my family's) head.

Edited to add:  The cities do do periodic sweeps of the areas where the homeless set up colonies, which is another consideration to keep in mind.

Tom said:

Some years ago, a friend was driving his (new) car on the freeway past Oakland with his fiance in the passenger seat late one evening. The car broke down, and they started to walk to get help. A cop came along and told them "if you want to get home alive, get back in the car, close the windows and lock the doors. Wait until I come back for you." 30 minutes or so later, no sign of the cop, so they started walking again. Another cop stopped and told them the same thing.

You still want to sleep in the street in the not-so-nice part of Oakland?

Click to expand...

I agree with Oakland being very dangerous day or night in certain areas but two cops saying the same thing but not coming back or calling a tow truck...come on now  .

[quote author=Seon]...two cops saying the same thing but not coming back or calling a tow truck...come on now.[/quote]

I don't know if the second cop came back or not, nor if he called a tow truck. I have no reason to disbelieve our friend; I always found him to be of high integrity, but I don't recall how the story ended, nor if I asked. With or without the second cop, the story should still be a good warning.

Thanks a lot, we will go to a RV campground for sure

Good choice.

Another consideration for your visit would be to take public transport, rather than drive on busy streets, and have difficulty finding expensive parking. If you stay at a campground on the Marin side of the Bay, such as Tradewinds RV park, you can take a ferry into the city, with great views of Angel Island, the Golden Gate, and Alcatraz. The views of the city from the water are spectacular.

Public transport from the Ferry Terminal on the San Francisco side will take you to Pier 39. From there you can walk to the cable car and have a great ride up and down the streets of San Francisco. You can also stop off at places like Chinatown, and get back on the cable car to resume your ride.

Back in the Pier 39 area you can take a ferry to Alcatraz.

From Tradewinds, you can also visit the Napa Valley (wine country) and various amusement locations such as Six Flags.

The park in Marin next to the ferry is Marin RV Park.

I spent a couple of years there (actually in an adjacent monthly park) while I worked in San Francisco and it's a 15-20 minute walk to the Golden Gate Ferry on the other side of the inlet. From there it's a 30 minute ferry ride to the SF Ferry terminal at the foot of Market St.  Or you can take commute buses from the freeway pads almost directly in front of the park to SF and back.

Tradewinds RV Park is in Vallejo, on the northeast end of the Bay in Solano County.  It's about 2 miles from a one hour ferry ride into S.F.  On the plus side, they're about half as expensive as Marin RV Park.

Thanks Lou. I mentioned Tradewinds because Vallejo is where we drive to when we have visitors we take into the city by ferry (we take the Vallejo ferry). A longer ferry ride, but enjoyable, especially for folks who don't normally spend a lot of time on the water..

We stayed at Marin RV Park for 4 nights last April. It is pricey, but very safe and the owners/managers were extremely helpful with directions, recommendations, etc. The convenience and safety made up for the price. Plus, since we didn't take our SUV into the city we saved all of the aggrevation of driving  in an unfamiliar city and parking costs too.