Sausalito is famous for its historic Richardson Bay houseboat community, which was built after World War II by artists and other bohemian spirits. It's a small town with a very unique flair.
From San Francisco, you can arrive here by crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
If you arrive by car, a good spot to park at is the Sausalito Public Parking Lot (Downtown). There are also some public restrooms at this parking lot, which you can use in case nature calls.
Sausalito's downtown area is pretty small. When we visited it back in 2018, we spent roughly an hour exploring it. We discovered a few cool new shops and enjoyed a nice ice cream under the sun while watching the boats in the marina.
As a souvenir, we bought a small tealight holder in the shape of a sailboat. As we were paying at the counter, the owner of the shop started making conversation with us.
She asked us about our plans for the rest of the day. We mentioned that we wanted to go visit Muir Woods, and she asked if we had booked our parking spot online. We looked at each other and then told her that we had not. She explained to us how the process works, and luckily we were able to book our spot and visit this National Monument! Uf, what a save.
If you would like to visit Muir Woods, you can check out the article I wrote about it.
After we were done exploring, we bought some ice cream. We enjoyed it under the sun while slowly making our way back to the parking lot where we left our rented campervan.
We gave our visit to Sausalito 4 stars because the town was really small and most shops where a bit too spiritual for our taste 😉.
