visiting san fran but hotel in castro valley?

as i have posted before i am visiting california in august. flying into LA for a few days then driving up to San Fran. My girlfriend has friends who can get us a cheap room ($40 a night and free parking) at the holiday inn express in castro valley. says it is 27 miles from sfo and 34 miles from san fran. says there is a BART station 1.5 miles from the hotel. how long do you think the train ride would be and would this be convienient if we want to visit san fran/union square/fishermans warf and all the other toursity areas? would it be expensive? would we have to pay to park our car at the BART station? thanks!

tara

visiting san fran but hotel in castro valley?

would it be better to stay in san fran opposed to here? i tihnk it is a little far but the price is awesome!

visiting san fran but hotel in castro valley?

Tara:

It all depends on how you like to travel. The room night is very cheap, though Castro Valley kind of out there.

I used to commute past Castro Valley every day, and I%26#39;m thinking that I know exactly where this is. There is a little commercial district off of Interstate 580 with several motels visible from the freeway.

Here are my thoughts:

1. BART will be a convenient way to travel, though you will have to watch the schedule to make sure you don%26#39;t get caught after midnight, having missed the last train back.

2. Will it be expensive? It will cost you $4.05 each way, for a total of $8.10 per day per PERSON to ride BART in and out of SF. If there are two of you, that%26#39;s $16.20 per day.

To see this and other details for yourself, go to:

www.bart.gov

Use the Quick Planner to plug in stations (';Castro Valley'; and ';Embarcadero'; for Fisherman%26#39;s Wharf or ';Powell Street'; for Union Square).

Keep in mind that schedules are different for weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays, which is why quick planner asks for date and time specifics. You can dummy in any date that will approximate the day of weeka and dummy in time of day to approximate your travel plans to get an idea.

3. Will we have to pay to park our car? No, but parking can be near impossible to find on weekdays unless you are up at the crack of dawn. You will be competing with commuters who need to park their cars. If you fail to get there before 7 a.m. on some days, in some stations, forget it.

Is it worth it? I don%26#39;t know. I don%26#39;t know what kind of budget you%26#39;re traveling on, or how you like to visit places. Some people could. If you had the means, I%26#39;d say pay a little more to stay in the city, or at least a little closer in, or somewhere off of the BART line in Berkeley.

Another possibility is to stay at a hostel in San Fracisco. They can be very cheap -- compettive with your Castro Valley place, though to be that cheap, they would probaby be dorm room-style. Private rooms could be a little more. It%26#39;s worth checking out.

http://www.hostels.com/en/us.ca.sf.html

Good luck. When you have additional or different questions, make a new posting. Don%26#39;t add to this one.

Have you thought about using Priceline? One can often get SFO airport hotels (about 10 miles south of SF) for around that cost . How much you can stretch your budget can make a lot of the differnce here.

While tons of people live in Castro Valley and commute to SF each day, it seems a little far unless you have other interests there. If San Francisco is your destination I would try to either get closer to the city or even better in the city.