I would recommend staying in Union Square, maybe at the Westin St. Francis (ask for a bigger room), or the JW Marriot, the Regency, or any one of many great hotels in the area. Don't rent a car at the airport, but take BART or a shuttle or cab to San Francisco. You don't want a car downtown. It's a real pain to deal with in the city. Enjoy downtown, North Beach, Chinatown, all the rest, and when you want to get out of town, rent a car through your hotel concierge, there are many rental agencies right by union square.

I don't know much about the areas your husband is interested in. hopefully someone will share their expertise in this area.

You've asked several questions, some quite specific and some general. I'll start with the general and work down as I can:

1. Five nights is a good amount of time in SF, and you can consider spending the entire time in the city, or break off a day or two for sights outside the city. I'd think that 3 days in SF and perhaps 1-2 nights elsewhere might be good, seeing as you have other interests. I don't think it makes any difference in August whether you come on a weekday or a weekend.

2. You mentioned a car. I suggest structuring your trip so that you don't have a car for all five days, specifically, the days you are traveling around SF. Cars are a pain the posterior to have in the city and the time you spend looking for parking at many of the sights in the most popular parts of the city can be spent enjoying the sights themselves. That said, depending on the places you are planning to go or the best price for a rental car, you still might choose to have a car. In which case, choose motor lodges thave has free parking -- either on the Van Ness/Lombard Street corridor, or the Castle Inn on Russian Hill. Nob Hill Motor Lodge, Castle Inn and Capri have been mentioned here by travelers, among others. Beware that most hotels in Union Square area will charge a hefty price for parking.

2. The closest redwoods are Muir Woods, and since you don't have much time, heading up to the Redwood Empire end of the state isn't necessary. You can also combine this with a beautiful winding drive above the coastline to Stinson Beach and hiking around Mt. Tamalpais. You can easily do this in a day on one of your SF days, or stay overnight someplace and head over to gold country from there.

3. Gold Country. You could rent a car on your two days of your trip and head toward Jackson or Sonora, and go directly to Oakland airport from there. You can drive out in that direction and stay overnight in a little bed & breakfast or hotel, and even hit a winery along the way. There are historic sites and very charming towns.

Try www.gocalif.com, the state tourism bureau's site. Choose "Regions" on the left navigation bar, then click on "Gold Country."

p.s. Sacramento and the Sierra foothills, that is, gold counry, are really hot in August, but at least it's not humid.

4. If, alternatively, you choose Steinbeck Country, remember this is close to some ground you've already been (Carmel), but Monterey, Point Lobos and of course the Steinbeck Center in Salinas are well-worth visiting. There is a lot to see in Monterey and you could easily spend two days here and be very happy.

4. I know there are ghost tours in SF, but I'm not familiar enough to recommend any. Here are some sites that seem to appear on multiple third-party sites:

http://www.sfghosthunt.com/

http://www.hauntedhaight.com/

Hotels are cheaper in Oakland. I am researchingitmyself nowbecuase I amtaking a family trip atendof July/Aug

Like I said, Hotels are cheaper outside the city. If you have member points with any hotel the deals are better outside the city as well. Hotel parking is free in many placesor can be as high as 15 dollars. You will pay more in town. Lots of hotels 15-20 minutes on BART.

But if you plan to stay just in the city, then I agree with some others - stay in town and only rent a car for a day if you need one. It is nice to stay in the city.

Tx_native: "what would be the most logical part of the city to base our stay"

Union Square. Oh, others have said that.

> Should we consider staying part of the time outside the city

No!

> Since the city is large

It is? Compared to where? We are (as of 2003) 751,682 residents in 47.452 miles².

The "Don't-miss sights in San Francisco" page geocities.com/iconoc/Articles/Sights.html has enough to keep you busy for nine twelve-hour days. It includes links to your best source of advice on where to eat here, the UseNet Group ba.food, and the quite-good sfSurvey. It also has a weather chart with a link to current conditions.

The best on-line map of San Francisco is an inter-active PDF: geocities.com/iconoc/Grafix/MuniMap.pdf. I recommend 150-300% magnification. A creation of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, it includes all of its routes.

The frequently-updated SPECIAL EVENTS page has irregularly-scheduled music and dances as well as links to seven calendars of regularly-scheduled dances, a composite of five of them, and one of dance cruises and events around the world: geocities.com/dancefest/Specials.html#t

I wish to address BadDrachenfels' remarks about staying Oakland, since this question over staying in the city versus staying outside of the city comes up from time to time.

Each traveler has different goals for his or her trip to the San Francisco Bay Area. Circumstances such as age of the travelers, having a family, not having a family, number and ages of children, length of stay, and budget, affect the decision-making, as does preferences for the type of sightseeing people like to do. Budget and parking charges alone do not solely determine whether one should stay in SF or not.

If you are thinking about doing a lot of visiting outside of SF, and are not coming to the area mainly to see sights inside of SF, I think staying outside of SF is a fine idea. If you're going into the city only a couple of days and then going all around the Bay Area for the rest of your trip, staying outside the city is a reasonable course of action. Being a former Oakland resident, of course I think Oakland and other points in the East Bay are fine places to stay, as well. I would be careful in choosing my hotel locations, just as I would be in San Francisco. Location is everything. Oh, and that Bay Bridge...it ain't no picnic sometimes, with the traffic snarls.

If you are doing a lot of sightseeing inside SF, nothing beats waking up in the city and having the city at your feet when you walk out the door. If you are staying outside of the city and visiting each day, you have to take into account the daily per-person transit fees each way, and the time involved in the trip. If you are renting a car, you have to take into account parking fees once you reach your destination in the city, not to mention the time spent driving, navigating and waiting in traffic.