Best View

Most of the advertised great views only provide, well, one great view. Ferryboats, on the other hand, offer an ever-changing selection of photo ops and panoramas that you don't have time to get used to. Our favorite is Golden Gate Ferry's Sausalito-San Francisco run, preferably on a sporadically foggy evening at sunset. The city is distant and shrouded in mist when you depart Sausalito, but by the time you're sailing past Alcatraz it's emerged from its blanket, the pastel buildings are bathed in a pale pink, and the windows glitter from the setting sun. Coming closer you catch familiar details from a new perspective -- Ghirardelli Square, the tumbling hills, the PlaySkool-esque building blocks of the Financial District. Off to the right the Golden Gate Bridge is silhouetted against the dusk and you're reminded, once again, exactly why it is you live in this place. If you can work it so the full moon is rising out of the East Bay hills during your vista-filled cruise, so much the better.