Where to fly to get to napa valley
Plan a trip to Napa - "Planning your first trip to Napa Valley"
hey everybody welcome back to magic time
I'm your host Thomas and I'm here in my
favorite spot which is I've filled near
before which is right above oak fill
about and I would say probably about 700
800 feet up onto the side of the Maya
comest mountains overlooking the entire
Napa Valley special spot anyways I
wanted to talk today about those of you
that are coming to the Napa Valley or
doing a wine country trip here for the
first time and what you need to consider
so number one is your flying you're
gonna fly into the area there's three
airports that you need to check there's
San Francisco International SFO there's
Sacramento Airport and there's also the
option of flying into Santa Rosa now the
best of the options of Santa Rosa if you
can afford to fly into Santa Rosa it's
gonna cost you a little bit extra and
there's not as many flights but it's
such a small quaint beautiful little
Airport that you just fly into there's
there's hardly any people there there's
no traffic getting in and out you don't
have to drive through the city and come
all the way up to here and Santa Rosa is
about you know 20 30 minutes away from
the Napa Valley so I would definitely
suggest that probably Sacramento would
be my second option for that so for the
same reason it's less busy you don't
have to go through Bay Area traffic and
but the ones that are gonna be most
affordable are going to be San Francisco
our SFO and Oakland as well you can fly
into Oakland and I prefer Oakland over
SFO to be honest with you okay so that's
the number one thing if you fly into San
Francisco or Oakland try to fly in at a
time period where it's not going you're
not going to be in rush-hour traffic
because the drive from San Francisco or
Oakland coming all the way up here to
Napa Valley it will take you to two to
two and a half hours if you come at rush
hour traffic meaning probably four or
five in the afternoon coming back from
the city to come up here or in the
morning in the morning times as well the
traffic can be pretty heavy so I'm
probably trying to fly in midday
sometime or in the evening if you can
number two is where are you going to
stay once you're up here well there's
several places you can stay definitely
the most developed place now is downtown
Napa and there's lots of hotels in
downtown Napa I would have I would
imagine there's quite a few Airbnb is in
downtown Napa as well that's gonna be
the place with the most amenities are
the most bars most restaurants and kind
of the most City like if you like city
things traveling up Valley the next
place that you can look to stay in as
Yong bill now Yountville is like I've
done a little video on Yountville it's
like the perfect little town and there's
amazing restaurants there there's it's
really quaint there are some few hotels
there but they're pretty expensive and I
would imagine there's some Airbnb is
there as well small town closer into the
valley too if you're going to go to
wineries and that's your main focus
probably young bill would be a good
option because it's so central in the
valley moving north there's really
nothing in terms of accommodations until
you really get up into saint elena state
elena small town as well some good
shopping there's like a downtown a
little strip with a bunch of little
boutique shops some nice restaurants
down there as well Sun Shine market my
favorite little brochure is down there
if you're planning on cooking from your
air B&B there's less hotel
accommodations there there's a few small
properties and then I'm going to imagine
there's quite a few Airbnb is moving
north you can stay in the furthest part
North in Napa Valley which would be
Calistoga and then Calistoga real small
boutique town I think it's one of the
coolest places to stay but it's also the
most north so if you're planning on
visiting a lot of wineries that are
further down here in the south part of
the valley whether it's an Oak Knoll or
Oakville Yountville down here that would
probably suggest against Calistoga even
though it's one of my favorite places to
stay if you're planning on doing Hal
Mountain or spring down Calistoga is a
good option it's gets close to a
mountain and spring so those are the
accommodations in terms of wineries I
always would say plan your day to have
enough time to get to your appointments
meaning when I first started traveling
here there was this thought that I had
to go as many wineries as possible
because I had never been here before and
like I needed to go to you know five six
wineries in a day so I could fill out my
itinerary and really see everything I
wanted to see that was okay maybe for
the first few times I came but I
realized that the better way to do it
and the more efficient way to do it is
probably three in one deck at maximum
meaning one at probably ten o'clock in
the morning when winery is open another
probably two hours later at about noon
and go to lunch and kind of refresh and
kind of shake off that alcohol drink
some good water get hydrated and then do
one more in the afternoon maybe around
2:30 to 3:00 o'clock so that's my ideal
some people like to do more than that I
don't love doing that because you're you
often go over on your appointments and
then you're late and then that never
feels good to be late to a fixed
appointment and most wineries nowadays
in Napa Valley are our appointment only
so keep that in mind as well it's not
like just fly in and do whatever you
want in terms of wineries if you want to
go to a specific place make sure you
call ahead and schedule your appointment
for your tasting because most of them
are not walking tasting rooms anymore
there are a few of those left but the
ones you might want to see the more
boutique ones are definitely a point
appointment only in terms of restaurants
you have all the restaurants that you
could possibly want here there's
restaurants in every town that I
mentioned in terms of accommodations
there's not a lot of middle-of-the-road
food there's like super gourmet and like
fine dining and like upscale and then
there's like fast food but there's not a
lot of like in-between if you want to
save yourself a whole hell of a lot of
money get an Airbnb and then go shopping
at Whole Foods or whatever and cook
dinners at home that kind of takes the
fun out of going to fancy restaurants
and kind of one of the coolest things
about Napa Valley is to go out dining
I mean experience that but if you are
into the just going to a wine trip and
visiting as many wineries as possible
and purchasing wine
I'd suggest getting an Airbnb and
cooking at home so those are some of my
my little tips for you if you're
planning your first wine trip here to
Napa Valley remember the dress code is
really casual here change is fine
I'm not sandals but like you know blue
jeans and some some loafers and maybe
like this or a polo it's just fine you
don't need to tuck in your shirt
you don't need to certainly don't know
where it need to wear it
a suit for women you don't need to be
wearing like a fancy dress although when
I see people in little cocktail dresses
he's like you immediately assume they're
not from here so if you want to
definitely make a statement you can do
that but if you want to kind of blend in
and be part of the wine country thing
you know just wear casual dress make a
jumper or something like that those are
those are my tips for you and thanks for
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information about Napa Valley Cheers
