On the Back Roads ... North

I'd convinced Viv that we should head north of San Francisco as we'd never been north of Sausalito before and northern California's coast road, CA 1, is spectacular going south so undoubtedly would be the same or better heading north.

I'd booked a car to collect at the airport after we dropped off Viv's mum, Anna, and chosen a new company called Silvercar (see website here) to book an Audi A4 -- they only rented A4's!  Viv had seen an advertisement for the company in an airline's magazine and I was surprised as usually the advertisements are pretty useless but this one promised something different.

Book the car online.  Text the firm when you're ready to collect the car (in SF this means when you catch a car park shuttle).  And when you get to the car park, 2 guys come and greet you and carry your bags to your 2013 Audi A4.  Using your smartphone, you use Silvercar's App that you have already downloaded for free to scan the bar code on the car's windscreen which then confirms the rental and releases the car to you.

Once in the car you read the welcome card which tells you that you pay no penalty for tolls or refilling the car's tank prior to returning it.  You also have up to the minute GPS (better than the one we bought too!) and internet within the car itself.  Of course you can play your iPod if you want but there's also a host of other entertainment options fully loaded into the car itself.

It was also the top of the line, turbocharged model.

And it cost less to rent than the other rental companies that I had checked out too!

Viv asked if we could buy stock in the company.  I don't think its quoted yet but I do plan to contact them to see if we can become an investor in the company as what they provide in terms of service and the car itself so far exceeds any other car rental company that I cannot believe someone like Avis or Hertz wouldn't buy them to use as their 'ultra premium' option but mostly just to take them out of the equation!

Its not a big car and in retrospect I do wonder if we could have traveled with a bit less luggage!

But it handles beautifully and our drive to our ultimate destination ... which turned out to be Bodega Bay, a little way up the Marin coastline was very nice.  We'd turned off the highway option on the GPS and it took us to some very lovely places indeed.

Last picture is the view over the bay from our room.