The following are four scenic drives around the San Francisco Bay Area with destinations you can make a day trip out of.
Mount Diablo
About an hour and a half’s drive east of San Francisco is the scenic drive through Mount Diablo State Park to the top of Mount Diablo, in Contra Costa County. It is a curvy 11-mile drive if you enter through the North Gate entrance on North Gate Road in Walnut Creek, and about 15 miles if you enter through the South Gate Entrance on South Gate Road in Danville. There is a $10 entrance fee.
The drive will take you past woodlands populated with oak trees, including the interior live oak and the California black oak, and in the springtime, past vistas of wildflowers, including fields of California poppies….