Reddit reviews One Night Wilderness: San Francisco Bay Area: Quick and Convenient Backpacking Trips within Two Hours of San Francisco

Probably a good idea to invest in this book

https://www.amazon.com/One-Night-Wilderness-Convenient-Backpacking/dp/0899976239

Good for beginners, has some spots that are less well known, all close to the bay area

If you don’t already have it, pick up this book: One Night Wilderness. It outlines tons of overnight trips in the Bay Area, including Butano.

As someone else mentioned Henry coe would work. I'm doing Pt Reyes in a couple weeks and can report back. We're doing a really basic trip there though because I'll be 4 months pregnant so I can't cover a lot of distance at this point. But I need to the time outdoors so I'm going to make it happen.

this book also is great for figuring out options for short trips.

I just got the book you need: https://www.amazon.com/One-Night-Wilderness-Convenient-Backpacking/dp/0899976239

I actually find its trail difficulty rating correct. I did a loop of their's labeled an 8/10 and it definitely was. If the creeks weren't dry, I would say maybe even 9-10 level because of how often you had to cross them and how high they can get.

I saw a couple people recommend Sykes and while I loved it as a first trip, I don't think I'd ever go on a weekend or during the summer. I went mid-week at the start of spring and most of the camp sites were taken and we had to wait ~30 minutes to get into one of the hot springs. An old dude told me he's seen people have to sleep in the river on summer weekends because it was so crowded.

Skyline to sea in the Santa Cruz mountains has a nice slow decline (at least from what I remember of the second half). But again, it can get a little crowded on the weekend.

Tahoe has some great options. And tons of them. I did section k of the pct there this summer and it was amazing. Going up to dicks pass nearly killed me because I'm super weak when I comes to altitude but there are loops around there that you can use to avoid that beast.

Pescadero Creek Trail, just went there 2 weeks ago and had a blast. $10 a night, no reservations, just show up early in the morning to the ranger station. I use this book: http://www.amazon.com/One-Night-Wilderness-Convenient-Backpacking/dp/0899976239

I'd stay away from inland camp sites since it will be very hot.

Edit: Pescadero allows camp fires as long as it's brown and dead on the ground. There aren't a lot of other backpacking campsites in the area that allow open fires so keep that in mind as well.