HOW TO ENJOY MONTEREY BAY WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK By Lu Sobredo Life is about making adjustments. Days and nights of continuous hot weather in parts of Northern California sent my family packing in early July 2019 for the San Francisco Bay Area. A couple of nights at our sailboat in Sausalito suited our budget. No hotel cost. A little over a decade ago, our hotel and food budget would have been $300 - $500 dollars for the weekend. We curb the cost of eating out some of our meals while at the boat by choosing neighborhood restaurants, not touristy ones. Find some of my favorites in this article: Sausalito: A Hidden Gem in the San Francisco Bay . And we supplement our meals by eating in or taking selected grocery items, both hot and cold, on a picnic at our favorite spots in town. This one hot summer week in July 2019, our family also opted to visit the Monterey Bay Area. It was our first in almost seven years. We were not deliberately avoiding the ic