As you may have noticed from the first answer give, all of the best things about Sacramento, take place 1 or more hours away! haha. I grew up 50 minutes from Sac and lived there pretty much my whole life. I absolutely love the area, but Sacramento, well... it sucks. haha. In fact, so much so, I never used Sacramento as a way of describing the general area in which I lived because it s so unrepresentative of much of it s surroundings in the foothills. Sacramento is a big city that is extremely spread out. Most of the buildings are from like the 50 s and on and have no character. The actual downtown part is nice, but there is little reason to go there and it s very small. Old Town Sac is also pretty cool, but it s extremely touristy. If you can, I definitely recommend driving a couple of hours and going somewhere else for a day or so. Of course it depends on what you re looking for. If you re looking for nightlife, I d just drive to SF.If you re looking for shopping, then you don t have to go too far. There are several malls, but I d recommend driving up to Roseville and going to the Galleria. It s only 10-15 minutes north/east and has a lot of stores. Not to mention the general area around the mall has a lot of plaza s and higher end stores. It s also newer, so it s clean and there are a lot of restaurants in a small area.If you re active, definitely go to Tahoe. There are about 15 different downhill resorts around the lake and the surrounding area, most of which are actually good, each for their own reasons. And there are a few cross country places as well, but I ve never been into cross country so I m not familiar with them. Not to mention, Lake Tahoe is beautiful and something to be seen if you haven t seen it.If you re into seeing small old towns, there are quite a few. And by old towns, I mean old western towns. Most of them are pretty touristy of course.As the first person mentioned, if you want rides, you re going to have to head to the bay area for Great America or Six Flags. Though I m not sure about when they are open this time of the year.There are so many great things to do in Northern California, and so many beautiful places to see. But Sacramento isn t really one of them.
This time of year Sacramento can get kind of dull.The weather is not very conducive for outdoor type activities. Unless of course you are into winter sports. Then in that case some of the best skiing and snowboarding in the world is less than two hours away.In the spring and summer things start to heat up, in more ways than one.A popular activity is to raft down the American River. It is great fun and they have been working hard the last few years to make it a more family friendly activity.If rides are your thing Discovery Kingdom down in Vallejo is a Six Flags property and is best enjoyed in warmer weather. They have animals and rides.Also Paramount s Great America is in Santa Clara a two hour or so drive good rides there.Another activity I and many of my friends enjoy are the fairs, there are many county fairs within in an hour or less drive from Sacramento, and you get it all there rides and great fair food.If you have not burned out on fairs by the end of summer, then the last three weeks of August is the California State Fair. It is huge. The biggest midway west of the Mississippi.Have fun
Old Sac is great fun.There is even a hotel in it!!
My husband and I went to the Old Sac area. It s like an old western boardwalk. We had a blast.