Your List of the Best Things to Do in Sonoma
Top 10 Things to do in Sonoma is proud of our partners!
From Bachelorette Parties to Girls Day Out, this page features the top 10 things to do in Sonoma besides wine tasting or visiting a winery. Each one offers a something unusual to do in Sonoma and provides alternatives to the same old winery experience.
This Top 10 list includes: Tours, resources, family friendly fun and spots of historical interest!
Happy Travelers Tours
Attention Brides and Bachelorette Party Planners
Our newest Premier Member specializes in unique, memorable, Tours and Events designed to highlight the California Lifestyle.
Click on these links to learn more about their Bachelorette Parties and Girl’s Day Out events. Happy Travelers Tours helps make your visit to Wine County the Best Day Ever!
Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau
It’s a magical state of mind, a historic legacy, a leader in sustainable tourism, a home to California’s beginnings, a mecca for the senses and a pastoral slice of paradise. And just 45 miles north of San Francisco, you’ll find our paradise makes for an incredibly perfect getaway.
CornerStone
Visit Cornerstone Sonoma, a wine country marketplace featuring a collection of world-class shopping, boutique wineries and tasting rooms, artisanal foods, art-inspired gardens, live music, and home to Sunset’s Gardens + Outdoor Test Kitchen
Vineburg Deli
Vineburg Deli, at the corner of Napa Road and 8th Street in Sonoma, has a real wood-fire bbq grill outside that it uses to cook tri-tip and other meats. This is not a bbq joint, but instead a deli that uses meat cooked over a wood fire in its sandwiches. One of the best restaurants in Sonoma Valley, even if it isn’t a “real” restaurant!
Old Wine Vine Tours
A founding Premier Member, Old Vine Wine Tours offers first class transportation to the Sonoma and Napa County Wine Country. We can help you plan out your day or take you on a leisurely tour of whatever region you are interested in.
From Boutique Wine Tastings to Bridal Party Transportation, Old Vine Wine Tours is your one-stop transportation service provider! Contact Old Vine Wine Tours today!
Sonoma Family Fun Center Mini Golf
Sonoma Fun Center is a family fun zone, home to an 18-hole miniature golf course, and arcade. Wander through a course with kid-sized Sonoma sites. Hidden gem for family fun in the Valley. Come play today!
The Sonoma Plaza
Within one block there are 30+ wine tasting rooms, 25+ amazing restaurants, a huge variety of shopping choices and more. A park for kids and picnics, events, food and wine tours and historical sightseeing. It’s easy to see why Sonoma Plaza must be on your to do list.
General Vallejo’s Home
In 1850 Vallejo purchased some acreage at the foot of the hills half-a-mile west and north of Sonoma’s central plaza. The land surrounded a fine, free-flowing spring that the lndians had called Chiucuyem (crying mountain).
Vallejo retained this name for his new estate, but translated it into Latin, Lachryma Montis, (mountain tear). Grapevines were transplanted to the new site along with a wonderful assortment of fruit trees — olives, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, figs, and many lemon and orange trees – as well as some strictly decorative trees and shrubs.
Sonoma Train Town
TrainTown, evolving since 1958, was founded by Stanley L. Frank of Oakland, CA. Mr. Frank was an Oakland printing magnate, adamant table-top model builder, and M.B.A. Harvard University graduate.
Mr. Frank once stated: “TrainTown can best be thought of as a 10-acre elaborate table top railroad, which is outdoors and rideable; where sense of direction is lost, and best appreciated by the under sophisticated and over sophisticated.”
Mission San Francisco Solano
Mission San Francisco Solano was the 21st mission in Alta California, and the only one built under the Mexican era. It was the northernmost and last of the missions to be established. San Francisco Solano, the patron saint of the mission, was a 17th Century missionary to the Peruvians. This mission site was chosen for its’ weather, water, grazing land and building materials.
Presido of Sonoma
The two-story, wide-balconied, adobe barracks facing Sonoma’s central plaza was built to house Mexican army troops under the command of General Vallejo. These troops first arrived in Sonoma in 1834 when Vallejo, then the Commandant of the Presidio at San Francisco, was instructed to move his garrison to Sonoma.
From then until 1846, Sonoma was the headquarters of the commandant of the Frontera del Norte – the Mexican provincial frontier of the north. Actual construction of the adobe barracks building probably took place in stages, but was more or less completed in 1840 and ’41.