July 14, 2008

Segway-ing through San Francisco

My husband first experienced a Segway when he was in Paris five years ago and took a local city tour. Since then he has been trying to convince me to try it out. I kept making excuses, thinking 'What is so cool about this two wheel thing?"

Recently though, one of my destination wedding clients asked me for suggestions on unique ways for her out of towners to view the city. I casually brought up this topic as I was having dinner with my husband one night. His answer?

"Send them on a Segway Tour!"

I finally became intrigued by this electrical vehicle, which is (according to Wikipedia) a 'two-wheeled self balancing electrical vehicle' invented by someone name Dean Kamen. Before I could recommend such a thing to my clients though, I ofcourse had to try it out myself first!

Surprisingly for me, it was great fun!! We started off with a brief tutorial session in which the instructors taught us one by one how to get on and off the vehicle. Following that was a 5 minute video on safety that we needed to watch, some practicing on their 'parking lot', and then off we went in a group of 10! Balancing myself on the segway was challenging at first, but I soon became a natural at it and was speeding past everyone at 12.5 mph. We were prime photo targets for the tourists around Fisherman's Wharf and made quite a funny scene as we rolled ourselves down the streets of Nob Hill. We even stopped for gelato!

The entire tour was about two hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, my husband is now looking into buying his own segway to get to work and I must say that I support him on this decision as I can't wait to ride on it again!

For more adventurous people, there is a tour that will take you down the crooked Lombard Street and night time tours. They also do private group tours, so it's a great way to entertain your out of town guests when you're planning a wedding weekend!


www.sfelectricaltour.com

1 comment:

  1. Oh my gosh! How adventurous of you! Glad you had so much fun. Your hubby should ask our friend who is an avid Segway owner, rider, polo player the next time he comes to dinner. I'm sure he could give him some pointers on the topic :D

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