Now in our 17th year!
The journal of a passionate love affair
between a place and its peopleTM
Our Mission
We gather all the Sausalito information that a visitor or resident might ever need, and make it readily available in a well-organized, continually-updated and easy-to-use format.
We are proud members of the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce.
Our Story
The short version: We’re a group of friends who are passionate about Sausalito. In 2008 we started OurSausalito.com as a sample project to learn how to build a website for a project I was working on, and shared our favorite restaurants and activities around town. To our surprise, our audience started to grow. Since 2017 we’ve been the most-visited Sausalito site in the world. (Source: Alexa).
The version we’d tell over tea or a beer: Sometimes when you’re trying to do something just for fun, you accidentally do something important.
It was back in 2008. We were sitting around out on the patio. It was a warm autumn evening in Sausalito, the season when the fog has gone and the sun wants to make up for lost time. Just family and friends, talking and laughing.
I needed to start up a website for work. What would be a short, fun project to learn how to create a web page?
“Let’s write up a list of all our favorite restaurants and places to go in Sausalito,” someone suggested. “Then we could share it with our friends.”
And so OurSausalito.com was born. The little website grew, and became a list of all the restaurants in Sausalito. We wrote more pages about fun places to go and fun things to do. Passing 1,000 pages of all-original content and 100,000 unique visitors per month for our tiny project? Growing at over 30% annually even after 10 years? If you’d predicted it back then we’d never have believed you. But it happened.
Some of us are long-time residents, some grew up in Sausalito, others work here. Our families helped build Sausalito over a century ago, rode the ferries before the coming of the Golden Gate Bridge, worked in the Marinship shipyards during World War II, and were here for the Summer of Love in 1967.
Some great new people have joined our team and others have moved away, but our mission is the same. Recent editorial team members Include (in alphabetical order):
Evaristo Buendia — Photographer and Artist Extraordinaire
Ashley Klein — Contributing Editor
Ellie Klevins — Sr. Contributing Editor
Annamarie Roger — Contributing Editor
Henry Stephens — Contributing Editor
Sabine Stetson — Photographer and Artist Extraordinaire
Kimberley Swan — Contributing Editor
Miss T — Editor-in-Chief (pictured below)
Our Editor: Miss T
Miss T (pictured above reading the inscription at the Sally Stanford Memorial Fountain) has walked the length and heights of Sausalito looking for useful information to share with visitors and residents.
She supervises the activities in our office each day, attending every meeting. Each time we walk outside, her joy reminds us to be grateful that we all have the chance to live and work in Sausalito.
Can I write something for OurSausalito?
We thought you’d never ask! Did we overlook something for the Insider’s Guide? Have an upcoming event you think deserves an article?
We welcome articles written by members of the community, and if your story is accepted for publication we’ll publish it with your name (if you request it).
Corrections, updates, feedback, additional information that improves an article etc. are also welcomed.
Community members who submit articles are also asked periodically for their input for our various “Favorites” lists, like The Best Burger in Sausalito, so our writers influence more than just the pages they create.
See “Content Guidelines” below for more details.
The 10 Reasons We Started OurSausalito.com
1. Most “Local” websites are really just links in an online chain managed by a distant corporation. We’re based in Marinship and cover Sausalito ourselves, from Ft. Baker and Hurricane Gulch to Gate 6 1/2 and Pohono, with over 1,000 pages of 100% original content. You’ll also notice “copycat” Sausalito sites that take our pages, rearrange the words and then publish them as their own, which is a bad idea if you believe in karma.
2. Traditional websites disguise paid advertising as news. Why are they so thrilled about the sale at Acme Fashion? Because Acme paid for the article. Local businesses have great stories to tell and don’t need to trick people to succeed, so we always note sponsor relationships on relevant pages.
3. Traditional websites treat Sausalito as an afterthought to San Francisco. We’re by far the largest guide to Sausalito, online or in print.
4. Traditional guidebooks only serve visitors. We serve both visitors and residents, with in-depth content for each community.
5. Traditional websites bury 50 Sausalito listings amid 1,500 San Francisco pages. We have triple the Sausalito content of any other site.
6. Traditional websites have no human editor who knows that Tiburon isn’t (as Hotels.com and other sites say) 1.7 miles from Sausalito, and that “checking in” at the Alta Mira now has a whole new meaning.
7. Traditional guidebooks say things like Lonely Planet’s “A coffee, a quick shopping stroll and a walk along the bayfront are enough to satisfy most day visitors.” We know they’re wrong, and we’re mad as Hell about it. (Note: Lonely Planet has now deleted that condescending reference, but it remained prominent on their Sausalito page for over five years.)
8. Traditional websites scatter Sausalito information. We collect data from hundreds of sources to concentrate the answers in one convenient place.
9. Traditional websites want to keep you on their site to build their advertising volumes, not connect you to outside resources. We have 400% more outbound links for Sausalito than any other site.
10. We love Sausalito. No explanation needed.
The only traditional things about OurSausalito.com are good writing, opinionated editors, and wide-open listening for your feedback.
Advertising
To discuss how we can best serve your business, please contact us at oursausalito at:
Separation of Church and State
We do not have any financial interests in any Sausalito restaurants, hotels, stores or attractions (other than OurSausalito.com itself), nor do our families.
Content Guidelines
Our rules for writers who submit articles are similar to the rules for Wikipedia and other online publications: no attacks or disrespectful language towards individuals, groups or companies, no self-promotion except for non-profits (though we sell many different kinds of ads!), and we reserve the exclusive right to edit content and to decide what is published and what is not based on our sole judgment.
We encourage open discussion in articles submitted by members of the Community. If you disagree with our opinion and share your ideas in a constructive way it makes our site better, because readers now have two perspectives from which to choose.
We will, however, immediately delete or edit obscene or offensive language, personal attacks or disparaging statements about individuals or groups, copyrighted material belonging to others, and anything that we feel holds the potential to offend our readers and violate their sense of appropriate content. If you see anything inappropriate anywhere on our site, please contact us via the address below.
We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions! Email us at:
