Looking for suggestions for middle-class to upper-middle-class rural areas around the Bay Area.

I've never been, but a couple of friends moved to La Honda a few years back and really love it.

Oh, I just thought of another: Bonny Doon, in the hills above Santa Cruz. I went to the house of a guy I know - only one time, but I remember the drive up being very beautiful, and I know we went down a private road to get to the development where the house was. And I say "development" but you couldn't really see other houses from his house. Big lots, is what it looked like. It's ridiculously beautiful, and maybe 20 ish minutes from Santa Cruz, an hour and a bit from SF.

South: Felton, Bonny Doon, La Honda, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek. Maybe El Granada and Montera on the coast. The roads immediately above UCSanta Cruz. North: Bolinas, Fairfax, Oak Manor. Sebastopol would fit well as well, but it's a bit bigger and further north. All of these areas have a unique and close community. Some suffer from weekend traffic on the main roads, especially bicyclists in La Honda/Skylonda, motorcyclists anywhere on Highway 35, and motorcyclists on any straight stretch of the roads north of San Francisco.

If you can afford it, I think pretty much anywhere in Marin County would fit this description. Mill Valley in particular comes to mind, although not all houses will have acreage.

We live in Petaluma, but volunteer with a 4H program that's out of Hessel Grange near Sebastopol, and like the people we've met there. Western Sonoma County has a lot to recommend it, and you're surrounded by touristy towns, so there's always something going on. The Sebastopol area certainly has various thriving sub-communities. We also lived out in Marin County's San Geronimo Valley (we were in Lagunitas, my sweety lived for years before that in Woodacre), that may match your criteria more, although the break is probably "a lot in town" (for what constitutes "town"), or tens or more acres. And entry price for a place with land is certainly above 5 million, possibly closer to 10. The only thing I'm not sure about in Sonoma is the "only driven on by the people who live there", there's a bunch of gorgeous cycling out in the west county, and cyclists ride most of it. On "worried about them being snatched", realize that stranger child abduction in the U.S. is an amazingly rare occurrence (something you can verify by just how much of a big deal it is when you hear about it), and I'd be far more worried about coyotes or other wildlife than humans as dangers for pets. Live in rural areas with outdoor pets and you'll get used to the notion that the line between pets and deer and raccoons can get pretty blurry, in all sorts of ways. If you do end up somewhere like the San Geronimo Valley (or up near Nicasio), be thinking south-facing. We were on the south side of Sir Francis Drake, and the year round in the cold dark wet redwoods is part of why we're happy urban dwellers now.

Canyon, sort of behind Orinda in the east bay is like this. Fantastic place. Very suddenly farmland, but still totally modern convenience accessible.

2nding Marin. Maybe you can find a nice place in Novato near my girlfriend's parents.

Seconding Bolinas and Fairfax, though I live in one of blob's "South" communities, none of which except perhaps Ben Lomond is solidly middle-class in the way you specify, and even there you will find random meth-related oddnesses. Bolinas is the town that takes down the "Bolinas" signs Caltrans periodically installs. I'd add Tiburon. Tiburon is a ferry ride away from SF.

Sonoma County (north of Marin County) has plenty of areas with land that might interest you. Napa County, too. All depends on your budget. Perhaps you could find a little vineyard. And in Marin County, the farther reaches of Lucas Valley sounds like what you're after.