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Ask HN: I have one day, what should I see in the Silicon Valley?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: I have one day, what should I see in the Silicon Valley?

#11

Post by petercooper »

I suggest focusing on getting and accepting personal invitations you get on here. Meeting people is far more interesting than going to specific locations, in my experience. The more places like Hacker Dojo you can visit, the better (there are some great hacker places you can stay at on AirBnB, too). You might even land more interviews out of it ;-)

If you're an Apple fan, don't forget to swing by the Apple campus store at 1 Infinite Loop. They had plenty of trinkets in there I hadn't seen at other stores.

Palo Alto is a pretty nice town in its own right although it's not culture central like SF. Must admit I'm not a big SF fan though and prefer heading to where interesting things are occurring rather than wandering about as a tourist.

If you have a car, Buck's of Woodside is worth a visit if you appreciate its history and significance in geek culture, but if you don't, there's little to actively see.

Re: Ask HN: I have one day, what should I see in the Silicon Valley?

#12

Post by CoffeeDregs »

SF and Silicon Valley are relatively standard cities/areas (but the overall, Bay Area environment is fantastic). I don't think you'll find anything particularly special about San Francisco: it's a nice, cultured city, but you've already seen plenty of those.

As diego mentioned, Silicon Valley is about doing, so see the do-ers and the do-ers hangouts:

    * Visit google's campus in Mountain View (cab ride from Caltrain);
    * Visit DogPatch Labs in SF (15 minute walk from Caltrain);
    * Visit RocketSpace in SF  (15 minute walk from Caltrain);
    * Visit Hacker Dojo in Mountain View (10 minute walk from Caltrain);
    * Walk around Stanford's campus (5 min walk from Caltrain);
    * Grab coffee at Coupa Cafe or lunch at University Cafe
      in Palo Alto (5 minute walk from Caltrain);
    * Don't visit Facebook (it's a boring campus).
If you're an avid reader of Hacker News, seeing some of these places might provide some helpful context for the stories you read.

Obviously, if you're going to visit these places or others, drop another story on HN with places + times and I'm sure folks will try to greet you.

Re: Ask HN: I have one day, what should I see in the Silicon Valley?

#13

Post by james33 »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #12

SF and Silicon Valley are relatively standard cities/areas (but the overall, Bay Area environment is fantastic). I don't think you'll find anything particularly special about San Francisco: it's a nice, cultured city, but you've already seen plenty of those. As diego mentioned, Silicon Valley is about doing, so see the do-ers and the do-ers hangouts: * Visit google's campus in Mountain View (cab ride from Caltrain);…

I thought Facebook was pretty cool actually (the inside, not the outside). Although, I haven't been to their new campus, so I can't comment on that.

Re: Ask HN: I have one day, what should I see in the Silicon Valley?

#17

Post by bps4484 »

_delirium wrote: post #3

You might find this discussion useful (both the linked article, and the many replies): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1757521 Depends on what you want to see. Silicon Valley itself isn't actually all that exciting as a tourist imo; lots of interesting stuff goes on there, but mostly inside nondescript office parks. But the Computer History Museum is cool. San Francisco is a fairly interesting city, but much of i…

I second the computer history museum. It's really great, and free. I went with my family at my mom's behest and told them all "listen, I'm a computer dork so I'll like this, but don't blame me if you all hate it, I'm not forcing you to do this", and everyone loved it. Even the history major!

Re: Ask HN: I have one day, what should I see in the Silicon Valley?

#19

Post by fendale »

I was in SV for the first time recently. The google campus was cool, computer history musuem was also cool and almost beside google. It was good to see the Stanford campus too. SF was just like any other city for me, so I didn't do much sightseeing there.
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