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

I was in the same predicament a few months ago after coming up from Australia (though not for job interview ;-)).

My wife and I rented a car from San Jose and drove around. If you are used to public transport in Europe or even Australia - you'll find navigating your way around solely on public transport difficult.

But, California has a great highway system, so if you feel brave enough and have some cash - a rental car allows you to see more in the short amount of time you'll have.

That said, when I visited the Google campus in Mountain View, there wasn't a whole lot to see; plus I found myself feeling a little unwelcome with everyone doing a double check on whether we had badges on (which is a good thing... for campus security!). But that may have just been the SLR camera I was walking around with ;-) On the serious side - their campus is nice - and they have multi-coloured bicycles for getting around... cool!

I'd definitely try to checkout Stanford - the campus is gorgeous (as is Berkeley - if you can get there); Luckily, I happened to be there the day Steve Job's ceremony was being conducted - so we got to see the campus, the secret service, California police, and a whole bunch of celebs.

For the Icons of IT tour, if you have the time (and a car) you could check out all the other Silicon Valley icons within short driving distance:

    * Apple in Cupertino
    * Yahoo! in Sunnyvale
    * Cisco in San Jose
    * eBay's Whitman campus (they have a nice play house with an office built inside) 
    * Intel museum in Santa Clara

The Facebook office isn't very exciting - we arrived at their Palo Alto campus but there's nothing to see - you can wander into the foyer and take a peek through the glass doors where all the staff work, but that's about it.

Also, the computer history museum is excellent - it'll take you a few hours to really get through the various sections so if you have the time - I'd check that out. That's right near Google, so you could walk (20mins?) from Google's office.

Agreed. Specially if they still have the Babbage Difference Engine No. 2 on display (it was absolutely thrilling seeing it actually working).