Things to Do in Silicon Valley: Where to Go, Eat & Stay New

People fly into San Jose expecting Silicon Valley to look like a mother-board or something. It looks like office parks, six lanes of Highway 101, and a Chili's. I have lived here my whole life, and this is what I tell friends who visit: the interesting part is not really the tech. It is the string of small downtowns, restaurants, parks, wineries and slightly odd local places wedged in between it.

You cannot wander through the working parts of Google, Apple or Meta, which is probably the first thing to let you know. However, Apple runs a Visitor Center in Cupertino with a store, a cafe and a roof terrace looking toward Apple Park, and Google has a Visitor Experience in Mountain View with a store, a cafe and art out on the plaza. Both are free and neither requires a reservation to walk in. Meta offers a sign at the edge of its Menlo Park campus that people pull over to photograph, which is a different sort of afternoon.

What you can do is spend three or four days moving between towns that each have a different personality, eat extremely well while you do it, and occasionally find yourself standing twenty minutes from one of the most famous companies in the world while looking at a salt pond or an old movie theater instead.

The short version

Silicon Valley runs along the southern end of San Francisco Bay, with San Jose at the bottom, Palo Alto toward the top, and a collection of towns in between. Fly into San Jose International Airport if the fares work, rent a car, and choose two or three areas rather than trying to see everything. If you are trying to decide where to spend your time, this is where I would start.

Things to do in Silicon Valley, town by town

Downtown San Jose

San Jose is one of the largest cities in the country, yet plenty of visitors to Silicon Valley never set foot downtown. That is a shame, because many of its best attractions sit within a fairly compact area. The San Jose Museum of Art and The Tech Interactive face the same plaza, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph is nearby, and Sonic Runway, the light installation outside City Hall, is free and much better after dark.

For a dinner thick with atmosphere, Original Joe's has been serving San Jose since 1956 and still does not take reservations. Orchestria Palm Court is a completely different experience, filled with working player pianos and other mechanical musical instruments. I have put together the museums, restaurants, historic buildings and practical details in my guide to what to do in downtown San Jose.

Palo Alto

Palo Alto is where the money is, and it is quieter than that sounds. The Rodin Sculpture Garden on the Stanford campus is free and usually peaceful, while the Stanford Theatre on University Avenue is a 1925 movie palace that still shows classic films. Bell's Books on Emerson Street is the sort of old-fashioned independent bookstore that makes you want to buy something even if your suitcase already has opinions about the matter.

If you want a piece of Silicon Valley history, the HP Garage on Addison Avenue is recognized as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. You view it from the sidewalk, so expectations should be adjusted accordingly, but I still think it is worth ten minutes. I cover Stanford, downtown, restaurants and where to stay in my guide to what to do in Palo Alto.

Mountain View

Mountain View is one of the easiest Silicon Valley towns to visit without a car because Caltrain drops you at the end of Castro Street, where restaurants and cafes stretch through downtown. The Computer History Museum is also here, and if you are genuinely interested in the technology side of Silicon Valley, this is the tech attraction I would make time for. The Google Visitor Experience is out at the Shoreline end of town, with a store, a cafe and art on the plaza, and it costs nothing to walk in.

Shoreline Park gives you an entirely different version of Mountain View, with trails and open space close to all those office buildings. I stayed nearby at the Shashi Hotel and explored the area from there, which resulted in both my Mountain View solo travel guide and my Shashi Hotel review, including the important matter of the chaise lounge.

Sunnyvale

Sunnyvale makes more sense as a base than as a sightseeing marathon, but Historic Murphy Avenue gives it a real downtown rather than just another collection of office parks. The pedestrian area is lined with restaurants and places to stop for a drink or dinner, and the Caltrain station is right there, which makes Sunnyvale convenient if you want to explore the Peninsula without driving every single mile.

The other reason I send people here is the Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley. The hotel describes itself as an immersive nature experience with elevated amenities. I would describe it as a treehouse with a minibar, which turned out to work remarkably well.

Santa Clara

Santa Clara is the practical side of Silicon Valley. It is close to the airport, full of hotels, and home to Levi's Stadium, where the San Francisco 49ers play. Football fans can also check the current schedule for the 49ers Museum at the stadium, since access and hours vary around games and events.

I stayed at the Avatar Hotel, which has a terrific retro pool area and the sort of mid-century motel personality that makes an overnight stay more interesting. It also charged me to park in an open parking lot, an achievement I continue to admire mostly for its confidence.

Cupertino

If your Silicon Valley trip requires at least one recognizable tech-company moment, Cupertino is the easiest place to get it. You still cannot wander into Apple Park itself, but the Apple Park Visitor Center is open to the public. There is an Apple Store, a cafe and a rooftop terrace looking out toward the campus. The exhibition space, where the augmented-reality model of Apple Park lives, has been closed for updates recently, so check before you plan a visit around it.

Apple also holds free Today at Apple sessions at the Visitor Center, so it is worth checking the schedule if you are genuinely interested. I would allow an hour or two rather than making Cupertino the center of an entire day. This is the tech pilgrimage I would do because, unlike many Silicon Valley headquarters, it was actually designed to receive you.

Los Gatos

If you have only one afternoon and want to feel like you saw somewhere charming, go to Los Gatos. Main Street and Santa Cruz Avenue are lined with boutiques and cafes, the Los Gatos Creek Trail gives you an easy way to get outside, and Testarossa Winery pours wine in a historic stone building just uphill from downtown.

It is also the town where I feel most comfortable eating dinner alone, which is not a small thing when you travel by yourself. I have put together the restaurants, walks and places worth stopping in my solo female traveler's guide to Los Gatos.

Alviso, the part nobody tells you about

Alviso is technically part of San Jose and feels like it belongs to a different century. It was once a shipping port and later a cannery town, and what remains is a marina park, long trails along the slough, salt ponds that turn improbable shades of pink and orange, and the brick remains of the old Bayside Canning Company.

Then there is Vahl's, which has been here since 1941 and looks as though several decades stopped by, had dinner and decided not to leave. Alviso takes only half a day and is still the single most surprising place I send visitors in this valley. I explain where to walk, what to see and what the experience is actually like in my guide to Alviso.

Morgan Hill and the south end

Morgan Hill is where I live, about 25 minutes south of San Jose, and it is where Silicon Valley starts to look a lot less like Silicon Valley. Office buildings give way to hills, vineyards and farmland, while downtown has restaurants, shops and enough going on to make it worth more than a quick stop on the freeway.

The main reason I would send a visitor south is wine tasting. The wineries around Morgan Hill are much more relaxed than what you find in California's famous wine regions, and you generally do not have to plan your afternoon six weeks in advance. Guglielmo has deep local roots, while CordeValle combines wine tasting with a resort setting that feels miles removed from San Jose even though it really isn't.

If you want to explore this end of the valley, start with these:

• The best wineries in Morgan Hill
• CordeValle Winery isn't what I thought it was
• Morgan Hill Aquatics Center, and whether the cabana is worth it

Where to stay in Silicon Valley

Where you stay matters more here than it would in a compact city because Silicon Valley is stretched over miles of freeway. For Palo Alto, Mountain View and the northern end, I would stay around Mountain View or Sunnyvale. Downtown San Jose works well if museums, restaurants and theaters are your priority, while Santa Clara is convenient for Levi's Stadium and the airport.

Hotel rates also tend to follow the business and conference calendar more than a traditional vacation season, so prices can move around dramatically. These are four places I have actually stayed in or used as part of my local exploring, rather than hotels selected because somebody's booking widget wanted company.

• Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley, Sunnyvale. Stylish, playful and much more interesting than the average Silicon Valley business hotel. The website called it an immersive nature experience with elevated amenities. It is a treehouse. With a minibar. I loved it. Read my full Treehouse Hotel review.
• Shashi Hotel, Mountain View. A pool, bikes and a location that works very well for Mountain View and the Google area. Read my full Shashi Hotel review.
• Avatar Hotel, Santa Clara. A fun mid-century pool area, exterior hallways and plenty of personality close to Levi's Stadium. Read my Avatar Hotel review.
• Downtown San Jose. Hyatt Place puts you inside the compact downtown area and makes it easy to walk to museums, restaurants and theaters instead of getting back in the car again. See my downtown San Jose guide for details.

Where to eat in Silicon Valley

This is the part of Silicon Valley I have spent the most time researching, partly because eating your way through the valley is considerably more rewarding than photographing office buildings. The food here reflects the people who live here, so some of the best places are tucked into shopping centers, old houses, converted gas stations and buildings that would never make it onto a traditional sightseeing list.

I have two larger roundups, and every place in them is somewhere I have actually eaten rather than something gathered from a list of highly rated restaurants:

• Unique and cool places to eat in San Jose and Silicon Valley, including a Cupertino pub that was built in England and shipped to California in pieces.
• The coolest cafes in Silicon Valley, from a refurbished 1940s gas station in Japantown to a cafe where some of the pottery is made on site.

Getting around Silicon Valley

Rent a car if you want to see several of these towns. I say that reluctantly because I like a train as much as anyone, but Silicon Valley is spread out and some of the most interesting places are not conveniently connected to one another by transit. Caltrain is genuinely useful for Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale, while VTA light rail serves parts of San Jose and Santa Clara.

Los Gatos, Alviso and Morgan Hill are much easier with a car, particularly if you want wineries or parks. If airfare is comparable, I would also fly into San Jose International Airport rather than San Francisco International for a Silicon Valley trip. SJC is right in the valley, so you start the trip here instead of beginning with a long drive down the Peninsula.

When to visit Silicon Valley

September and October are my favorite months here because the valley is usually warm and dry well into fall. Summer can get genuinely hot toward Morgan Hill and the southern end, while winter is mild, greener and wetter. Spring is also pleasant, particularly if you want to spend time walking outside rather than moving from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned building.

Silicon Valley does not really have a traditional tourist season, and weekday hotel rates can sometimes behave strangely because business travel, conferences and major events affect demand. If you are flexible, check your hotel price more than once before the trip rather than assuming the first rate you see is the permanent state of affairs.

Questions I get asked about visiting Silicon Valley

Is Silicon Valley worth visiting?

Yes, but I would not come solely for a tech-company pilgrimage. Most corporate campuses are workplaces, not tourist attractions, and looking at an office building from across the street loses some of its magic surprisingly quickly. Silicon Valley works much better as a trip through several California towns with good food, interesting history and a few tech landmarks mixed in.

Where exactly is Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley is centered in the Santa Clara Valley at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. San Jose is its largest city, while places such as Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Cupertino and Palo Alto form the corridor most visitors associate with the tech industry. Morgan Hill and the southern Santa Clara Valley feel considerably more rural, which is part of why I like including them in a trip.

Can you tour Google or Apple?

You cannot simply walk into the working areas of either company's headquarters. Apple has a public Visitor Center in Cupertino with a store, cafe, rooftop terrace and views toward Apple Park. Google runs the Google Visitor Experience in Mountain View, with a store, a cafe and art installations, so you can get a taste of the campus without attempting to wander through someone's workplace carrying a camera and a great deal of optimism.

How many days do you need in Silicon Valley?

Three days gives you a good introduction. I would spend one day around San Jose, another split between Mountain View and Palo Alto, and the third in whichever of Los Gatos, Alviso, Cupertino or Morgan Hill sounds most like you. Add a fourth day if you want a winery afternoon or prefer not to conduct your vacation with the efficiency of a quarterly earnings call.

Is Silicon Valley good for solo travel?

I travel and eat alone throughout this area and find the individual downtowns easy to explore on my own, although I use the same common-sense precautions here that I would anywhere else. Los Gatos, Palo Alto, Mountain View and downtown San Jose all give you places where you can walk between restaurants and attractions instead of spending the entire day in a car. My broader approach is in my solo female travel safety tips.

If you only do one thing

Drive out to Alviso in the late afternoon and walk far enough along the slough to see the salt ponds change color, then have dinner at Vahl's. You will be only a short drive from the headquarters of companies you read about every day, but the view in front of you will be water, old cannery buildings and one of the strangest little corners of the Bay Area.

That is the Silicon Valley I find more interesting. If you want to keep exploring, you can find more places in my California travel guide, and if the small-town part of this trip appeals to you most, start with my guide to charming California small towns to explore solo.