Hot answers tagged san-francisco
12
You will definitely want to visit Weird Stuff, which is an enormous warehouse of all kinds of discarded technology located in Sunnyvale. It's a bit out there, but very worth it.
If you're interested in doing any archival research, you might also want to schedule an appointment with Stanford's Silicon Valley Archives.
11
Is visiting San Francisco viable in 5.5 hours?
Only to do a drive through and not a very thorough one.
Let's assume that you have your bags checked all the way through the destination and let's further assume that flights will be on time and let's even further assume that there is no traffic going to and from the airport.
Under these circumstances it ...
11
You should definitively go to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and especially check out the Stackoverflow plaque in the Computer History Museum Wall.
See also the Meta SO thread about it.
8
(Sorry for the late answer)
I've spent about 3 months over the course of a few trips (2 months on my first trip), and I had a list of places I wanted to see. Not all of them are 'attractions' or the usual, but nevertheless something as a geek that's been looking at the things going on in Silicon Valley from a far most of my life I wanted to see:
Computer ...
8
[So tempted to answer this with, "let me know when and I'll pick you up," but that doesn't answer the question for Googlers down the line, does it?]
If you're looking for public transportation in the greater San Francisco Bay area, the place to start is always 511.org. A little looking around there will lead you to the Golden Gate Transit site, where you ...
6
I'm surprised noone mentioned the book Geek Silicon Valley
It's been a long while since I read it, and it's 5 years out of date (which is a pretty long time in valley terms), but it has a lot of the sort of thing you're looking for.
I agree with other answers, by the way - the Musee Mecanique, the Computer History Museum, and Weird Stuff are all good ...
6
What's quickest will depend on exactly when you want to leave, but as a rough idea BART + CalTrain is likely to be simplest (even if bus/buses might be faster depending on your exact arrival time)
For the CalTrain down to Mountain View, you have a few trains an hour in the week (more in peak hours). Most of these stop at Millbrae, a few stop at San Bruno. ...
6
It's do-able, but you won't get a lot of time in the city.
Unless you feel like paying for a taxi, your best option to get to the city is BART which leaves directly from the Airport. Presuming you're there on a weekday, BART leaves every 15 minutes (20-30 minutes evening and weekends), and takes about 30 mins to the city. Allowing time to get from your ...
5
Greetings from San Francisco. You can't get Clipper at most BART stations, but you do have a couple of alternatives:
Muni ticket vending machines, found at all Muni metro stations (which are all over the city center)
All SF outlets of Walgreens, a ubiquitous pharmacy chain
Plus a bunch of random neighbourhood stores etc, there's a handy map/locator on ...
5
They have a tech museum in San Jose that may be quite savvy, atleast to your tastes.
Of course, you should also visit Palo Alto, not just restricted to Stanford University; it is place known for youthful energy and budding entrepreneurship that is characteristic of the Silicon Valley.
5
Unfortunately that's how it is. You can look at this site for clipper info and what can be loaded on it, but it seems that you have already. Here's the info about BART fares. You can buy the "High Value Discount" tickets in person in several places, you don't have to order it by mail necessarily. These are central locations which you undoubtedly are going to ...
5
August
Outside Lands Festival
Music, Food, Wine, Beer, & Art Festival in Golden Gate Park.
San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
The genius of Shakespeare in San Francisco's most relaxing setting. Admission is free every Saturday and Sunday through the month of September. Arrive early for a good seat; shows begin at 1:30pm.
San Jose Jazz Festival
With ...
4
There is the Bay Model Visitor Center. It is a huge warehouse with a model of the bay and all water. Although the model is quite old and inaccurate by today's standards, it shows the efforts required to study the water movements prior to computer simulations.
It is controversial - I liked it, my colleague didn't.
Don't expect much interaction there.
...
4
Almost certainly the bus + hostel option will be cheapest, however don't rule out the possibility of flying - it won't be cheaper, but it will save you a lot of time.
SFO/LAX/LAS are highly competitive routes for airlines, and it's not uncommon to find very cheap fares, especially if you can be a bit flexible in terms of which day you're traveling. For ...
3
I just did a quick search on kayak.com for tickets from SFO to Singapore and Singapore to London.
Based on one way fares for February 10, 2012. The 2 one way tickets through Singapore would be cheaper then flying from SFO to London directly.
So I will repeat the question I had. Do you really need to go to London first? I mean geographically it seems ...
3
From my own experience it is often more entertaining to have a trip somewhere downtown, eat something nice or even meet some friend for 2-3 hours and going back than being stuck in an airport for that long.
Unless you know a good place to stay at the airport where you can sleep, have internet access or other means of passing the time, it is probably more ...
3
Yes, Muni tokens are still valid on SF Muni buses and trams as of February 2013. When boarding a bus or a streetcar, put a token in the cash farebox and get your proof of payment from the driver. In the Market Street tunnel, you can use a token to purchase a single ticket from the vending machines. You cannot use tokens to load a Clipper card (even a ...
3
I've actually done this (albeit about a decade ago). If you book your tickets more than a week in advance, you can get hefty discounts on Greyhound. These days there are also several other cheap bus companies around the US (Megabus, Boltbus and their ilk) and occasionally the train works out well.
In Vegas, however, consider upgrading to a hotel on the ...
2
I'd suggest the Lucky Juju Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda. It's pricey and also loud, so if you plan to spend a few hours there, take earplugs!
If you're carrying a laptop or other Internet-enabled device, you might enjoy spending a few hours in a coworking location or hackerspace.
2
Check out Hotel Fusion just off union square; it's more of a 'European-style' budget/boutique hotel, I stayed there the weekend before xmas last year and thought it was fine, was < $100/night then for a single room (actual single, with a real single bed!). WiFi was free, small continental breakfast included too. Recommend checking out the reviews on ...
1
Yeah and by the way, I don't recommend using day-pass on Muni, in San Francisco. Single tickets are very convenient since they are valid for 90 minutes and paper tickets bought after 8.30pm are valid until early morning.
Single tickets cost $2 each, while a day-pass is $13 or so (you have to ride the bus very often to pay 6 single tickets in one day).
The ...
1
Here's what you should try: instead of trying to book a Singapore - London - San Francisco flight for outgoing and San Francisco - Singapore for return flight, book return flights from Singapore to London and then separate return flights from London to San Francisco.
I ran my search on Kayak.co.uk. I looked up PyCon 2012 dates you've linked to for a sample ...
1
Macworld 2012's own site has a page on hotel accommodation with quite a few hotels mentioned in the price range you want (~$200/night). If you click through to their partner site for hotel bookings, you can also sort through a list of hotels closest to Macworld venue sorted by distance (search for rooms on particular nights, then use the 'distance' sort on ...
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