Silicon Valley didn't always conjure up images of school-kid billionaires and sprawling hypermodern factories. In fact, before a green-doored valley garage hosted the birth of Hewlett-Packard, the Santa Clara County dell was known to locals as "The Valley of the Hearts' Delight." Before international corporations launched their land grab, the place blossomed with fruit trees, university communities and charming little nods to California history. A day tour lets curious visitors browse the Valley's legacy from its early days through its rise to tech-startup stardom.
A Friend in Town Tours runs guided sightseeing tours of Silicon Valley and San Jose in scrubbed-up SUVs. The full-day tours last about nine hours and can include up to five participants. Tours are customized to each group, but can include any of the local attractions. Build the day according to your interests: a guided tour of Stanford University, the Computer History Museum, the Apple headquarters, the grounds of the Google campus, the Tesla Motors Palo Alto showroom, the NASA Ames Research Center, the Intel Museum or downtown San Jose's Tech Museum. Tours include pick-up and drop-off anywhere in the San Francisco Bay area.
Headed by a Historical and Landmarks Commissioner for the City of Santa Clara, San Jose Silicon Valley Tours covers the area's local landmarks, company campuses and museums on a five-and-a-half-hour minibus excursion. First, you'll check out the buildings that house Google, LinkedIn and eBay -- and listen in on surrounding conversations as you dine at a corporate cafeteria. Then, the tour scoots over to the leafy grounds of Stanford University before driving by the diminutive Palo Alto garage where the Silicon Valley came to be. From there, the tour continues to the Intel Museum, the Computer History Museum and the Apple company store.
Hop in an SUV for Golden Horizon's custom-tailored guided tour of the Valley. The trip lasts about eight hours, door-to-door, from most San Francisco hotels. The most comprehensive itinerary bops to every major landmark in the Valley, stopping for a brief 20 minutes at each one before moving on to the next. The whirlwind tour, led by knowledgeable local guides, can be tailored on request for greater depth. Non-tech-obsessed customers with more time can visit such places as the Japanese Friendship Garden, the San Jose Winchester Mystery House, the Children's Discovery Museum and California's Great America amusement park.
The guided tours of the Valley are chauffeur-style, point-to-point excursions that do not include entrance to any controlled corporate workplaces, entrance fees or meals. If you're game to drive yourself around, you can see the same sights on your own schedule -- and you'll save quite a bit of money. Whatever itinerary you decide on, be sure to include the Silicon Valley's railroad history in the mix: the last spike driven to complete the transcontinental railroad lives at Stanford's Cantor Arts Center, and the South Bay Historical Railroad Society incongruously houses one of the country's first computers, which went into service back in 1933.
