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Ask HN: Help plan my Silicon Valley trip

7 points by pfarrell ↗ HN
After 13 years as a software engineer, I've outgrown Indianapolis. The time has come for me to move to Silicon Valley.

Since I've never actually been there, I'm planning a weekend trip, March 9-12, to take a look around.

Are there any meetups, bars, or locations that are "can't miss"? Is San José the whole show, or should I get out to other cities? Is there any advice you can give me?

10 comments

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andyl
Eat in downtown mountain view, drive around the googleplex, walk around stanford, visit the cantor art museum at stanford, eat on university ave in palo alto, hike up to windy hill, find twitter and walk around that neighborhood in SF, eat in north beach, drive to point bonita.
pfarrell
Thanks andyl, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.
joshu
I dunno, it's just some suburban sprawl.
pfarrell
I get that it's not really different than the rest of northern California. I suspect that it might be like, at their core, the Beatles were just a band. That's why I want to get out there myself. So start to separate the hype from the reality.
codenerdz
When you say youre coming to take a look around, what exactly do you mean? Are you trying to network, figure out where you want to work or just sight-see? Because you will have different destinations for different visit purposes

AFAIK, there are several startup "epicenters" in the Bay Area and San Jose is generally not one of them. San Francisco SOMA and Financial districts are home to a number of startups. Larger Software companies are sprinkled all over Bay Area though.

If you are planning to move, I recommend researching the some of the top companies u might want to work for and then look around for areas that might reduce your commute to a minimum.

pfarrell
Thanks codenerdz. I missed your reply. I guess, the purpose of the trip is to validate that this is something I am going to make happen. I had wanted to do some networking, but the few connections I'd come up with fell through the last second. Eh, c'est la vie.