Palo Alto sits at the heart of Silicon Valley, a prosperous, leafy city of about 65,000 that punches well above its weight in global influence. Stanford University dominates the western edge of town, its sandstone arcades and red-tile roofs anchoring a campus that has launched more startup companies than almost anywhere else on earth. The city that grew up around it has the coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants to match.
Despite its reputation as a company-town for tech workers, Palo Alto rewards a visitor who takes time to look around. University Avenue, the main commercial strip, runs from the train station all the way to the Stanford gates and is genuinely pleasant for an evening stroll — good restaurants, independent shops, and the kind of sidewalk energy that comes from mixing students, professors, and venture capitalists. The surrounding residential streets, especially the Professorville district, are among the most handsome in the Bay Area, with craftsman bungalows and mature oaks. The unassuming HP Garage on Addison Avenue, marked only by a small plaque, is where Hewlett-Packard started — and arguably where Silicon Valley itself was born.
On the eastern edge of town, the Palo Alto Baylands is an unexpected reward: 1,940 acres of wetland preserve along the shore of San Francisco Bay, with flat trails, abundant shorebirds, and wide views across the water. It's easy to forget you're in one of the most expensive zip codes in America.
Stanford itself is worth a proper half-day. The Main Quad, the Memorial Church, the Rodin Sculpture Garden — these are genuinely beautiful spaces, and the campus is large enough to wander for hours without retracing your steps. The Cantor Arts Center has a fine permanent collection alongside the Rodin bronzes outdoors, and Hoover Tower gives the best long view across the campus to the Bay.