If you’re a budding inventor or you’ve always wanted to visit one of the world’s tech capitals, join one of Incredible Adventures’ tours in Silicon Valley. Here, you’ll learn about the area’s expansive, intricate journey to the successful hub it is today.
With a Silicon Valley tour guide, we’ll take you around the area’s major destinations, including the Google campus, Apple Visitor’s Center, and the Computer History Museum. There will be plenty of opportunities to learn not about technology but how the most-popular brands came to be.
Stopping by Hacker Way, all of our Silicon Valley tours pause for a photo opportunity at the Facebook Thumbs Up Sign. No doubt your friends will ‘like’ this post when you upload it!
The companies in Silicon Valley have not only been the subject of several books and documentaries, due to several rags-to-riches storylines, double crossings, and technological advances but also because of several movies set in the area.
Perhaps you’re a James Bond fan? The 1985 A View to a Kill movie was filmed here, with the villain planning to destroy Silicon Valley.
More recently, The Dropout has had us all talking. This biographical crime drama tv series traces the rise and fall of blood-testing company Theranos.
How many of these locations will you spot on our tours in Silicon Valley?
Whatever your relationship to technology, we guarantee our Silicon Valley tours will be interesting and inspiring, taking in all the major players in today’s tech world. You may even walk away with the key to starting up that idea that’s been in the back of your mind.
Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley spreads across part of the San Francisco Bay Area. The area’s biggest city is San Jose, the third-largest in California.
Famous for being the chosen headquarters of many businesses on the FTSE 1000 and several of the world’s largest high-tech corporations, Silicon Valley was once shrouded in mystery. Now accessible to tourists looking to learn more about tech history, many visitors flock here annually.
Silicon Valley is known globally for its history of rapid technological innovation that brought about the modern Computer Age and made the United States the wealthiest country in history.
Situated in Santa Clara Valley, Silicon Valley was the result of several overlapping factors. From the foundation of Stanford University and its innovative leadership and regular U.S. Department of Defense spending to abundant venture capital, these variables were crucial in the valley’s early development and success.
The area’s name was first popularized in the 1970s by journalist Don Hoefler. The word ‘silicon’ originally referred to several manufacturers in the region specializing in silicon-based transistors and integrated circuit chips.
As an early base for United States Navy technology and research, the Bay Area was the site of the United State’s first radio station and the world’s first global radio communication system. With many technology companies setting up to serve the Navy, the area became a popular site for aeronautics research.
As Stanford University gained reputational weight, from the 1890s its leaders were set on making the American West as popular as the East and keeping graduates in the area to raise its capital. The Dean of the School of Engineering from 1946, Frederick Terman, encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies to this end.
High-tech firms such as Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, Lockheed Corporation, and more, settled in what is now the Stanford Research Park, cementing the area’s popularity for new-found and successful businesses.
Fast forward from the success of the Internet and the dot-com bubble to now, the area has the highest average high-tech salary in the United States and is home to many household names, such as Netflix, Twitter, PayPal, and eBay.
How you like your weather will determine when is the best time to venture on any tours to Silicon Valley. For example, it’s warmest in June, July, August, and September, and these months are the driest.
The area is open more or less year-round, with the colder winter months being the quietest. If you have any questions about when to visit, talk to us!
Our spotlight tour is Incredible Adventures’ Silicon Valley Tour Plus Alcatraz By Night, a trip that packs two iconic parts of California in one tour! Stretching across two days, your tour will begin visiting the legendary Alcatraz by night, then the next day on to Silicon Valley in our biofuel van.
This full-day trip is accompanied by one of our team members acting as your Silicon Valley tour guide. You’ll learn the origin stories of Apple, Google, IBM, and several previously unrecognized technologists that have paved the way for many of the devices we use every day.
We’ll be exploring the Google Campus and the newly constructed Apple Visitor’s Center, so you can judge for yourself whether Android or Apple is better! This tour also visits the Computer History Museum, tracing modern computing from the abacus to our palm-held phones.
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