Silicon Valley Travel Craze Meeting

Good luck, quanmama!!!

Now my answer to another poster about there being two Travel Groups in California (Sacramento and San Francisco) which was corrected to say that there were 3 (including Orange County / LA) will now have to be corrected again to say 4!!!

Well done!

As travelers respect the history of San Jose, Morgan Hill, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Campbell, Los Gatos, Mt View, Milpitas and Santa Clara.

Grew up in the Santa Clara Valley ( the Valley Of Hearts Delight) when orchard and fruit trees dominated the landscape. Nary a one now.

Masters from SJSU. Worked there as well.

There was life before IBM, Apple and Google turned the valley into a high priced over indulgent technological Wonderland now called Silicon Valley.

Good luck getting this area going! When we’re down in San Jose visiting our son we’ll see if we can visit one of your meetings. The Marin group meets on the 2nd Saturday of the month and the Sacramento meeting is on the 3rd Saturday of the month. Good to have options for we travelers...

I’m interested.

I’m not willing to travel 2 hours each way in city traffic to get to the Marin one. Also, I don’t have any toll transponders for north bay travel.

I’d love to access something closer.

I’m down in Almaden and am not availabile on Sundays due to other commitments.

Thanks for organizing this!

I hear the comment about the driving from San Jose to Marin. But can't you use Caltrain to San Francisco and the the Larkspur Ferry to Larkspur? It has been nearly 40 years since I lived in San Francisco but that's what came into my head. Or BART and ferry?

It has been nearly 40 years since I lived in San Francisco but that's what came into my head

It’s 3.5 hours each way by public transit.

The public transit has always been bad in San Jose. They’ve cut even more services due to budget constraints. Many times there is one bus per hour in non peak times. It’s awful.

Yep Silicon Valley minds can create magical technology but after 40 years public transit still sucks. I'm old school and remember when BART stopped in Milpitas. Who ever went to Milpitas!!! Much like how LA's Red Line rail trains used to go to the Beach from downtown LA but were torn out long ago and the MTA rail still doesn't go the beach. Why?

Who does the routes for public transport? Never fails to amuse me in a state that is dominated by 4 N to S highways to provide car travel why civic planners aren't savy enough to get travelers from Point A to Point B in a timely fashion.

I'm old school and remember when BART stopped in Milpitas. Who ever went to Milpitas!!!

It still doesn’t go to Milpitas. It only goes to Fremont/Washington district. Which is a few miles away from Milpitas....

I just saw the post about the Marin meeting and thought -- is there a group in the South Bay?! I'd like to join -- took our first RS tour last year (BOE14 days), really enjoyed it. I hope you can get something going!

I think I was at the meeting three years ago, how time flies. I would be up for another meeting, Saturdays are best.

Marin is great but getting there from the peninsula/south bay is an absolute disaster--even on the weekend.

Good luck getting your group together. Next month we will observe the 9th anniversary of our first Sacramento meeting, which took place in July 2010. We have met every 3rd Saturday since then. If you don't meet on the 3rd Saturday of the month I might try to visit my cousin in Sunnyvale and attend one of your meetings. I attend the Marin meetings when possible. I'm with Mona, there is no such thing as talking too much about travel.

Our Marin group will celebrate our 5 year anniversary this August. Meeting every month, it has been so much fun. And many of us have become very good friends (with the Sac group too) and we get together often outside of meetings and some of us even travel together. Having a wonderful group of people to talk about travel with, who want to hear about your trips, whose eyes don’t glaze over after 3 min has been wonderful.
Good luck with yours!

Hi folks.
I’m interested too!
Marin and Sacramento are just too far from Santa Cruz.
Saturday afternoons are best for me.
Thanks for picking this up again.

Deb

I actually attended that meeting 3 years ago. Since I live in San Mateo, would be happy to attend, though I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed going to the meetings in Larkspur. If anybody from the Peninsula or the South Bay has interest in going to Larkspur this weekend, I will be driving from San Mateo and would welcome the company. Just message me.

Dan

And we thoroughly enjoy you Dan and don’t want to lose you!

Hello all,

Thank you for all the responses. We just got back from Europe and had a wonderful time (except my hubby's backpack got stolen on a train in Vienna @-@). We were in Munich, Vienna & Prague to watch our son and his school band and choir's performance, then we went to Italy (Florence, Tuscany wine region and Milan ) for 2 weeks with another family from school and had a wonderful time. The food and wine were truly amazing. I will share about our trip at the meeting.

Shall we set our meeting on July 27th some time in the afternoon, perhaps somewhere in Mountain View? I am thinking meeting on last Saturday of the month might work. Please let me know what you think.

The 27th of July would work for me. Just let me know where you decide and when.

The afternoon of July 27 in Mountain View would be good for me. I will PM you my email address.

Works for me!

I would like to start our meeting on Saturday July 27th at 3pm.

Tentative Location: Le Boulanger in Mountain View.
650 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

We used this location 3 years ago and it worked well since Le Boulanger in MV is pretty big, so it should be easy to find space for the group. If you have other good suggestions, please let me know. I will confirm the location when it gets closer as I want to see if anyone has any good suggestion.

Looking forward to it!

I would definitely love to be there, but will be in Amsterdam! But I hope this can become a regular occurrence and I can come to the next one!

Still scheduled for the 27th ? I have a friend in Fremont who is interested.

Yes, it is still held next Saturday 7/27 at 3pm.
Location: Le Boulanger in Mountain View.
650 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

Looking forward to meeting everyone!

Rebecca

I will try to come too, it is about 90 minutes each way for me. Thanks for setting this up!

Looking forward to meeting folks in Mountain View next Saturday.
Any tips on parking around there?

Deb

Parking should not be difficult on Saturday there..if you cannot find any spots on Castro St, look into the side streets.

Hello,

We had a good attendance last gathering and thank you to all of you who came.
Our next meeting will be held on Saturday 8/24 at 2pm.
Location: Le Boulanger
650 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

See you there!

Rebecca

Unfortunately I have concert tickets for Saturday August 24th and won't be able to make it this month.

I plan on attending. As great as the last meeting was, I suggest greater structure and moderation. Here are some ideas for questions to pose to the group:

What is the next trip that you have planned?
What places that you have visited have exceeded expectations, or fallen short?
What are your favorite second-tier cities (not the biggies)?
Madrid or Barcelona? Prague or Budapest? Munich or Berlin? (which do you prefer?)
What cities / countries are underrated?
What is your travel style? Tour, independent on public transit, indepedent with rental car?
Packing strategy: check a bag or carry on only? Packing cubes (Y/N)? What packing secrets of yours might benefit others?

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow - may be a little late, but save me a chair please!

Deb

Can I respectfully suggest a new thread when a new date is scheduled? Or the title of the thread amended? I could have attended last week, but have been looking for a new thread and didn't realize a second date had been scheduled. I look forward to learning from everyone!

Thank you.