Business Travel to the Bay Area: The Complete Guide
Everything a business traveler needs for the Bay Area — getting around, where to stay, the companies you'd visit, and the conferences that land here.
Getting around the Bay Area
The Bay splits in two. For San Francisco and the East Bay, BART from SFO or Oakland is genuinely useful. For Silicon Valley — Santa Clara, San Jose, Mountain View, Cupertino, Palo Alto — it is car country: Caltrain runs the Peninsula near stations, but most Valley campuses are spread across suburban parks off the rail lines, so a rental is the norm. SJC is closest to the Valley; SFO has the most flights.
Where to stay in the Bay Area
Match the hotel to the office, not the reflex booking. Our where to stay in the bay area guide maps the metro by submarket and employer, with a verified shortlist for each company.
Who you're visiting: the Bay Area's headquarters
Each company below has a complete visit guide — the hotel, the airport route, and the meeting. Pick your client.
| Adobe | Downtown San Jose, on Park Avenue |
| Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) | Santa Clara, on Augustine Drive |
| Airbnb | Downtown San Francisco |
| Alphabet (Google) | Mountain View, at the Googleplex |
| Apple | Cupertino, at Apple Park |
| Applied Materials | Santa Clara, on Bowers Avenue |
| Broadcom | North San Jose, on Ridder Park Drive |
| Cisco | North San Jose, on Tasman Drive |
| eBay | San Jose, on Hamilton Avenue |
| Electronic Arts (EA) | Redwood City, at Redwood Shores |
| Franklin Resources (Franklin Templeton) | San Mateo, on Franklin Parkway |
| Gap Inc. | Downtown San Francisco, on the Embarcadero |
| Gilead Sciences | Foster City, on Lakeside Drive |
| HP Inc | Palo Alto, on Page Mill Road |
| Intel | Santa Clara, on Mission College Boulevard |
| Lam Research | Fremont, on Cushing Parkway |
| Levi Strauss | Downtown San Francisco, at Levi's Plaza |
| Meta | Menlo Park, at 1 Hacker Way |
| Netflix | Los Gatos, on Winchester Circle |
| Nvidia | Santa Clara, on San Tomas Expressway |
| Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) | Downtown Oakland, by Lake Merritt |
| Palo Alto Networks | Santa Clara, on Tannery Way |
| PayPal | North San Jose, on North First Street |
| Prologis | San Francisco, at Pier 1 on the Embarcadero |
| Robert Half | San Ramon, at Bishop Ranch |
| Ross Stores | Dublin, on Hacienda Drive |
| Salesforce | Downtown San Francisco |
| ServiceNow | Santa Clara, on Lawson Lane |
| TD Synnex | Fremont, on Nobel Drive |
| The Clorox Company | Downtown Oakland, on Broadway |
| Uber | San Francisco, Mission Bay |
| Visa | Foster City, at Metro Center |
| Wells Fargo | Downtown San Francisco, the Financial District |
| Western Digital | Santa Clara, on Great America Parkway |
| Williams-Sonoma | San Francisco, on Van Ness Avenue near the Marina |
| Workday | Pleasanton, by Stoneridge Mall |
Conferences in the Bay Area
If you're here for an event, read the ROI first: Dreamforce, SaaStr Annual, RSA Conference. Then run your trip.
A free evening in the Bay Area
If your trip is in San Francisco proper, walk the Embarcadero or Golden Gate Park, with the Ferry Building and Hayes Valley for dinner and the Presidio and Golden Gate Bridge for the half-day. In Silicon Valley the evening is quieter — the city is a drive north.
More on working the city and recovering on the road.
Before you book
Every trip here is a spend against a quota. Score it with the Trip ROI Scorecard, then plan the airport-to-office run and book to the right submarket.
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