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Day Trips/Outings

For a fantastic list of resources for Night life and outings, visit the Unofficial Guide to Stanford.

For On-Campus Nature Walks and Plant life, visit Grounds Services, Stanford Points of Interest.

Take a look at the map of Gardens at Stanford.

With San Francisco, Marin, and Napa to the north; San Jose, Gilroy, and Monterey/Big Sur to the south; and Lake Tahoe, Sacramento, and Yosemite National Park to the east, Stanford is rich in off-campus attractions. A tiny sample of the closer attractions includes:

Hakone Gardens
21000 Big Basin Way
Saratoga, CA 95070
Phone: (408) 741-4994

Hours: Mon-Fri. 10:00 am - 5:00 pm; Weekends/Holidays 11:00 am - 5:00 pm. Closed Christmas and New Year's Day.
Tea Ceremony Demonstration First Thursday Each Month, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm.

Saratoga's beautiful Japanese gardens are located just 1/10th of a mile above the Village of Saratoga. Here you will find a Pond garden, Tea Garden, Zen Garden, and a bamboo garden. Visit and enjoy or sign up to take art classes.

Asian Art Museum
Tea Garden at Ninth Ave., Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Phone: (650) 379-8801

Hours: Su, Tu, Wed. 9:30 am - 5:00 pm; Th, Fri, Sat. 9:30 am - 9:00 pm; Last admission is one hour before closing every day; Mon. closed
Admission: Free with membership, Adults $7, Seniors $5, Youth 12-17 $4, Children free. First Wednesday of each month is free.

California Palace of the Legion of Honor
100 34th Avenue, San Francisco
Phone: (415) 863-3330

Hours: Tu-Su. 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
Admission: Adults $8, Seniors $6, Youth $5, Children under 12 free

The Exploratorium
3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco
Phone: (415) EXPLORE (397-5673)

Hours: Winter: Tu-Su. 10:00 am - 5:00 pm; Wed. 10:00 am - 9:00 pm; Mon. closed
Summer: (Memorial Day to Labor Day) Daily 10:00 am - 6:00 pm, Wed. 10:00 am - 9:00 pm
Admission: Adults $9, Students $7

Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)
151 Third Street, San Francisco
Phone: (415) 357-4000

Hours: Daily 11:00 am - 6:00 pm; Wed. closed
Admission: Adults $9, Seniors $6, Students $5, free after 5:15 pm.

The Tech Museum of Innovation
201 South Market St., San Jose
Phone: (408) 294-TECH (8324)

Hours: Gallery, Daily 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Admission: Gallery $8.95, IMAX $8.95, Combo $15.95, Double Feature (two IMAX) $15.95, Triple (two IMAX and Gallery) $21.95

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street, San Francisco
Phone: (415) 978-2787

Hours: Tu-Su. 11:00 am - 6:00 pm; Th-Fri. 11:00 am - 8:00 pm
Admission: General $6, Students & Seniors $3, free for members

Open Space Preserves

Including the 1.5-mile San Andreas Fault Trail at Los Trancos Open Space Preserve, and the working farm at Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve

Foothills Park (Palo Alto)
Phone: (650) 329-2423

Open to Palo Alto residents only, this park has fantastic views of the Bay Area, plus a lake for fishing and boating.

Baylands Nature Preserve (Palo Alto)
Phone: (650) 329-2423

These marshlands at the east end of Embarcadero Road are a great place for bird-watching, walking, and bicycling. Boardwalks and levees take you to the edge of the bay.

Shoreline Park (Mountain View)
Phone: (650) 903-6392

Take a hike, fly a kite, sail, windsurf, bicycle. Boat rentals and lessons are available. See

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve (Moss Beach)
Phone: (650) 728-3584

Visit at low tide for the closest look at the tidepools' inhabitants: starfish, sea anemones, sponges, etc. Call for details.

Pulgas Water Temple (Woodside)
Phone: (650) 872-5934

North of Edgewood Road on Canada Road, you'll find a reflecting pool, gardens, and a Grecian-style temple marking the terminus of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct. No parking on weekends.

Filoli (Woodside)
Phone: (650) 364-8300

If you've watched the soap opera Dynasty or the movies Heaven Can Wait, The Game, or The Wedding Planner, then you've been introduced to Filoli. The spectacular mansion and gardens, featured in many films, are open to the public Tues.-Sat. from approximately February to November. Docent-led and self-guided tours are available. for information

Palo Alto Arts Center (Palo Alto)
Phone: (650) 329-2366

Check out its Great Glass Pumpkin Patch in October and the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival in early July. Call or see their entry under "Educational Opportunities for Spouses" for more information.

Allied Arts Guild (Menlo Park)
Phone: (650) 322-2405

Local artisans work surrounded by Spanish-style buildings, courtyards, fountains, and gardens. See for details

Natural Bridges State Park

Beach, nature trails, butterfly preserve, and tidepools, this is a great beach for a picnic (arrive early to get a table). Bathroom facilities and cold showers are available. There is a charge for parking within the park, but if you are up to walking you can park free outside the park. This is the only state Monarch preserve in California. The butterflies begin arriving in October and usually leave by March.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

You just can't beat the fun at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. California's only major seaside amusement park. Choose from heart-pounding rides like the Hurricane, Tsunami, and Chaos. Or classic rides like the 1924 Giant Dipper roller coaster and 1911 Looff Carousel. Plus, there are great rides for kids of all ages -- over 30 rides in all! Enjoy a day on the beach, walk the warf, or ride the rides -- there's plenty of entertainment for every member of the family.

Pescadero State Beach

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Near Half Moon Bay -- Great Tidepools! Check tide table to arrive at low tide.

Capitola

Surrounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains on one side and the Monterey Bay on the other, west of Capitola Village are New Brighton State Beach and Pot Belly Beach and sharing a common boundary with the city is Soquel, which extends up the hillsides that climb all the way to the top of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Between two cliffs in a river valley, lies the beach. Capitola-by-the-Sea is a great place to stroll with a little one, shop the boutinques, grab a bite to eat, or just play on the beach. For vegetarians, you'll find world renowned Dharma's Restaurant on Capitola Road in Capitola.

Ano Nuevo State Reserve

This 4,000 acre Reserve is a major gathering area for northern elephant seals, which may be seen year-round. The males battle for mates on the beaches. The females give birth to their young on the dunes. During the breeding season, December 15 through March 31, daily access to the Reserve is available only via guided walks. Advance reservations are recommended for walks.

Point Reyes National Seashore

If you want to see marine mammals at play, Point Reyes National Seashore is wet and wild. An elephant seal overlook at Drake's Bay offers an impressive vantage point from which to view the 5,000-pound elephant seals as they form a breeding colony from December to March. Listen as the adult male, called a bull, lets out deep bass saxophone-like bellows through his overhanging nose (proboscis). Watch bulls as they barrel into one another like WWF wrestlers in male-dominance contests to impress the ladies. There is also a California sea lion overlook where a 54-step staircase descends the face of a cliff to a platform where you can watch sea lions basking in the sun year-round. This is also a good perch from which to view the California gray whale migration in April. The gray whale undertakes the longest migration of any mammal on the planet: 10,000 miles from Alaska to the shallow lagoons of Baja, California.

Tomales Bay

Paddle the glassy waters of Tomales Bay with its sheltered coves, tidal marshes, remote beaches, shallow lagoons, and forested ridges. The 15-mile long bay is a pupping site for harbor seals and is the largest unspoiled coastal embayment on the coast of California. Its waters are also a major spawning ground for Pacific herring, as well as an oasis for crab, cod, perch, and halibut. Along its shores, brushy hillsides are home to coastal scrub and Bishop pines with their tight-fisted cones that only open up when exposed to the heat of forest fire

California's Beautiful Caverns

Sierra Nevada Recreation Corporation is dedicated to bringing the wonders of natural caverns to the general public while preserving their delicate environment. They operate four caverns in California. All of them are located in beautiful countryside; three in the historic gold country of the Sierra Nevada foothills; the fourth in the spectacular Kings River Canyon, Sequoia National Forest. Visit their website for more information.