On this page
PaloAlto.org is a guide to one small city with an outsized story. Palo Alto is home to roughly 68,000 people, a university next door that changed the world and a stretch of University Avenue that has launched more companies than most countries. It is also a place with marshes full of shorebirds, oak-covered foothills, a thousand-year-old redwood and streets lined with houses built for Stanford's first professors. We started this site because most of what is written about Palo Alto online is either a brochure or a list. We wanted something more useful.
This page explains who we are, how we decide what to write, how we check our facts and how the site pays for itself.
What we cover
The guide is organized the way people actually use a city. Visitors usually start with things to do, top attractions and where to stay. Families and new arrivals tend to look at neighborhoods, schools and living in Palo Alto. Founders, investors and the simply curious read our startup and venture capital guides and our account of Silicon Valley history.
Underneath all of that sits the city's own story. Our history of Palo Alto traces the place from Ohlone villages along San Francisquito Creek to the garage on Addison Avenue and beyond. We try to connect the past to what you can still see today, because Palo Alto makes much more sense when you know why a dry university town was laid out next to a saloon town called Mayfield.
An independent guide
PaloAlto.org is independent and is not run by Stanford University or any business association. For city services such as utility bills, permits, parking citations, council agendas or emergency information, the city's own site is paloalto.gov. For Stanford questions, use stanford.edu.
Being independent means we can say things an official site might not. If a parking situation is confusing, we say so. If a popular hike gets crowded on weekend mornings, we tell you to go on a weekday. If a well-known spot is closed for renovation, we put that near the top of the page instead of burying it.
How we research a page
Every guide on this site starts with research rather than opinion. Our process looks like this:
- Primary sources first. We start with the organizations that run a place: the City of Palo Alto, Stanford University, Caltrain, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, museums and the businesses themselves.
- Reliable secondary sources second. For history and context we use published histories, state landmark records, the National Register of Historic Places and established local news outlets.
- Cross-checking. When two sources disagree on a date or a number, we say so or we use the wording both support. We would rather write "the early 1990s" than print a year we cannot stand behind.
- No invented details. We never make up hours, prices, phone numbers, quotes or statistics. When a detail changes often, we describe it in general terms and link to the official page.
- Dates on every page. Each guide shows when it was last updated so you can judge how fresh it is.
We do not publish customer reviews, star ratings or testimonials. Review platforms already do that job. Their content belongs to them and to the people who wrote it. Our job is to give you the practical context that reviews usually leave out.
How we choose what to recommend
We include a place because it is useful, interesting or meaningful to the city. A restaurant might make a guide because it holds a Michelin star, because it has been a neighborhood fixture for decades or because it solves a real problem, such as a good lunch near the train station. A park makes the list because it offers something you cannot get elsewhere in town.
Before we name any business, we confirm that it exists and is operating. Restaurants and shops open and close often in Palo Alto, so we would rather leave a place out than send you to a locked door.
How the site makes money
Running a guide like this costs real money for hosting, research and writing. We pay for it through affiliate partnerships with travel services. When we link to a hotel booking site, a tour seller, an airport transfer service, a car rental platform or an eSIM provider, that link may be an affiliate link. If you make a booking after clicking it, the partner may pay us a small commission. Your price stays the same.
Some ground rules we follow:
- Affiliate partners never pay for placement in our guides or our business directory.
- We only add an affiliate link where a reader would actually want that service, such as hotel search on our where to stay page or airport rides on getting here.
- We never rank or describe a business more favorably because of a commercial relationship.
- Affiliate links on this site are marked in the code as sponsored so search engines understand them.
Photos and illustrations
The illustrations on PaloAlto.org, including the animated scene on our home page, are original drawings made for this site. The photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under their free licenses. Every photo carries a credit with the photographer's name, a link to its Wikimedia Commons page and its license, right where the photo appears.
How our directory listings work
Every business in our directory is checked against the business's own website or another first-party source. Each listing shows the date of that check and links to what we read. We do not accept payment for listings, we do not sell placement and we do not publish customer reviews or star ratings. Hours and services change, so treat the hours we show as a starting point and confirm with the business before a special trip.
Listings for national chain locations are kept short on purpose: the address, hours, what this branch offers and what is nearby. Local independent businesses get longer write-ups when there is more to say. Location data comes from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, used under the Open Database License. Distances we give are straight-line, so walking routes run a little longer.
Corrections and updates
We fix mistakes as soon as we find them. Editors recheck pages against primary sources on a regular schedule, starting with the details that change most often: business hours, event dates, prices and closures. When a business closes, its listing comes down and the guides that mention it are updated.
Who the guide is for
We write for several kinds of readers at once. A family visiting a student at Stanford needs to know where to park and where to eat on a Sunday night. A conference traveler with an afternoon free wants the best two hours in town. Someone moving here for a job wants to understand the difference between Midtown and Crescent Park. A founder wants to know where the famous garages are and how investors on Sand Hill Road actually work. We try to answer each of those questions directly, in plain American English, without padding.
Frequently asked questions
How does PaloAlto.org make money?
Some links to travel services such as hotel booking sites, tour sellers and eSIM providers are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Businesses cannot pay to be featured or ranked in our guides.
How do you check your facts?
We research every page from primary sources first, such as the city, Stanford, Caltrain and the businesses themselves. Details that change often, such as hours and prices, are linked to the official source instead of being repeated.
How do you keep pages up to date?
Editors recheck pages against primary sources on a regular schedule, with the most time-sensitive pages, such as events and business hours, checked most often. When a business closes, its listing comes down.