Best known as the home to the headquarters of Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc., Mountain View is a relatively small city with less than 100,000 residents. Its location in the Silicon Valley, moderate temperatures and proximity to Northern California locations like San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco and Santa Cruz makes it a popular place for tech companies and their employees, so the city is continuously expanding and adding new venues, restaurants, bars and more. Castro Street, in the downtown area, is a vibrant area where you can find people every night of the week, eating, drinking and shopping. There are also some shopping centers like the Mountain View Shopping Center, San Antonio Center and Bailey Park Plaza.

Mountain View makes up for its small size with some great tech conferences, hip bars and, of course, one of the best music venues in the state, Shoreline Amphitheater. Shoreline Amphitheater is a multi-functional venue located right down the street from Googleplex, the main headquarters of Google. The venue can hold over 20,000 people (up to 30,000 when the adjacent parking lots are used) and is mainly used for concerts and music festivals, but has also hosted conferences, comedy events and even the San Francisco Symphony for their Independence Day Fireworks event. The venue’s large size and optimal location in the San Francisco Bay Area attracts some of the biggest bands and DJs all year long including Dead & Company, Luke Bryan, Smashing Pumpkins, Santana, Dave Matthews Band, Post Malone, Imagine Dragons, Jason Aldean and more. They have also been the home to some great Bay Area music festivals like Audiotistic, Beyond Wonderland, BFD, The Vans Warped Tour and The Bridge School Benefit. In addition to events at Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View has some great annual events like the Mountain View Art and Wine Festival, The Annual Spring Parade and the IFES Crab Cioppino Dinner.

If you are looking for things to do in Mountain View, California, check out the list of upcoming events below.