San Jose, California

San Jose is the economic, cultural and political center of Silicon Valley and the largest city in Northern California. Surrounded by rolling hills, San Jose is the major technology hub in California's Bay Area. Nicknamed the Capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose is home to many global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Systems, PayPal, Brocade, Samsung and Western Digital, to name a few. Downtown San Jose features the Tech Museum of Innovation, devoted to the exploration of science and technology. The city boasts many performing arts companies, including Opera San Jose, Symphony Silicon Valley, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley and the San Jose Museum of Art, one of the nation's premiere Modern Art museums. It is also home to the NHL's San Jose Sharks. San Jose has a subtropical Mediterranean climate with a yearly average of 301 days of sunshine and an annual mean temperature of 60.5 degrees, perfect weather for hiking on its 54 miles of scenic urban trail network, fishing and boating on Lake Cunningham, playing disc golf at Kelly Park or strolling through one of San Jose's 200+ local parks.