Six Peaceful Places In Silicon Valley Where You Can Actually Unplug

Forbes

20-05-2025

Hikers make their way up and down the rolling paths of the, "Dish" trail on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, CA Photo by Michael Macor/ San Francisco Chronicle (Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Silicon Valley isn't exactly known for being chill. Stanford's acceptance rate hovers just below 4%, and getting your toddler into Bing Nursery School might be even tougher. Even the dog parks are full of Type-A retrievers perfecting their agility skills like their fluffy futures depend on it.
From Palo Alto to San Jose, burnout is practically a badge of honor. Founders boast about 'biohacking' their sleep. VCs wedge in mindfulness sessions between morning pitch meetings. But for those craving a deeper kind of off-switch, there are still places in the Valley where you can genuinely unplug.
So let's go. Take a breath and power down (after you finish reading this, of course). What follows are screen-free sanctuaries designed to help you loosen Silicon Valley's grip, if only for the weekend.
Shashi has complimentary wine and cheese hour, a pantry loaded with treats and a pool and spa to shake away all of life's pings and dings.
Shashi in Mountain View sits quietly between a Google campus and Stevens Creek Trail. Technically, the 200-room hotel is in the heart of Silicon Valley (you can also walk or take the free bikes to Intuit, NASA and Microsoft), but in spirit, it's somewhere else entirely. Forest-toned interiors, a courtyard pool, happy hours with live jazz, hallway scents to calm the nerves. Clearly, someone got the memo that here, productivity can wait.
In a chic space downstairs, Broma offers a Spanish-inspired menu curated by Michelin-starred chef Jarad Gallagher, whose acclaimed Chez TJ restaurant in Mountain View kept its star for eight years. And the hotel's wellness spa has a sauna, steam room, and Jacuzzi, ideal for dissolving any lingering thoughts of the 36 open tabs waiting for you on Monday. This is what Silicon Valley would feel like if it stopped checking its metrics for five minutes.
The trails around the Stanford Dish communicate calm and timelessness.
The Stanford Dish, overlooking the campus, is where you go when your brain feels overclocked and you need a reset that doesn't involve control, alt or delete. The 3.5-mile nature loop winds through Stanford's rolling hills, past grazing cows, the occasional curious deer, and the giant Cold War-era radio telescope the place is named for—the dish was originally built in the 1960s to track Soviet satellites. Now it mostly listens to weather patterns and space noise, which to me feels like a suitable metaphor for trying to work in tech these days. From up 'there,' you can see all the way from the Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and you start to remember that these hills have been here long before Google or Meta, and they'll still be here when whatever version of ChatGPT we're on gets replaced by something even more disruptive.
Pool in formal garden. Filoli, Woodside, California. It's part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Filoli, in Woodside, doesn't feel like Silicon Valley at all. Once the private estate of a wealthy gold mine magnate, this 654-acre property now functions as a living time capsule of flowery opulence. Stroll through meticulously designed formal gardens, wander the orchard path under century-old trees, or lose an afternoon (and your worries) under a canopy of wisteria.
Inside the historic house (some may recall it from Dynasty or Heaven Can Wait), you'll find rooms preserved from the Great Gatsby era. But the real draw is outside, with roses taller than your inbox backlog, and fountains that gurgle with dignity, and wide lawns where you can sit and do nothing for as long as you want.
There's also a shady café for pastries and lavender lemonade, and trails that stretch into the surrounding nature preserve if you want a little less prim, and a little more wild.
It's hard to believe Hidden Villa is only 15 minutes from the boardrooms and kombucha bars of Palo Alto. This 1,600-acre nonprofit farm and wilderness preserve in Los Altos Hills celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and it feels like it's existed in a parallel universe ever since. You can spend the day wandering oak-lined trails, feeding goats, watching udders get milked, or sitting under a tree while chickens cluck around like they own the place (because they kinda do). There's an education garden, shaded picnic tables, reptiles to meet, and crappy cell reception in the best possible way. Very little here is branded or curated; Hidden Villa just is. Breathe that in! It's a gentle reminder that not everything around Silicon Valley needs to scale.
Red bridge over a man made pond, Japanese Friendship Garden, San Jose, San Francisco bay area, California
In San Jose, the Japanese Friendship Garden is the anti-notification—a gorgeous space that is profoundly unconcerned with your to-do list. Set on six acres within Kelley Park and modeled after the Korakuen Garden in Okayama, Japan, the Friendship Garden has koi ponds, wooden footbridges, burbling waterfalls, and paths designed for more for strolling than power walking. You won't find loud music or vendors or selfie sticks. But if you're in need of trees, water, and an excuse to leave your phone in the car and not log into anything for an hour, this is your place.
Just south of San Jose (in Campbell), Float Station is where you drift for an hour inside a watery pod without dings, distractions or gravity. There's a reason this place gets hundreds of five-star reviews: The futuristic facilities are sleek and spotless, the staff is gracious and well-informed, and the experience of floating your cares away is instantly addictive. It's also good for you. There's tons of research (just ask them to share it—no doubt it comes from Silicon Valley) on how floating can help you shake off arthritis, insomnia, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder and whatever else made you sign up to bob inside a glow-y clamshell for 60 minutes.
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