<p>is the area around stanford really boring? Ive heard that its overpriced, but is there nothing to do? It seems as thought stanfords only weakness is the surrounding town...</p>
<p>Um... a lot of the people there I've met say Palo Alto is boring because its a small town and they've basically finished exploring the place. However, during weekends people go to San Francisco. After a while (couple months) if you don't have a car... you die (of boredom).</p>
<p>I'm actually from Palo Alto. Stanford is in the middle of the suburbs (when most people around here refer to Stanford, they're talking about the shopping mall). The area is really nice, and you can do anything there that you can do anywhere else, but it's not exactly made for college students. Downtown Palo Alto does have some establishments common to college towns (a wide variety of really good food, independent movie theaters, excellent new/used book/record stores), but a lot of things (especially housing and gas) can be ridiculously expensive. Almost no one lives off campus, and pretty much everything seems to happen there anyways, so I don't think the surrounding area factors much into students' lives.</p>
<p>Except...It's beautiful...And the weather is ideal...</p>
<p>If you want to go to San Francisco, which is awesome, it's about an hour by Caltrain (commuter rail) and 30 minutes by car. The Pacific Ocean beaches are about 45 minutes away, you can go hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains which are adjacent to campus.</p>
<p>It's the greatest place on earth...In my opinion.</p>