Hotels in San Jose, California

A little about San Jose...

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. For the past several years, it has held the title of The Safest Big City in America. San Jose is located in Silicon Valley, at the south end of the San Francisco Bay. With a population of 912,332 San Jose is the largest city in Northern California.

Colleges and universities:
San Jose is home to several colleges and universities. The largest and most well known is San José State University, which was founded by the California Legislature in 1862 as the California State Normal School and is the original campus of the California State University system. Located in downtown San Jose since 1870, the university's 30,000 students in bachelor's and master's degree programs are primarily commuters from many areas in the South Bay. National Hispanic University, with an enrollment of 600, offers associate and bachelor's degrees and teaching credentials to its students, focusing on Hispanic students. Lincoln Law School of San Jose offers law degrees, catering to working professionals. The San Jose campus of Golden Gate University offers business bachelor and MBA degrees. San Jose's community colleges, San Jose City College and Evergreen Valley College, offer associate degrees, general education units to transfer to CSU and UC schools, and adult and continuing education programs. The West campus of Palmer College of Chiropractic is also located in San Jose.

The University of California, Santa Cruz operates Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton. In addition, San Jose residents attend several other area universities, including Santa Clara University, De Anza College in Cupertino, Stanford University in Palo Alto, Carnegie Mellon West in Mountain View and the University of California, Berkeley.

Outdoor Attractions:
Kelley Park, including diverse facilities such as Happy Hollow Park & Zoo (a child-centric amusement park), the Japanese Friendship Garden, History Park at Kelley Park, and the Portuguese Historical Museum within the history park
Kirk Park, home to the San Jose Young People's Theater
Overfelt Gardens, including the Chinese Cultural Garden
Plaza de César Chávez, a small park in Downtown, hosts outdoor concerts and the Christmas in the Park display.
Raging Waters, water park with water slides and other water attractions. This sits within Lake Cunningham Park
San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, 5½ acre (22,000 m²) park in the Rose Garden neighborhood, featuring over 4,000 rose bushes

Indoor Attractions:
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose
History Park at Kelley Park
Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, home of the largest Beethoven collection outside Europe
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, the largest U.S. public library west of Mississippi River
Mexican Heritage Plaza, a museum and cultural center for Mexican-Americans in the area
Portuguese Historical Museum
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, home of the largest collection of Egyptian relics in the western United States
San Jose Museum of Art
The Tech Museum of Innovation

The HP Pavilion is one of the most active venues for events in the world. According to Billboard Magazine and Pollstar, the arena sold the most tickets to non-sporting events of any venue in the United States, and third in the world after the Manchester Evening News Arena in Manchester, England, and the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, for the period from January 1 – September 30, 2004. Including sporting events, the HP Pavilion averages 184 events a year, or roughly one event for every two days, which is significantly higher than the average for NHL arenas.