The Bay Area has long been a hot bed for tech and business development, with no signs of slowing down. Yet the area is so large, it’s hard to know where to land when you’re in town on business. Here’s a roundup of where to stay, eat and play.

Stay

First up you need to find out where your meetings will be located. Most companies are located south of San Francisco in the Bay Area, around 45 minutes to an hour’s drive south of the city. However in recent years, companies like Twitter and Uber have moved their offices back to Downtown SF. If all of your meetings are in the Bay Area, Mountain View is home to a concentration of tech campuses, including Google, so it’s an idea area to base yourself in.

If you’re got a mix of Downtown and the Bay Area, or would prefer to stay in the city, staying close to the train station is the best way to head south, so Dogpatch or Mission Bay are ideal.

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Eat

Downtown, get your coffee from Blue Bottle, a franchise that has two cafes in the downtown area. Or if you’re willing to venture further out, head to Verve, just by the munni Church Street station (10 minutes from Downtown in the Castro district).

Blue Bottle Coffee: 66 Mint Street; 115 Sansome Street, San Francisco

Verve Coffee Roasters: 2101 Market Street, San Francisco

For lunch, try Delarosa for relaxed, but delicious Italian fare; or Rooh, for modern Indian fare and sophisticated cocktails.

Delarosa: 37 Yerba Buena Lane, San Francisco

Rooh: 333 Brannan Street, San Francisco

In Mountain View, get your caffeine fix at 1 Oz Coffee. Working with a few local coffee roasters, you can get a decent flat white here.

Address: 650 Castro Street, Mountain View.

For lunch, take clients to Scratch, an American bistro serving refined comfort food; or Eureka, a more relaxed burger joint.

Scratch: 401 Castro Street, Mountain View

Eureka: 191 Castro Street, Mountain View

When in San Francisco there’s no going past Chinatown. One of the oldest and largest in the USA, if you’ve got a free evening, this is a must-visit for dinner, drinks and all manner of trinket shopping. If Mexican is more your style, head west to the Mission District for rowdy, authentic cantinas and cosy wine bars.

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Play

There are endless options for entertainment in San Francisco. If you’ve got an afternoon off, or extending for the weekend, one of the best ways to experience the city is on foot, or on one of the trams. San Francisco is, of course, very hilly, so be sure to bring a comfortable pair of walking shoes. You can tick off a bucket list item and head down to Pier 39, hop on the tram to the steep and winding Lombard Street in Russian Hill, or head west to the Lands End hike for a dose of fresh air beside the ocean. (and views of that famous red bridge).

For a dose of culture you can spend a morning out at Alcatraz Island, the famous prison in the bay (but you’ll need to book well in advance!), or head downtown to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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