Stanford Visitor Center — Attraction in Palo Alto

Beware of the adjacent parking lot. High risk of break-ins. We were parked there for 5 hours recently for a campus tour on a Wednesday in broad daylight. They broke in around hour 3 and stole an iPad, a camera and jewelry. The back and rear hatch windows were all heavily tinted, but you could still see luggage inside if you peered in the tinted glass.

We were not warned by the visitors center of anything whatsoever when checking in for our tour.

We saw no sign of forced entry for our car (Nissan Rogue rental). The same thieves bashed in the window of a rental pickup next to us and we assume stole things from there too.

We also warned the staff of the adjacent university store and filed a police report. We saw a few hits on the Find my iPhone map for the iPad as it was carried off in the direction of downtown San Fran. According to the policeman who came by, this is a common problem.

The policeman said that there was a mobile overhead traffic camera somewhere in the lot (but we saw nothing to back this up). The clerk in the university store said that cameras on the lot did not have great coverage…

I was also surprised to learn that there was effectively no campus police, it was outsourced to the county and it had a lot of trouble...

The entire campus is absolutely beautiful! The visitor center is very lovely. Parking was a huge problem. (Granted I came during commencement. Also, the campus is HUGE and the street markings can be VERY confusing, especially with the current construction.

HINT: They have YOU ARE HERE location maps on each corner. Drawback: you have to get out of your car to view them. My GPS was pretty accurate in terms of getting me on and off campus, but when I had to drive around for parking...not all of the...

Stanford visitor Centre run a very efficient system for managing visitor tours. The website has a lot of details to plan things before hand. Once in the visitor centre they have present Stanford student, who give up their time on a voluntary basis, take the visitors in groups walking around the campus and detail the history and significance of all things Stanford. Highly recommended for any aspiring students. Enjoy.

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