Best places between San Francisco and Mountain View? (San Jose, San Carlos: apartments, rental)

[earthrain]

Hello all,

My partner and I will be moving to the SF Bay area this June. My partner has a job offer in Mountain View, while I'm a freelance film/video editor and would like to be close to San Francisco.

We are looking to rent apartments in neighborhoods based on the following parameters-

1) Preferably, no more than a 30 minute drive one-way to Mountain View for my partner, and (preferably) no more than 35 minute commute by public transport into Central San Francisco for me.
2) Proximity to Caltrain, and the availability of buses to the Caltrain stop. The additional option of buses into SF would also be welcomed.
3)Our budget is $1850 for a 2 bedroom apartment, although we could tweak it a little for the right place.
4) We are in our early thirties, interested in a nightlife and would like to be close enough to restaurants, bars and coffee shops, but are not hardcore party animals and would not like to live on a noisy street.
5) We would also prefer to be close to grocery stores- the supermarket type as well as Trader Joes and a Coop.
6) Cultural diversity would be a definite plus.
7) Mostly sunny.
8) A safe area that is also visually appealing.
9) Well built, attractive apartments with plenty of light.
10)We don't have children so school district is not an issue .

I haven't been to the SF Bay area before, and would like to get together as much research as I can online, and narrow down an easy handful of neighborhoods for when we do go over to figure out our next living space. I looked at the Caltrain stops (Zone 2), Wikipedia and Rent.com but have not been able to get a sense of how these places figure in terms of our requirements.

I would truly appreciate any feedback from forum members regarding neighborhoods and rental companies given the above parameters and apologize for the epic proportion of this post!

Thank you very much in advance!

[humboldtrat]

San Carlos sounds what you're looking for. It has a nice downtown (Laurel St.) with a Trader Joe's. There are lots of apts in the downtown area. There is also a Caltrain station and bus stops (Samtrans) if you want to take a bus to SF. Everything is within walking distance in the downtown area.

San Carlos is a nice and safe middle to upper middle class suburban town. The downtown area has restauramnts and a few bars, Starbucks, banks, etc. The weather on the mid peninsula is usually sunny with little of the fog and wind common in SF and along the coast.

You might get better response if you had put this in the San Francisco or San Jose forums.

[earthrain]

Originally Posted by humboldtrat

San Carlos sounds what you're looking for. It has a nice downtown (Laurel St.) with a Trader Joe's. There are lots of apts in the downtown area. There is also a Caltrain station and bus stops (Samtrans) if you want to take a bus to SF. Everything is within walking distance in the downtown area.

San Carlos is a nice and safe middle to upper middle class suburban town. The downtown area has restauramnts and a few bars, Starbucks, banks, etc. The weather on the mid peninsula is usually sunny with little of the fog and wind common in SF and along the coast.

You might get better response if you had put this in the San Francisco or San Jose forums.

Thank you, humboldtrat, for your suggestion- I will look up San Carlos. About the post- I will re-post it on the SF forum- thanks for pointing it out!