27 y/o female moving from SoCal to Silicon Valley, where to live?

[wsugrad03]

I would also recommend Mountain View for the reverse commute. Plus it has a pretty nice DT, whereas Sunnyvale's Murphy street is a bit quieter. MV is more diverse, rent is ridiculously high, but still doable for $2k. It depends on what you're looking for in apartments. Lots of nice new apartments in SJ and Santa Clara with great amenities. For the same price in Mountain View and Cupertino, you'll get much less, as you'll find out in our apartment hunting. Cupertino itself is very nice, although it's not as diverse (mostly Asian/Indian), but the neighborhood and homes there resemble OC a lot more than other places in the valley. Palo Alto is nice and grotesquely expensive, but your commute gets worse unless you want to take the 280 on the back side.

Just take 2 weeks to explore to see what your commuting tolerance is, what the shuttle routes are, and really what you like. I agree with another post that you'll know when you're not in a safe neighborhood. It's pretty obvious. You can look at crime maps on trulia or familywatchdog for sex offenders if you need data to back up what your senses are telling ya.