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Ainsley House

Historic Downtown Campbell: Part 2 of 2. Start with the Campbell Historical Museum, then come read about the Ainsley House.

front of Ainsley House in Campbell

The Ainsley House is the historical home of Mr. John Colpitts Ainsley’s family. He was one of the businessmen who put Campbell on the map through his successful fruit cannery. When you tour, the docent will share with you about the Ainsley family, California life in the early 1900s, the mixed architectural styles of the house, and the innovative technologies (innovative for their day, that is) incorporated into its design. You’ll walk through all the rooms with your docent and then get to explore the surrounding gardens on your own.

large white daisies with yellow centers outside Ainsley House in Campbell

In a Nutshell

As you learned at the Campbell Historical Museum, Campbell’s fruit orchards and canneries were a huge industry in this area for a long time. Mr. Ainsley owned one of those canneries. He was born in England and moved to California at age 26. He wasn’t born wealthy, but he did see the potential to build on the existing apricot farms in this area, so he started a cannery company and became very successful. He built this house for his family later in life and lived here until he passed away in 1937. His children eventually donated the house to the City of Campbell as an historical site. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places.

oak-paneled entry hall in Ainsley House in Campbell

This house has many interesting architectural features and details. It also showcases “newfangled” things we take for granted today, such as an electric refrigerator or an upstairs telephone. On this guided tour of the home, you’ll learn about all of these ideas and about a family’s lifestyle in that era. Keep your eyes open for the magic button in the dining room…

dining room in Ainsley House in Campbell

Believe it or not, the house was not always on this site! It was originally built where eBay’s main campus is today. In the 1990s, it was literally picked up and trucked more than a mile to the city park land where it sits today. Wow! We were actually lucky enough to see the move happen. (I was very little but I still remember it.) When you visit, you’ll get to see a short video of the move before touring the house. It’s amazing!

Location

The Ainsley House is located at 300 Grant St. in Campbell. It’s adjacent to the Campbell Public Library and City Hall. It’s about a block and a half over from the main Campbell Avenue corridor in Downtown Campbell, and not far from the Hamilton Ave. exit from Hwy 17.

Google map of the Ainsley House area in Campbell

The Ainsley House is about half a block from the Campbell Historical Museum. You can see one from the other, but you’ll probably have to move your car to do both in one day because the museum parking is limited to 2 hours total. For the Ainsley House, you’ll park in the lot next to the Campbell Public Library. They have disabled spots in that lot in the corner closest to the Ainsley House, so you’re not limited to the spots by the library entrance.

diagram map of Campbell Historical Museum and Ainsley House's relative locations

The closest public transit is the VTA Bus Route 26‘s Civic Center stop or the VTA Light Rail‘s Downtown Campbell station on the 902 Winchester line.

Downtown Campbell is very bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly, so if you prefer, you can always choose to bike or walk here to avoid the parking drama altogether. 

When you arrive, the sidewalks and the house’s grandeur will naturally lead you to the front door, but follow the signs from there to the carriage house where you buy tickets. Inside the carriage house, you’ll watch about a 5-minute intro video and then meet your docent, who will take you through the main house.

Carriage house visitor center at Ainsley House in Campbell

Weather

The house has been retrofitted with central heating and air conditioning, so you can plan your visit any time of year.

In the spring and summer, the gardens around the house are particularly photogenic. They actually do weddings here because the space is so beautiful, so be sure to bring your camera!

beautiful pink flower outside Ainsley House in Campbell

Cost

When we visited (summer 2019), the Ainsley House tickets were $8 for the general public, $6 for seniors, and $4 for youth ages 7-17. Children 6 and under were free. If you purchase a joint ticket with this and the Campbell Historical Museum, you can save $1 per person over purchasing the tickets separately.

child's bedroom in Ainsley House in Campbell

There are also membership options as described in our Campbell Historical Museum post:

If you want unlimited access to the museum and the Ainsley House, a quarterly newsletter, gift shop discounts, and free or discounted admission to museum events, memberships are available for $35 per person. Expanded benefits are available with fancier levels of membership.

Both this museum and the Ainsley House are part of the North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Association. This means you can get  free or discounted admission to these and many other museums around the continent if you have a membership at one of them. You can search the full list here.

Length of Time

The tour is led by a docent, so the length of time can range from 30 minutes to easily over an hour, depending on the level of detail they share and the number of questions you ask. Combined with the Campbell Historical Museum, allow 2.5 to 4 hours total.

kitchen in Ainsley House in Campbell

Wheelchair Access

Their website has information for guests with disabilities. The house was built in 1925, so there isn’t much they can do to make it wheelchair-friendly, unfortunately. The main floor of the carriage house (which serves as the visitor’s center and gift shop) is wheelchair-accessible. An accessible restroom is included in that building too.

The Ainsley House itself is two stories, but even the first floor has single stairs up and down from individual rooms. About half the rooms on the first floor are wheelchair-accessible via ramps. The tour involves only short-distance walking, but a lot of stairs and lot of standing. They do have folding chairs available if you need to sit while the docent speaks, but you move between rooms so often that you don’t sit for more than a minute or two in each place. For someone with mobility problems, this house is honestly very difficult. (That’s not their fault at all, they do their very best to accommodate, but the house was built more than 60 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. What can you do?)

oak stairs in Ainsley House in Campbell

Walkers are allowed, so my mom tried using her walker instead of the wheelchair. It was really tough, honestly. The docent was excellent about making sure to point out the steps and offering to help her up and down the steps if needed. She even offered to carry the walker upstairs if that would help. By the end of the hour-long tour, though, even with sitting in each room as the docent spoke, it was obvious that this was too much walking and standing. Time for Advil and resting the rest of the day. Everyone has their own threshold for when to be stubborn about not missing out on something and when to take care of their health, so of course it’s up to you. Just be aware that this tour involves more standing and walking than it seems like a “house tour” might, so please be gentle with your body if you have mobility issues.

Official service animals are allowed, but emotional support animals are not.

Vision & Hearing

Mrs. Ainsley's desk at the Ainsley House in Campbell

The docent narrates the whole tour, so guests could still get a lot out of the visit without seeing the architecture and artifacts directly. There are also recorded sound effects that play in a few of the rooms. If someone in your party has a sight limitation, you can even arrange a “touch tour” to further enhance your experience if you call in advance. (This is such an unusual offering, I have to give them kudos!)

Guests who are deaf would probably need a family member to serve as a sign language interpreter. Tour groups are usually small (often just your family), so if you have limited hearing, you could ask the docent to speak loudly and could turn your hearing aids up. The house is quiet enough for this to work.

garden at Ainsley House in Campbell

Sensory Processing

As you might expect for an historical home, the sensory level here was nicely low overall. One very unusual feature was that a few of the rooms had sound effects set up on motion sensors so they played automatically when you entered the room. (For example, a recording of FDR on the radio would play when you entered the library, or cooking and chopping noises would greet you in the kitchen.) These were not loud, but I found them a bit distracting as I tried to focus on the docent’s words at the same time. Still, this is the only place I’ve encountered such a simple but unusual idea — motion-triggered ambient sounds to enhance the experience — and I thought it was extremely clever.

garden path at Ainsley House in Campbell

Food

There’s no food or drink allowed on the house tour. There are plenty of benches in the green park area in front of the house for eating before or after your visit.

Would we go back?

Sure! Even though we saw the house move (because everyone around came to see such an unusual event) in the 1990s, we had somehow never come to tour the inside of the house after that. I’m glad we did and would be happy to do so again some day. If you want to put a more personal face on all the cool stuff you learn at the Campbell Historical Museum, wander over to Ainsley House too. It’s sure to make you smile!

Ainsley House in Campbell, as seen from the side

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Campbell Historical Museum

Historic Downtown Campbell: Part 1 of 2. Stay tuned for the Ainsley House visit next time!

The Campbell Historical Museum is a surprising little gem located in the heart of Downtown Campbell. Although we both grew up in this area and even lived in Campbell briefly, we’d somehow never been here. It was definitely worth the visit. We had no idea the City of Campbell had been so important to the history of this valley!

Campbell Historical Museum official sign and front of the building

In a Nutshell

This unimposing little building was actually the first city-owned building when Campbell was incorporated as a city back in 1952. It was the fire station, police station, and city hall — all at once! As the city grew, naturally its services spread out. By 1983, the main services had moved elsewhere, and this building became the Campbell Historical Museum.

Campbell Historical Museum dedication plaque from the Campbell City Council

The museum includes a variety of interactive stations, video segments, timelines, and artifacts to connect the valley’s history to today. There are hands-on opportunities and well-written plaques for children and adults to engage with the subject matter in their own ways.

pretend "general store" inside the Campbell Historical Museum

The details of their current exhibits are on this page. You’ll learn about the evolution “from canneries to computers,” tracing Campbell’s history from its origins in orchards and canned fruit to its role in Silicon Valley today and putting it in context with national and world historical events at the time. Many important innovations happened here long before the microprocessor was invented. Did you know President Roosevelt even came to visit once?

timeline called "Campbell in Context," detailing the history of Campbell in parallel to world history

Note: The museum and the Ainsley House are “sister museums” to each other; both are technically independent so you can visit either or both. We highly recommend starting here at the Campbell Historical Museum and then visiting the Ainsley House. The house will make much more sense if you have the context offered in the museum first.

Location

This museum is located at 51 N. Central Ave. in Campbell, on the corner of N. Central and Civic Center Dr. It’s kitty-corner from the Campbell Public Library and one block over from the main downtown shopping and restaurant district on Campbell Ave. If you’re coming from farther away, it’s fairly close to the Hamilton Ave. exit from Hwy 17.

Google map of Campbell Historical Museum area

Parking is always tight in Downtown Campbell. There is a small lot connected to the museum, but you enter it from the other side of the block: turn on N. 1st Street and go in the driveway behind Recycle Bookstore West and Sorelle Salon & Spa. Take the first left inside the parking lot (between the two tiny fences into the second half of the lot) and then turn right to get closer to the museum. The museum is the tall unmarked building at the end of the lot. Park in any unmarked slot. (The first slots you see will be reserved for the bookstore or salon, so be careful. Go deeper into the lot to look for 2-hour parking that’s not restricted to a particular store or reserved for staff.)

Zoomed-in Google map showing arrows of where to park

Parking lot for Campbell Historical Museum

There is also some on-street metered parking on Civic Center Dr. If you don’t mind walking, you can park elsewhere in town and walk in. (Just be respectful of time limits anywhere you park, because Campbell does mean business in their traffic enforcement.)

Although the address and front sign say N. Central Avenue, the entrance is actually accessed from this parking lot, so walk around the building to the back if your GPS takes you to the official front on N. Central.

Very zoomed-in Google map showing the actual front entrance vs. the street address

The closest public transit is the VTA Bus Route 26‘s Civic Center stop or the VTA Light Rail‘s Downtown Campbell station on the 902 Winchester line.

Downtown Campbell is very bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly, so if you prefer, you can always choose to bike or walk here to avoid the parking drama altogether. 

Weather

Thankfully this historical building has been upgraded with modern HVAC, so you can enjoy this little museum anytime of year.

old-fashioned hand-washer and dryer press with pretend laundry outside Campbell Historical Museum entrance

Cost

When we visited (summer 2019), the museum admission was just $2 for anyone age 7+. If you want a joint ticket for the museum + the Ainsley House, it essentially saves you $1 over buying the two admissions separately. (We didn’t get the joint ticket, but did happen to find a $1 off coupon on an Ainsley House flyer, so it worked out the same.) The joint ticket does not have to be used on the same day.

child's wagon with pretend fruit and cardboard cut-outs of children in an orchard, Campbell Historical Museum

If you want unlimited access to the museum and the Ainsley House, a quarterly newsletter, gift shop discounts, and free or discounted admission to museum events, memberships are available for $35 per person. Expanded benefits are available with fancier levels of membership.

Both this museum and the Ainsley House are part of the North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Association. This means you can get  free or discounted admission to these and many other museums around the continent if you have a membership at one of them. You can search the full list here.

Length of Time

Given the relatively small size of this museum, it’s mind-boggling to think of it once housing the fire department, police department, and city government! The museum will take you about 1-2 hours.

If you’re doing both in one day, plan for the Ainsley House to take an additional 1-2 hours. You can ask the volunteers at the museum desk what time the next Ainsley House tour leaves so you can plan accordingly. If possible, do the full museum before going to Ainsley House.

Carriage with picture of Teddy Roosevelt in the Campbell Historical Museum

Wheelchair Access

Physically, the museum was spacious enough and flat enough to navigate easily with the wheelchair. However, most of the displays were surprisingly high up on the walls, so it was tricky to read some of them comfortably from a seated height.

Vision & Hearing

There were more hands-on and audio elements here than at most museums, so someone with limited vision would be able to interact quite a bit. For example, there were plastic fruits on Velcro dots to be “picked” off the “orchard” trees, rubber fruits to be “packed” into the tin cans, and a guessing game with food scents inside metal shakers. There were also narrated video clips and an audio recording of someone reading President Roosevelt’s speech, plus an interactive play space with pretend foods. Unfortunately there is no braille or audio tour of the other material, so a companion would still have to read the text of the main plaques out loud.

guessing game with shakers with scents inside, part of the Campbell Historical Museum

The video and audio clips had subtitles, so someone with a hearing impairment would be able to participate fully here. There’s little to no background noise to interfere with hearing aids on a regular day. (I’d imagine if an entire class were here for a field trip, that might change.)

Sensory Processing

This was a delightfully calm museum in terms of sensory content. The lighting was normal, the background noise was minimal, and that scent game mentioned above was not noticeable unless you held the shakers to your nose. The displays were visually a little busy in places, but not overwhelmingly so. Particularly for the level of interaction it offered, I found this to be one of the more sensory-friendly museums we’ve visited.

Old electric vehicle in Campbell Historical Museum

Food

There’s no food or drink allowed inside the museum, but there are picnic areas available outside. Of course the entire restaurant district in Downtown Campbell is also only a block away!

Would we go back?

Sure! We both learned a ton about the legacy of a town that we’d honestly always thought of as just a cute little offshoot of San Jose. It turns out Campbell was once the home to three major fruit canneries that shipped fruit all the way to England. The Pruneyard Shopping Center was even part of a major Supreme Court decision on free speech and states’ rights. Who knew? If you need a short but very interesting spot to visit, the Campbell Historical Museum is sure to make you smile!

Campbell Historical Museum sign says "Museum & Store open Thurs-Sun 12-4 pm"

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Harvest Festival: Original Art & Craft Show

We’ve been going to the Harvest Festival almost every year since I was in elementary school. It’s delightful to see some of the same vendors every year – a few of whom even remember us and say “hi” – and to see many new ones as well. As an artist, I always find it inspiring to see so many new ideas and creative styles in one place. We often find truly unique gifts for our hard-to-shop-for friends and family members here too!

Inside the Harvest Festival Original Art & Craft Show

In a Nutshell

This is a large indoor arts & crafts festival that travels around California and parts of Nevada every year, showcasing beautiful hand-made arts and crafts, specialty foods, kids’ craft and activity areas, and a live stage with continuous music and entertainment. I think of it as a playful cross between a county fair (minus the farm animals and ferris wheels) and an art & wine festival.

Understandably, out of respect for the artists’ work, the show forbids most photography inside. My apologies for the limited photos in this post as a result.

Harvest Festival sign says "no photos or videos of merchandise"

Location

This is a traveling show, so you can choose the location that’s closest to you. Check out the Shows page on their website for this year’s schedule. Parking and transportation details will obviously depend on the venue.

Weather

This is an indoor show, so you’ll enjoy it regardless of the weather outside. Given that many of these shows happen in the fall and over the holiday season, being a weatherproof outing is definitely a feature!

Harvest Festival Original Art & Craft Show sign outside San Mateo Event Center

Cost

At the door, tickets are typically around $9 for adults and less for seniors, kids, and military personnel. (Prices are from 2018, but they don’t tend to change much year to year.) You can often get discounts for purchasing tickets online ahead of time, or with a postcard coupon if you join their mailing list. The postcard usually also has a coupon for a free shopping bag, so it’s worth joining the mailing list if you plan to go back next year.

Length of Time

This will take you a few hours to most of the day, depending on how quickly you stroll through the booths and how many exhibitors are at the show. (We’ve noticed some cities or some years bring bigger or smaller shows, but they’re always enjoyable regardless of size. We haven’t spotted a predictable pattern in the sizes, so we just go with the mindset that we’ll enjoy whatever we find.)

Regardless of which show you attend, we highly recommend getting there close to opening time because the event will get more crowded as the day goes on. If you’re going to a particularly popular show, such as the one in San Jose over Thanksgiving weekend, you’ll save some time in line by buying your tickets online ahead of time.

musicians dressed in Christmas clothes at Harvest Festival

Wheelchair Access

Accessibility will depend on the venue, of course, but every show we’ve seen has been in a large public event center, convention center, or the indoor part of the county fairgrounds, so it’s always been wheelchair-accessible in our experience.

The event is large, so if you have any kind of mobility challenges, balance/stability issues, or pain with too much walking, we definitely recommend bringing a cane, walker, wheelchair, or scooter, depending on what works best for you. For context, it’s more walking and standing than a typical trip to the mall, but much less than a day at Disneyland.

Each vendor’s booth varies somewhat in its accessibility because the layout is up to the exhibitor. Some have wide open spaces and some pack more tables into the same square footage, unfortunately leaving less maneuvering room for mobility devices. We’ve found that electric mobility scooters (especially the larger four-wheeled kind) have a harder time in this setting; wheelchairs are much more maneuverable in the sometimes-tighter spaces. Walkers or canes can navigate easily too.

FYI, a few booths also have high enough display cases that it can be challenging to see the merchandise from a low seated position. (This is where it helps to have a sidekick who can reach things for you.) It’s not a big enough problem to keep you from enjoying the event on your own, though. Most things are visible, and most of the artists or fellow shoppers will gladly help if you need it. Just ask!

Vision & Hearing

There would be a lot for someone with limited vision to enjoy here. The food booths often offer tasting samples, the teas and candles smell nice, and most of the textile or jewelry crafts can be as easily felt as seen. Some of the craft booths sell wind chimes, folk music CDs, and other sound-oriented goodies. It’s also possible to pick up most of the merchandise to look at it up close, so someone with limited but functional vision could navigate and enjoy the show independently. All the booths are laid out in aisles, which are marked by overhead flag signs. The layout of each individual booth is different, as mentioned above, and there are no tactile or audio markers to help with wayfinding, so a person who’s blind would need a companion to help navigate this setting.

Music is a much less prominent part of the show, compared to the visual arts and specialty foods, so someone who is deaf could easily enjoy the Harvest Festival without missing out on much. Because of the busy nature of the show, someone who uses hearing aids may have trouble filtering out the background noise at times, so if this applies to someone in your family, please remember to get their attention before speaking to them and be close enough for them to hear you clearly.

stage at the Harvest Festival

Sensory Processing

This is definitely a high-sensory experience, but I enjoy it anyway. I always wear earplugs here, and we are careful to go early in the morning to take advantage of the lower crowds. (This helps in two ways — lower sensory busyness for me and fewer crowds in which to maneuver the wheelchair for my mom.) In terms of visual and auditory input, it’s a little bit busier than a trip to the mall. There’s a lot going on in each booth, but it’s exciting artsy stuff that’s fun to look at, and you can just choose not to go in any booth that may feel overwhelming. There are a few musicians who walk around playing the ukulele or washboard or harmonica, which can be loud, but they pass quickly and there are only a couple throughout the whole show. (If you want to enjoy the stage shows, sit near the back so you’re farther from the often-too-loud speakers.) If you like to touch things, you’ll find many lush fabrics, soft toys, beautifully finished woods, smooth metals and jewelry, and other marvelous textures to explore.

If you’re especially triggered by smells, as I am, be aware that there are quite a few different smells to contend with here. Some of the crafts the vendors sell are handmade scented candles (none of which are lit, fortunately), soaps, foods, teas, seasonings and spices. Fortunately the smells are usually contained to the individual booths (apparently by magic, because the booths are open, but somehow it works), so it’s nothing like walking into (or even past) Bath & Body Works at the mall. I find that if I just don’t go in those booths, I’m fine. The venues are always enormous rooms with very high ceilings, and the fragranced vendors are a small fraction of the show, so it somehow evens out.  There is also a “food court” area, but it’s always off in one corner or one side, so those cooking smells don’t pervade the room either.

Food

You can bring your own food or buy food there. There is an area to the back or the side where a half-dozen booths sell different kinds of food for lunch or snacks. (These are not craft vendors; they’re part of the Harvest Festival itself and tend to be the same every year.) For example, there is usually a coffee & muffins booth, a salad booth, a chili & baked potato booth, a pasta booth, and a pulled pork or Philly cheesesteak sandwich booth. The food is usually made on-site but not always to order, so be careful about allergies. The people preparing it have very limited space and not much flexibility aside from whether or not to include certain toppings. Be patient with them.

food court at Harvest Festival

These food booths are side-by-side, and then there’s a large area with cafeteria-style tables end-to-end where you can eat. This makes it easy for different members of your family to choose different foods and eat together. (Keep in mind that you pay at each booth, so if you want different types of foods, you’ll each need to stand in line for yourself.) The tables are also an easy place to eat your own food from home if you brought it (I’ve never seen signs restricting it) or to just take a break if you need one.

As with most events, the lines for food can get long at peak times, so plan ahead if you can and have lunch a little earlier or little later than average and you’ll be fine.

Would we go back?

Of course! It’s a tradition for us at this point, but it’s also just really fun to see the creativity and variety on display each year. Pack your earplugs, wake up early, and go enjoy the Harvest Festival when it comes to your area. It’s sure to make you smile!

official marketing image of shoppers at the Harvest Festival

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Happy Hollow

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo (HHPZ) is a local gem that has been treasured by San Jose families for generations. My mom grew up going there, as did I, and now my preschool students sparkle when they talk about going to Happy Hollow on the weekend. Thanks to a major renovation completed in 2010, you’ll find the perfect blend of simple nostalgia and engaging modern attractions to appeal to all ages.

entrance from back parking lot, sign says "Welcome to Happy Hollow Park & Zoo"

In a Nutshell

Happy Hollow is a combination of a small but high-quality zoo, interactive animal experiences and zookeeper talks, children’s amusement park rides, a large playground, a puppet theater, and open space. See the map for more details. They’re open almost every day and have special events on certain days.

They’re aimed at children of all ages, but we also enjoy visiting as adults without children in tow. There’s even a free Senior Safari Walkabout one Thursday morning a month for seniors age 50+.

carousel at Happy Hollow in San Jose

The zoo is divided into two parts: the smaller “Zoo on the Hill,” which includes several animals and a petting zoo, and “Zoo in the Hollow,” which houses most of the animals. We’re particularly fond of the capybaras and meerkats, and of course the star attraction, Sophia the Jaguar.

Sophia the jaguar at Happy Hollow in San Jose

The zoo has a total of 150+ animals and is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. We like to refer to them as a “small but mighty” zoo because, while they’re nowhere near the scale of the San Francisco Zoo, many of Happy Hollow’s animals are part of the AZA’s Species Survival Plan, meaning that they’re part of a wide network of captive breeding programs in zoos working together to help save threatened and endangered species.

 

Capuchin monkeys at Happy Hollow in San Jose

We usually spend most of our time in the zoo, but we still walk around the park area just to enjoy the ambiance. It’s simultaneously peaceful and lively, filled with happy children and families enjoying their day together. There are some rides aimed at younger children, some for school-age children and adults, and some for the whole family. Our favorite ride is always Danny the Dragon, a gentle train ride through storybook dioramas. (Danny is also the mascot of HHPZ.)

Danny the Dragon ride at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Danny the Dragon ride at Happy Hollow in San Jose

In addition to the rides, the park area has a large redwood-themed playground, a walk-through maze, several smaller play areas, and a puppet theater with multiple shows on most days. 

Redwood Lookout playground at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Between the park and the zoo, you’ll find a large open field where families often eat, relax,  or let the kids run off steam. Special events are often held on the outdoor stage in this area too.

Before you go, check the Plan Your Visit page to see today’s hours and check which attractions may be closed for maintenance.

red tropical flower at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Location

Happy Hollow is located at 1300 Senter Road in San Jose. It’s part of the city’s Kelley Park, where you’ll also find History San Jose, the Japanese Friendship Gardens, the Leininger Community Center, and plenty of open space with picnic areas.

Google map of area around Happy Hollow in San Jose

Their website has good driving directions from various freeways as well as how to take public transit to the park. There are also bicycle racks available near the entrance if you prefer.

Parking

If you drive to Happy Hollow, there are two main parking lots. One is off Senter Road and the other is on the opposite side of the park, off Story Road at Remillard. Either parking lot involves a little bit of a walk to the front gates. Scroll down to the map on the Plan Your Visit page for details.

In either lot, general parking is $10 per vehicle or $80 for an annual parking pass that works at all City of San Jose Regional Parks. The parking attendant booths are usually not staffed, so pay for parking at the automated kiosk in the parking lot and then put the printed receipt/pass on your dashboard before going into the park. (The machines take credit/debit cards or cash if you have exact change only.)

Important: If you have a disabled parking placard or plates on your vehicle, the price and procedure are different from general parking and different from what it was a few years ago. As of May 2018, this was the procedure if you don’t have a Discount Card from the city yet:

  1. Park in a disabled spot if possible. If those are full, make a note of where you parked.
  2. Bring your proof of disabled parking paper from the DMV. (This is the little paper that came with your placard or plates.) Also make sure you know your car’s make, model, year, color, and license plate number.
  3. Do not buy a parking pass at the kiosk. Instead, go directly to the Happy Hollow ticket booth.
  4. In addition to your admission tickets, tell the person in the booth that you need to pay for disabled parking. They’ll ask to see your DMV paper and ask for the identifying information about your car.
  5. You’ll pay the $2 parking fee (discounted from the general $10 rate) in addition to your admission tickets.
  6. Just go into the park! They write down your car’s information so they know you paid. That way you don’t have to walk all the way back to the car to put anything on your dashboard.

If you have the disabled parking placard or plates and plan to park at Happy Hollow or any other San Jose parks more than a couple times a year, it’s worth your while to jump through the paperwork hoops to get the Discount Card. This basically lets you prove that you’re eligible once for the year instead of every time you go. They’ll mail you a card which you then swipe at the kiosk and pay the discounted rate right there at the kiosk the same way everyone else pays their $10. Here’s the application for the Discount Card. Alternatively, you can also choose to get the discounted annual parking pass ($30 vs generally $80) if you plan to visit San Jose Regional Parks a lot.

Weather

As an outdoor place, Happy Hollow experiences the same weather as the surrounding neighborhood. There is a fair amount of shade in some parts, but you’ll still feel the heat, wind, or rain like you would at any other park. I definitely recommend sunscreen regardless of when you go.

Capybara at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Cost

As of our most recent visit (2019), the tickets were $14.25 for ages 2-59. Infants and toddlers under 2 years old are free, and there are discounts for seniors 60+ or for groups of 14 or more people. Your AAA card may give you a discount.  See their website for current pricing.

We usually choose the annual membership. This makes it worth our while to drop in for a short visit when we have time and want a “happiness recharge,” or to spend the whole morning wandering the zoo if we choose. The membership also supports HHPZ, of course, so we consider it a good investment even if we don’t go as often as we’d like. You can purchase a membership in person when you arrive or by mail ahead of time. If you’d like to upgrade a daily admission to a membership, you can do that while you’re there the same day and they’ll credit your daily admission price toward the membership purchase.

Happy Hollow has reciprocal agreements with CuriOdyssey, the San Francisco Zoo, and other local attractions, so if you have a membership somewhere else, you may get a discount on your Happy Hollow admission. See the zoo & aquarium reciprocal agreement list for details.

Note: HHPZ is no longer part of the nationwide reciprocal agreement list for science centers, but if you ask at the local science centers (Chabot, Children’s Creativity Museum, Lawrence Hall of Science, The Tech, and Lindsay Wildlife Museum), they may honor your HHPZ membership for a 50% discount on admission. Ask the individual museums about their policies.

Meerkat at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Length of Time

This will take you a couple hours to half a day or more, depending on how many rides your family wants to ride or how much time you spend at the playgrounds. We usually finish in about 2 hours and then browse the gift shop before going home, but you could easily spend much longer if you choose to. It’s a very flexible place with plenty to do.

Tortoise at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Wheelchair Access

Their website has information for guests with disabilities. Since the 2010 renovation, every part of Happy Hollow meets or exceeds ADA standards for accessibility. We’ve certainly found this to be true – the zoo and park are easily navigable by wheelchair, as are the restrooms, cafe, and gift shop. The ground is fairly level or gently sloping and the paths are nicely paved.

Due to safety concerns, the height/age/size requirements for the rides are enforced regardless of abilities. Guests will need to transfer out of their wheelchair or scooter in order to ride most of the rides. (The carousel and Danny the Dragon are wheelchair accessible and even accommodate service animals.) The ride attendants are not allowed to help with the transfer, but they are very kind about giving you time to do it and making sure the chair is safe until you get back.

If your family’s special needs prevent you from waiting in line, visit Guest Services at the front gate to ask for the “exit entry” wrist band. This will let your family enter through the exit instead of waiting in the standard line. We haven’t done this because we are able to wait, but it’s a marvelous service they offer to families who need it. You can call Guest and Member Services at (408) 794-6400 for more details.

Capybara at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Vision & Hearing

Unfortunately there is no braille on the zoo plaques and the animals are mostly quiet (no lions or elephants here), so a guest with limited vision would need someone to describe what’s there. With guidance, they could easily interact with the petting zoo, listen to the zookeepers’ talks and special presentations, and play on the playgrounds. The lively narration and sound effects would make the puppet shows accessible. The feelings of the rides and the cheerful surrounding sounds would also be thoroughly enjoyable.

A guest with a hearing impairment would be able to interact easily with all parts of the zoo, rides, and playgrounds. The puppet shows, however, are not closed captioned and I have never seen a sign language interpreter there. Many of the shows are classic stories (The Three Little Pigs, etc.), so if you’re already familiar with the plot, it may still be easy to follow along and enjoy the colorful puppets even if you can’t fully hear the narration.

Bird at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Sensory Processing

The zoo is calm and open, with lots of shade and natural colors. There’s no background music. The Zoo in the Hollow (the larger part with more animals) doesn’t smell like much of anything. The Zoo on the Hill has a petting zoo and usually smells exactly the way you’d expect it to.

There’s a bit more hustle-and-bustle with more people in the park area around the rides and playground, but it’s still always been comfortably open. The paths are wide here and there are plenty of benches to take a break if needed. The only time we ever felt somewhat crowded was on a holiday weekend when the Kristy Yamaguchi Reading Adventures special event had drawn many extra people to HHPZ.

Everything is colorful enough to be interesting, but never in-your-face bright, and always balanced with lots of large trees and grass areas. Sensorially speaking, it’s among the most relaxing family parks I’ve visited.

Meerkat at Happy Hollow in San Jose

Food

You can bring your own food or buy food there. They have a cafe called the Picnic Basket fairly close to the entrance. The menu includes chicken strips, burgers, fries, pizza, and hot pretzels. There are also some grab-and-go selections that usually include salads, sandwiches, hummus-and-veggie cups, yogurt, Smuckers Uncrustables, juice boxes, and milk. There’s indoor or outdoor seating available with flexible tables that you can move to accommodate your party size. It’s easy to fit a wheelchair at the tables.  If you choose to bring your own food, you can bring “homemade individual brown bag lunches” but no coolers or commercially prepared food. If you want to bring a more elaborate meal, such as party platters or coolers for a larger group, you can use the picnic areas located outside of Happy Hollow in the grassy areas of Kelley Park.

There are larger picnic areas inside Happy Hollow which can be reserved for two-hour windows as part of a birthday party package. These parties are usually catered by Happy Hollow, or you can cater your own for an additional fee. If you want to bring your own homemade or store-bought party food for a group event, it’s best to just use the picnic tables located in Kelley Park outside of Happy Hollow.

Would we go back?

We’ve been coming here for two generations and absolutely plan to keep coming, usually multiple times a year. We love the cheerful, family-friendly atmosphere, the sweet animals in the zoo, and of course the nostalgia. It’s a very special place for us. If you haven’t been here, or at least not since 2010, I highly recommend it. You’ll absolutely leave with a smile!

The Crooked House at Happy Hollow in San Jose

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CuriOdyssey

CuriOdyssey at Coyote Point is a sweet little combination zoo and science museum. It’s a nonprofit that’s part of the Coyote Point Recreation Area. We particularly enjoyed the peaceful vibe in the zoo and the joy of the children in the science museum.

CuriOdyssey sign

In a Nutshell

Their zoo is small but diverse, including bobcats, eagles, skunks, otters, and other critters, most of whom came to them as rescue animals and cannot be re-released into the wild for various reasons. Because it is smaller than other zoos, you can get very close to the animals and talk freely with the docents and keepers. Although it doesn’t take as long or have as many animals as some of the Bay Area’s larger zoos, I found it to be just as satisfying of a visit because of this more personal feeling. It’s cozy.

owls at CuriOdyssey zoo

raccoons at CuriOdyssey zoo

golden eagle at CuriOdyssey zoo

Their science museum has very engaging hands-on exploration displays on various topics. Some are permanent and others rotate through over time. Check their website for a list of current exhibits. The target audience for this part appeared to be approximately ages 5-12, but I still had fun exploring them as an adult and many younger children were highly engaged as well.

child's hands in wet sand at CuriOdyssey science museum

gears at CuriOdyssey science museum

Location

Coyote Point is in San Mateo off Highway 101. It’s about 30-40 minutes north of San Jose.

Google map to CuriOdyssey

There’s a parking lot just outside the entrance to CuriOdyssey. If that’s full, there’s overflow parking in the lot near the marina. It’s a bit of a walk from that lot back up the hill to CuriOdyssey, but there is a wheelchair-accessible route you can use.

We parked in the overflow lot because the sign said the main lot was full, but when we got there, we found that there were two disabled slots open even though the rest of the lot was full. If you need disabled parking, the main lot would be worth a try even if the sign says it’s full.

Their website has specific directions for driving, biking, walking, or taking public transit. You can technically take CalTrain or SamTRANS, but it’s not a direct route at all and involves a pretty long walk from the station to the park.

Weather

I think almost any weather would work here. The zoo is about 2/3 outdoors and 1/3 indoors but is all heavily shaded and sheltered by big trees and enclosures, so it was comfortable even on a cold January day and would be fine on all but the hottest summer days. Just be sure to dress accordingly. I would imagine it could be less fun in the rain, but they do field trips year-round and just ask students to dress for the weather rain or shine, so maybe it would work. The science museum is entirely indoors so it would be comfortable anytime.

redwood trees at CuriOdyssey

Cost

When we visited (2018), the tickets were $15.95 for adults and less for children, students, and seniors. If your family is part of the Museums for All Program, admission is just $1 per person. See their website for current pricing. There are also annual membership options.

Note: There was also a $6 per car admission/parking charge to get into the Coyote Point Recreation Area. (It’s a county park.) This is waived for CuriOdyssey members.

CuriOdyssey has reciprocal agreements with Happy Hollow, the San Francisco Zoo, and other local attractions, so if you have a membership somewhere else, you may get a discount on your CuriOdyssey admission. See the reciprocal agreement list for details.

waterfall at CuriOdyssey zoo

Length of Time

This will take you a few hours to half a day. We finished the zoo and gift shop in about 2 hours and then walked through the science museum for a little while. (The exhibits looked fun, but as an adult, I couldn’t bring myself to push the happy 8-year-olds out of the way to get a turn, so I mostly observed.) If you have school-age children, you could easily spend another couple hours in the science museum part.

Wheelchair Access

Their website has information for guests with disabilities.

We found the zoo to be easily accessible. The science museum got a little crowded in places, but all of the walkways were wide enough to navigate without issue. Even the gift shop was uncluttered enough to roll through, which isn’t always the case in places like this.

Note: The accessible restroom is outside in the zoo area. The bathroom in the main museum building is wide enough for a stroller or wheelchair to wait in line but has no accessible stalls, so it would only work if you can walk a short distance and don’t mind leaving the chair outside the stall. To their credit, one of the museum docents saw us heading toward the main bathroom and very kindly gave us the heads-up about this. We used the accessible restroom instead and noticed that while it was physically roomy enough and had the typical grab bars and such, the door to the restroom was very heavy and the handle/lock was up very high. It would be difficult to access from a wheelchair without a companion.

Vision & Hearing

The animals at this zoo are mostly quiet (no roaring lions here) and every exhibit has an informational plaque describing the animal’s backstory and natural habits. The science museum was similarly oriented around flat visual plaques and hands-on experiences. Someone with a hearing impairment could participate almost fully in both parts of the park. I think someone with limited vision would probably find the zoo fairly pointless and would have a mixed experience in the science museum. Many of the science exhibits were highly tactile and a few revolved around sound or music, but a lot of the displays involving physics or cause-and-effect mechanisms were inside of plexiglass boxes, so these would be difficult to enjoy without at least near-field vision.

Sensory Processing

The zoo was calm and open, with lots of shade and natural colors. There’s no background music. It also doesn’t smell like a zoo (it doesn’t smell like anything I could detect), mainly because there are no elephants and no petting zoo, only smaller animals in well-maintained enclosures. The only semi-crowded point was when everyone wanted to see the scheduled feedings; otherwise there were people around but we had plenty of space to move freely and didn’t feel crowded, even on a busy day.

I did notice that the whole recreation area seems to be directly under the flight path to SFO, so there were frequently airplanes flying somewhat low overhead. For some children, that’s a bonus feature, but for others, the unexpected extra noise could be a factor. It wasn’t obnoxious enough to be a deal-breaker by any stretch, but if I were traveling with a very sound-sensitive or easily-startled child, I would want to tell them ahead of time to expect the airplane noises outside.

The science museum was much busier than the zoo. The museum is entirely indoors so the excitement of all the children is more concentrated there. It was somewhat loud and could be overloading for some children with sensory issues. For sensory-seeking children, however, the variety of interactive displays could be exactly perfect.

Their website also has a social story to help your child know what to expect before their visit. Kudos, CuriOdyssey!

Food

You can bring your own food or buy food there. They have a little cafe with mostly hot dogs, chips, and fruit available during limited lunch hours on the weekends. The gift shop also carries a pretty impressive variety of packaged snacks and drinks, including many healthy options, some of which were vegan-friendly or allergy-friendly. (You could phone ahead to see what they have in stock that day.) When we went, the classroom space (presumably used by field trip groups during the week) was open and several families were enjoying their homemade lunches at the tables. We did the same. There are also picnic tables outside in the shade in the zoo area. If you want to eat before or after your visit, keep in mind that you are also in a county park, so there there are larger tables and even BBQ grills in the picnic areas closer to the nearby playground.

Would we go back?

Absolutely! This is my third visit to CuriOdyssey and will certainly not be my last. I love the gentle vibe and kind cheerful people we always encounter there. If you’re looking for a new spot to visit, it’s sure to make you smile!

 

 

CuriOdyssey sign: building the minds of tomorrow today