San Bruno, California

San Bruno is a suburb with a small commercial district/downtown but it punches way above its weight class for public transport options. The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system stops here and will take you down to SFO airport, up into San Francisco, across the bridge to Oakland (and the Oakland Airport) or Berkeley, or around the bay and down to towns in the east bay including Dublin/Pleasanton, Fremont, and even North San Jose. You can also take the Caltrain stop from San Bruno down the peninsula to Redwood City, Palo Alto, San Jose, and even down to Gilroy. There’s no better suburb to live in if you want to avoid driving around the Bay Area traffic. Oh, and if you do want to drive you’re right on the edges of 101 and 280, the two major freeways in the area. Finally, and to many the best part, you’re just a mile from SFO, the major Bay Area airport.

If you live a mile or two from an airport you’re going to hear the planes. Most residents seem to have gotten used to it or know about it when they move in, or live on the western side of the city and don't hear it as much, but just good to know going in that planes taking off make some noise.

San Bruno is an interesting, maybe even quirky place. Mostly thought of as a suburb but with a fair number of apartment/condo complexes to supplement the single-family homes, it has a mix of young professionals/couples and families.

This diverse mix of locals shares a funky downtown running along El Camino and San Mateo Avenue. The boutique mom-and-pop offerings include Kava Bar), a cool spot serving Fiji’s national drink, Neelan Pacific Market, and Fiji Market, family-owned markets offering international spices and foods. There are also truly one-of-a-kind shops, including a Hula dance school, Paradise Hooka Lounge, martial arts centers, and any number of other non-chain experiences that make San Bruno feel like an old-school downtown neighborhood.

There are of course plenty of suburban lifestyle happenings here. The outdoor experiences available are pretty amazing given the suburban settings. You have the Santa Cruz Mountains bordering the western edge of town, and a half dozen more wonderful outdoor parks and hiking trails inside the neighborhood borders. Raising the kiddos here means you'll get as much outdoor play as your heart desires and all the common little league sports happen within the parks and rec system San Bruno offers.

The San Bruno Elementary School District scores lower than the districts south of San Bruno with a B- on niche.com. Depending on the neighborhood, however, you can find a school that bumps up into the B+’s so just keep an eye on that if you’re watching the school scores. At the high school level, San Bruno is part of the San Mateo Union High School District which jumps to an A+ on niche.com. Peninsula and Capuchino are the two public high schools in the city with Capuchino the higher performer in part due to their IB and AP offerings and in part due to the diversity of students and supportive administration.