North America : United States of America : California : San Joaquin Valley
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley of California stretches from the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles up to Sacramento. Largely agricultural, the area is some of the most fertile farmland in the world.
Regions
- Fresno County
- Kern County
- Kings County
- Madera County
- Merced County
- San Joaquin County
- Stanislaus County
- Tulare County
Cities
- Atwater
- Bakersfield
- Fresno
- Hilmar
- Manteca
- Merced
- Modesto
- Oakdale
- Reedley
- Ripon
- Selma
- Stockton
- Tracy
- Turlock
- Visalia
Other destinations
Understand
Talk
English and Spanish are both spoken in the San Joaquin Valley. It's helpful to know a little of each, as many people speak only one or the other. Punjabi and Tagalog are also widely spoken by Indian and Filipino immigrants in major cities.
Get in
Get around
See
Do
Eat
Drink
Stay safe
The San Joaquin Valley can get very foggy in winter, making driving extremely dangerous with visibility of 100 feet and less. On the faster highways such as Interstate 5 and State Route 99, the fog can turn small accidents into smash-ups of dozens of cars.
Gang activity is quite common in the larger cities. Avoid being out alone after dark, and avoid wearing solid red or solid blue, as these are gang colors and may make you a target.
Stay Healthy
San Joaquin cities such as Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia, Merced, and Modesto have very bad air quality. In fact, all of these cities rank among the top 15 smoggiest cities in the U.S. Summer temperatures can soar above 110 degrees fahrenheit (45 degrees celsius). Drink lots of water, heat strokes and dehydration is very common during the summer.
Get out
This page was last edited at 22:26, on 11 December 2008 by Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Based on work by Tim Sandell, Colin Jensen, T Wade, Ryan Holliday, Evan Prodromou and Richard Petersen, Wikitravel user(s) W66LinkBot and Chris j wood, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel and others.