GCUC 2015 Tours

I hope you’re getting excited to see some of the great coworking spaces we’ve got lined up for this year’s tours! There are so many coworking spaces currently operating or opening in the greater San Francisco Bay Area that it’s hard to get an accurate count, but I’ve heard the number is in the triple digits! While we really wanted to visit spaces all over the Bay, we had to keep the selection to the public transportation routes most easily navigable within the four-hour time slot we have for tours. This meant Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco were our best bet for a great tour selection and experience. When I sent out the call for host spaces on the Coworking Google Group earlier this year, I was overwhelmed by the response I received. There were so many people excited to show the conference attendees their spaces!

We’ve put together 7 tours of 23 fabulous spaces ready to welcome GCUC attendees! Following I’ll list them out so you can see which sites you’d like to see. Due to the time we have allotted for tours, visitors will only be able to select one tour route to visit. Here’s a few things to consider in order to get the most out of your tour experience:

• Tours will be limited to 20 people per tour, so be sure to sign up early for the one you want!
  
• Sign up for the tours will happen during the conference.
  
• All tours will include walking, and some will cover more distance than others, so be sure to wear comfortable attire!
  
• Most tours will require some form of public transportation including bus, subway or Uber/Lyft/Sidecar. Make sure you have U.S. currency and/or a credit/debit card that will work in U.S. machines.
  
• The GCUC afterparty will be held in Oakland at the Kaiser Center Rooftop Gardens at 8pm. The tours will all wrap up by 5-5:30pm. You’ll want to freshen up, eat dinner and get yourself to Oakland for an awesome party! So, depending on where your accommodations are located you might want to consider this while selecting the tour you sign up for.
  
• The SF Bay Area has great public transportation, here are the main agencies you can expect to be traveling on: AC Transit between Berkeley and Oakland/around Oakland; BART between Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland; MUNI within San Francisco.
  
• Boconova, in Oakland, will be offering a 20% discount to GCUC attendees. What a great place to get dinner before the party at Port.
  
• The tour guides will meet each tour at a preset location after the conference ends and take guide their tours through the public transportation routes and to the completion of each tour. You won’t miss them, they’ll be wearing CoPass jumpsuits and tee-shirts and will be very excite to meet you.
  

So, let’s get to the juicy stuff! Following are the tours, listed by city first and then by tour number.

Berkeley

Tour Number- 1

Tour guide: Charlie Shaw of NextSpace Berkeley

Spaces:

NextSpace Berkeley

SkyDeck Berkeley

WeWork Berkeley

SandBox Suites Berkeley

Impact Hub Berkeley

Oakland

Tour Number- 2

Tour guide: Rebecca Pan of Covo

Spaces:

Oakstop Coworking

Techliminal

Impact Hub Oakland

Port Workspaces

San Francisco

Tour Number- 3

Tour Guide: Daniel Brian of Covo

NextSpace San Francisco

WeWork SOMA

Hattery

Tour Number- 4

Tour Guide: Michael Melia of Copass

Third Workplace

Galvanize

Shared SF

Tour Number- 5

Tour Guide: Sophie Ozdzinski of Copass

RockIT CoLabs

SpherePad

Tour Number- 6

Bart trip from Berkeley, some walking

Tour Guide: Kyle Fisher of NextSpace Union Square

Runway

Impact Hub San Francisco

NextSpace Union Square

Tour Number- 7 (Event/Incubator Space, Corporate office space, Childcare + Coworking) Requires multiple types of transportation

Tour Guide: Eric Van Den Broek of CoPass

PARISOMA

RickShaw Bags Offices

NextKids/NextSpace Potrero Hill

Huge thanks to our host spaces and tour guides for volunteering their spaces and time! This is going to be a great year for GCUC tours. Looking forward to seeing you all next week!