Things to Do in San Diego

Immaculately landscaped parks, white-sand coves, upscale boutiques, and cliffs above deep, clear blue waters make it easy to understand why La Jolla translates from Spanish as “the jewel.”

La Jolla Village sits atop cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean on three sides. Girard Avenue and Prospect Streets are where you’ll find some of San Diego’s best restaurants and certainly its best boutique shopping. For a bit of old La Jolla, head to the La Jolla Historical Society and check out the vintage photos and beach memorabilia. La Jolla’s Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego gets ever-changing world-class exhibitions.

Outdoor enthusiasts will have plenty to indulge in at La Jolla. A wonderful walking path skirts the shoreline, beginning at the Children’s Pool, where a jetty protects the beach from big waves. You can watch sea lions up close as they lounge on the shore. Atop Point La Jolla, at the path’s eastern end is Ellen Browning Scripps Park, a tidy expanse of green lawns and palm trees. The area north of northeast of here is simply called “The Shores.” This is the spot where La Jolla’s cliffs meet the wide, sandy beaches north to Del Mar.

The eighth largest city center in the US, downtown San Diego has its fair share of entertainment. Located just minutes from the airport, you’ll find a wonderland of accommodations, restaurants, entertainment and cultural attractions in downtown San Diego. The Gaslamp Quarter is downtown’s most famous district, though you’ll also find neighboring Balboa Park hosts quite a number of San Diego attractions, including the world famous San Diego Zoo. Walk to Petco Park to catch a Padres game, take the kids to the New Children’s Museum, or take a walk down the Embarcadero district and hit the beach, see the USS Midway Museum, or stop and shop in Seaport Village. If you’re in San Diego, downtown is the place to be.

For over 60 years, the Maritime Museum of San Diego has enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for being one of the most engaging and imagination-inspiring attractions in San Diego. A history lesson and an adventure in one, the Maritime Museum of San Diego has been repeatedly voted one of the best attractions in San Diego, and visitors from the world over come here to see the excellent collections of historic tall ships, including the world’s oldest active merchant ship, the Star of India, an 1863 iron hulled, triple-mast behemoth. Known the world over for excellence in restoring, maintaining, and operating these historic vessels, a trip to the Maritime Museum will have you exploring  (and, on some occasions, even sailing) four different tall ships (the ones with the big masts and sails), two submarines, and several yachts and harbor boats. As you explore these amazing vessels, you’ll discover a sense of what it was like to work and live on these amazing ships.

Mission Beach is a cozy, beachside community that rests on a sandbar between the Pacific Ocean and Mission Bay. It’s a perfect spot to indulge in a myriad of outdoor activities including sunbathing, horseshoes, surfing, bicycling, skateboarding, and tossing a Frisbee. With courts available for both, beach volleyball and basketball are also popular draws to the beach.

For activities away from Mission Beach, there’s SeaWorld in Mission Bay Park and historic Belmont Park in South Mission Beach, which features the Giant Dipper Roller Coaster as well as other rides including the FlowRider, Chaos, Vertical Plunge, Krazy Kars, and Tilt-a-Whirl. Also here is the the Mission Beach Plunge, once the largest saltwater (now freshwater) pool in the world and the only remaining structure left from the original Belmont Park structures.

Water activities at Mission Beach include sailboat, rowboat, and kayak rentals, as well as charter boats. On shore, gray whales pass San Diego from mid-December to late February on their way south to Baja California, and again in mid-March on their way up to Alaska.

There was once a time when traveling by train was the image of American romance— galloping across the open plains on the back of a steaming steel horse. With the advent of planes and automobiles, however, the era of train travel in the United States has long since passed its twilight. Unless, of course, you’re at the Model Railroad Museum, where the power of locomotives is as clear as the trains are timeless. Here at this 27,000 square foot enclosure inside of Balboa Park, railroad clubs have created artistic scale models of classic American trains. Follow a train as it plies the rails of the historic Tehachapi Pass, and look at models for the Pacific Desert Line—a track that was planned from San Diego to the east but never came to fruition. The meticulous craftsmanship that’s gone into the models is nothing short of astounding, and in addition to the models and trains themselves, visitors can learn about the legendary history of traveling the U.S. by train.

Somewhat of a park inside of a park, the Japanese Friendship Garden is a sanctuary of calm inside busy Balboa Park. Symbolic of the friendship between San Diego and the Japanese city of Yokohama, this 20-acre garden has over 200 cherry trees that dot the manicured landscape. In keeping with the tradition of Japanese gardens, the landscape here is methodically arranged so the stones, water, trees, and plants have a natural and calming energy. It’s a place for serene, inward reflection, and also a place where visitors can experience traditional Japanese culture. Stop for a drink at the tea museum and gaze out over the ponds, or wander through gardens that are meticulously planted in traditional Japanese herbs. On weekends, there can be classes in everything from Japanese language to the art of fine calligraphy, as well as a festival for the cherry blossom bloom that takes place every March.