I’m headed to San Diego for the first time for a conference in early August. My wife will be tagging along.
We’re heading out on a Friday and the conference runs Monday-Wednesday. So we’ll have three days of vacationy time, three days where she’ll need to amuse herself, and three evenings where we can have a nice dinner and go to bed early.
We’ll be staying at the Grand Hyatt near the Convention Center. Stuff we like:
[ul]
[li]Reading books on the beach[/li][li]Record, book, and vintage stores[/li][li]Punk/Indie bars with good jukeboxes[/li][li]Eating local delicacies sold by street vendors[/li][li]Art museums[/li][li]Twee little neighborhoods with cafes and art galleries[/li][/ul]
I hadn’t planned on renting a car, but if the public transport / cab situation sucks, I can get one.
La Jolla has a lot of art gallery shops that you can walk into and beaches and restaurants. I’m not sure Coranado has art galleries but they have a lot of restaurants and beaches. Gas lamp in downtown is really lively. If you like to dive there is good diving/snorkeling here. The maritime museum by the waterfront in the city is really cool. If you like a lot of museums check out balboa park.
If you like going to zoos, the San Diego zoo is supposedly one of the best in the world.
Also, there are some excellent vegetarian restaurants (like The Prophet) if you are into that.
But, IMHO, the very best thing about SD is the magnificent natural beauty of the city. It is on the ocean shore and the trees and scenery are truly spectacular. I have never been in a more beautiful city in my entire life.
It’s also a top US Navy town, take a tour of theUSS Midway if you are into that sort of thing. And try some seafood tacos; I loved the oyster tacos. The Panda’s at the zoo are pretty cool as well.
Let me just second the Midway. Last time I was in San Diego, we did that and the San Diego zoo, and the Midway is what stands out in my memory as the highlight of the trip.
The Midway is worth the time and fee. It’s hugely educational, and grandly inspirational too.
Just nearby is the Star Of India, an old iron-hulled merchantman; if you dig three-masted sailing ships, this is one of the best. It came in to town a ruin, a sheer hulk, and, over the decades, we’ve put a lot of love into her. Now, she actually sails! The museum displays right next to her at the Berkeley, an old ferry boat, are also grand. Go below and groove on the triple-expansion steam engine!
While there’s lots to do where you’ll be downtown, I’d definitely second renting a car.
You might not think it, but San Diego ranks 4th in museums across the US, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Besides all the museums at Balboa Park, there is the Museum of Contemporary Art, one downtown and one in La Jolla. There is also the Chuck Jones Gallery in the Gaslamp on 5th.
Some good neighborhood places have been mentioned (Hillcrest, La Jolla, Adams Ave/Kensington) so I’ll add Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach which is a little grittier but still cool. It’s a very local scene, has many vintage/antique shops and on Wednesday evenings they run a Farmers Market until sunset.
For a record shop, I’d recommend Record City on 6th Ave. in Hillcrest.
I don’t know about street vendors, but Mexican food is pretty much the de facto local delicacy. I’d recommend Don Carlos in La Jolla, Lucha Libre in Mission Hills, Bahia Don Bravo in Pacific Beach and La Jolla, and Oscar’s in PB.
Some other things to do
• go to the park at the top of Mount Soledad in La Jolla. It has a beautiful, sweeping view of virtually the entire city. The sights from Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma are great, too.
• watch as many sunsets as possible (some suggestions- in La Jolla, from Scripps Park or Windansea Beach. In Pacific Beach, from Crystal Pier or Palisades Park)
• head down to the Coronado Ferry Landing or Centennial Park on Coronado for a fantastic view of the downtown skyline.
• for another amazing view of the downtown skyline- if you’re flying into Lindbergh, the landing approach is very close to the downtown high-rises, so if you want a good view of that, sit on the left side of the plane
• there is a restored 1940s-era vintage streetcar that loops around downtown, with a stop right across the street from the Hyatt
If you’re a roller coaster fan, the Giant Dipper at Belmont Park is a must.
Torrey Pines is a great spot, but the State Park lots fill up early and they charge at least $10. If you can get there early, there is free first-come parking along the beachfront just north of the main entrance. One neat thing about the beaches from La Jolla Shores going north to Del Mar: if you time your visit during a low tide, you can walk forever and see some really nice tidepools along the way. (just be aware that you may encounter clothing-optional folks)
Up the coast just a bit is Lou’s Rare Records in Leucadia. Not as cool as it used to be, but it’s on a really nice stretch of of the coast highway.
Great Mexican food and more tequilas than you can count at El Agave in Old Town.
OK. We’ve stayed at your hotel many times. You are within walking distance of: Petco Park (Home of the Padres)(go see the losingest team in the National League!), Seaport Village (right behind the hotel. Several decent restaurants and shops. Try Buster’s Beach House.), the Gaslamp District (purely tourist, but some decent bars). Rent a car and see the zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and the USS Midway. Have a burger at Hodad’s. Drive up to Old Town and eat Mexican food at El Indio. All sorts of touristy things to do. Drink lots and lots of really good beer: Stone Brewing is just a bit up the coast, and Karl Strauss, Lost Abbey, Pizza Port, Ballast Point, Green Flash, and Alesmith are all local breweries.
It’s not as tourist oriented as most public aquariums, its more of a scientific lab with public areas. But they have creatures you can’t see anywhere else. The last time I visited was over 15 years ago, but they were breeding leafy sea dragons, which were absolutely amazing. I could have spent an entire day staring at them.
Also, I stayed at that Hyatt that trip. I dearly hope the service has improved. I was supposed to check out super early on Sunday (5:00am flight), and the cleaning staff had it wrong on their charts, so they woke me up at 6:30am on both Friday and Saturday trying to clean the room. When I complained they sent the supervisor up to wake me again so he could yell at me for complaining and show me the listing on his chart. Yep, it was listed wrong, can I sleep now!?!
The front desk offered me a free room service breakfast both times, which mollified me. Until the bill came, and the guy who had said that wasn’t at the desk, and they ended up charging me for the food.
I found the Gaslamp district to be grittier and funkier than expected, and certainly not pure tourism. The café where we ate had a jazz singer inside; at our sidewalk table we watched exotic dancers walking to work, and a shirtless, masked Mexican wrestler stomped past, waving a dumbbell.
Little Italy also qualifies as a twee neighborhood with cafes. Not sure about art museums, but there’s a big architectural salvage shop.
One thing to be aware of about the Midway: If you’re really tall, you’ll hate it.
We go down to SD to visit friends and go to Comic Con every year, and last year we did the Midway. My spouse is around 6’ tall and was mostly okay wandering around in the ship’s underbelly, but our friend who’s 6’4" was hating life because the ceilings are low, the door hatches are lower, and there are low-hanging pipes everywhere. He bonked his head at least a couple of times, and he was paying attention. It’s also not a great place if you have any sort of physical difficulty that prevents you from ascending/descending steep ladder-like stairways. There are still plenty of parts of the ship you can see, but some of them are more difficult (or impossible) if you have physical issues.