SAN DIEGO · CALIFORNIA
The bay, the breakers, and year-round sun.
Harbor cruises and sunset sails, La Jolla sea caves and whale-season boats, the Gaslamp and Balboa Park, the zoo up on the mesa and the run south to Baja.
Only here
Only on this stretch of coast.
Harbor cruises and food tours you can book in any port city. The sea caves, the whales off the point and the zoo on the mesa belong to San Diego alone.
Carved by the Pacific
The La Jolla Sea Caves
Seven caves are cut into the sandstone bluffs at La Jolla, only reachable from the water. You paddle a tandem kayak under the headland and into the Cove ecological reserve, where leopard sharks school in the shallows every summer and sea lions haul out on the rocks an arm’s length away. There is no other coastline like it in Southern California.
- 1 La Jolla Sea Caves Kayak Tour For Two (Tandem Kayak)
- 2 Original La Jolla Sea Cave Kayak Tour for Two
- 3 La Jolla: 2-Hour Kayak Tour of the 7 Caves
Two migrations
Whales Off Point Loma
San Diego sits on the gray whale highway: thousands pass the Point Loma headland between December and April on the longest mammal migration on earth. Come summer the giant blue whales move in to feed, and a half-day boat out of the bay is one of the only places you can reasonably hope to see the largest animal that has ever lived.
- 1 San Diego Whale Watching Cruise
- 2 San Diego Whale Watching & Dolphin Cruise
- 3 Two-Hour Luxury Whale Watching Tour from Oceanside
Up on the mesa
The San Diego Zoo
The most famous zoo in the world sits inside Balboa Park, a hundred acres of canyon planted as a botanical garden with the animals threaded through it. Out in the back country the Safari Park runs the same animals across open range you cross by tram, the closest thing to an African plain on the California coast.
- 1 San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day Ticket
- 2 San Diego Zoo Admission Ticket
- 3 San Diego Zoo: 1-Day Admission Ticket
Start here
The most popular thing to do in San Diego.
More visitors book this than anything else in the city. If you only have time for one, make it this one.
The classics
San Diego's Most Popular Tours
Harbor cruises, the trolley loop, the whale boats and the USS Midway. The days most visitors come for.
Where to begin
The experiences a San Diego trip is built around.
The bay cruises, the sunset sails, the whale boats, the La Jolla sea caves, the food tours and the zoo. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
On the water
How to get out on the bay.
The water is the whole reason half of San Diego comes to visit. Three ways onto it, depending on whether you’re after the skyline, the sunset or the open ocean.
Gaslamp & Little Italy
A city that runs on fish tacos.
San Diego eats well and casually: the taco shops the rest of the country copies, Little Italy’s piazza and Saturday market, the Gaslamp’s food halls, and more craft breweries than any other county in America. A guided afternoon walks you through the best of it, one plate at a time.
Read the guide: the best food tours in San Diego →The coastline
Seventy miles of Pacific beach.
From the surf breaks of the north county down through Mission Beach and Pacific Beach to the sandstone coves of La Jolla and the wide flat sand at Coronado. Warm by California standards, gentle where you want it and head-high where you don’t, with a different beach for every kind of day.
La Jolla & the coast →Across the border
Tijuana is twenty minutes south.
The trolley runs to within a short walk of the busiest land border on earth, and on the far side is a food-and-drink scene that long ago outgrew its old reputation. Guided day trips handle the crossing both ways so you can spend the day eating, not queuing.
- 1 Intro to Mexico Walking Tour: Tijuana Day Trip from San Diego
- 2 Crossing Borders: Tijuana Day Trip from San Diego
- 3 Tijuana Local Walking Tour from San Diego
By place
San Diego, corner by corner.
La Jolla for the sea caves and the Cove. The Gaslamp for the food and the night. Balboa Park for the museums and gardens. Carlsbad for LEGOLAND and the flower fields. Then Tijuana and the wine country, for the days you head out of town.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Harbor cruise if you want the skyline. Sunset sail if you want the evening. A whale boat for the open ocean, a kayak for the sea caves. Food, ghosts, the trolley loop, or two wheels along the boardwalk.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in town? Here’s a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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