Cover: The beach at Torrey Pines Natural Reserve

San Diego! Mountains, desert, sea, rugged mud cliffs, blue skies, beauty, architecture and a whole lot of outdoorsy people. Easy to love it all.

The below section suggests activities. Based on the amount of time you have you can pick what to do. At a leisurely pace, you can cover the below in less than a week.

Balboa Park

• • Balboa Park lets you experience both the outdoors and indoors in a large, beautiful park setting. It is an urban park that houses a number of museums, gardens, and the San Diego Zoo. It is a wonderful place to spend a day or two, if not more and explore all it has to offer with its art, culture, food and gardens. The architecture of the museums and theater and other buildings are beautiful.

Animals and Marine Life

• • San Diego Zoo: This famous zoo is located within Balboa Park.

• • Sea World: A theme park where you can see and interact with marine life, enjoy thrilling rides and watch marine animal shows. One can spend many hours here.

• • Birch Aquarium at Scripps: Part of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, this aquarium showcases marine life from the Pacific Ocean and exhibits.

Outdoors

• • Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve: A natural reserve with hiking trails along coastal cliffs, offering stunning views of the ocean and mud reefs and desert vegetation with cacti and colorful flowers. A really beautiful hike to enjoy on cooler days. One has to look out for the high tide to be able to walk on the beach and get back to the trailhead via the beach.
  • Torrey Pines Glider Port: A beautiful spot to do or watch people paragliding, hang gliding.
  • There are several hikes in San Diego one can enjoy like Cowles Mountain and Iron mountain hike for great views, and strenuous hike like Three Sisters Falls, and others.
  • La Jolla Cove: Good coastal views, get to see loads of seals and birds that have nested and their young, get to hear loud cacophonic noises from them all, and get to smell stuff from them that is pretty strong! 🙂 Nice walk.
  • Coronado Island: Drive on the iconic Coronado Bridge, get to the historic Hotel del Coronado, and a charming downtown area. Great place to enjoy an evening here or at the Coronado beach.
  • Gaslamp Quarter: This historic district in downtown San Diego is so lively. It is known for its Victorian-era architecture, restaurants and shops. You might get to also catch cultural events.
  • Pacific Beach is known for its boardwalk, restaurants, bars, and water activities like surfing, paddleboarding, and beach volleyball.
  • Mission Beach also has a lively boardwalk, Belmont Park amusement park, and water activities.

There are several restaurants in Balboa park itself if you are visiting the attractions within. Typically, my expectations of finding vegetarian food inside of tourist attractions are so low. In places like zoos and museum premises, even lower. I experience paying high prices for low quality food and face very little choice. However, not in Balboa park. Pricey but good food.

The restaurant Prado is in the center of the park, a beautiful setting inside a hacienda like building. Quite a good choice with soups and salads. The mains are a bit pricey – the summer garden risotto the only vegetarian dish. There were sides like sauteed green beans, sauteed spinach, mashed potatoes, salads and a veg soup. Albert’s is inside the zoo, surprised me with their many vegetarian choices.  The Tea Pavilion Cafe’ in the Japanese friendship Garden, offered a wide variety of teas. The Air and Space museum, Museum of Art also had their own cafe’s housed within.

If you have paid a visit to Seaworld, and are headed towards Downtown/Old town, consider a visit to an iconic restaurant, called Casa Guadalajara, more for its popularity and the decor. The food was good Mexican but nothing out of the ordinary.  A store next door is also a good place to get hold of Mexican arts and artifacts. The Gas Lamp Quarter has several restaurants to try.

Other restaurants we enjoyed our food at were Urban Pi at Delmar, Urban Plates at La Jolla and Hops & Salt at the UCSD campus. If you are around La Jolla Cove, it is a bit harder to find veg choices. There are many sea food restaurants. But drive just a little and you could get to Puesto Mexican Artisan Kitchen & Bar for artesanal tacos, bowls and salads. It is in many locations too. A California chain, it has a great ambiance and a menu with some amazingly different items. Snacks, shared plates, tacos, rice and come with vegetarian and gluten free versions. Close to Mission Blvd, you will see Spice Lounge, an upscale Indian restaurant.

If you head north from Gaslamp quarter to Fourth Avenue and Union Street (you are not too far from Balboa park), you might see a long line snaking forever. If you followed it, you will reach the entrance to Extraordinary Desserts. It is extraordinary indeed! A popular place in town! What a spread!! The presentation is beautiful, and it makes you want to have it all. While I tried many different desserts at this place, my friends insist that these are the best: Chocolate – Moroccan, Viking, Au Chocolat, Guava Shangrila, Cheese Viennese.  I will be remiss if I don’t have a slide show of their dessert presentation. Also, a very nice ambiance to sit there and enjoy a couple of hours.

A place I really like, reinforced upon each visit.  More so because we have been going to corners that have few tourists, thanks to our dear local friends there.  This time we took a few days in San Diego enroute to Hawaii, and so, the sound “La Jolla” (pronounced Lahoya) and “Aloha” were rhyming in my head.

Balboa Park

When you visit as a tourist, you will be doing the Balboa park circuit whether you are a lover of art or museums or animals. Balboa park is so attractive that if I were local, you would probably find me hanging out there on weekends.  The park itself is home to the popular San Diego Zoo, Spanish Arts Village, Photography museum, Art museum, Natural History museum, the Museum of Man, and some others I haven’t listed. Added to it are its architecture, fabulous gardens, sculptures, an indoor botanical garden, a Japanese garden, a theatre called Casa del Prado, all packed into a walkable circuit. On a leisurely  stroll, encountering peacocks here and there, life does feel good 🙂

My most favorite place in this park is the colorful Spanish Arts village. On my previous visit, I had spent hours in the studios of various artists, watching them at work which was a feast to my senses. Luckily there is a coffee shop right in there called Daniel’s Coffee where one can keep going in for stomach fuel! How much better can that get? They have coffee, teas and pastries, some smoothies and juices which feel welcome on a hot day.

Torrey Pines State Reserve

The hike at Torrey Pines State Reserve is scenic with stunning views at every turn. I have done this twice and I must say it is tiring if the day is hot and humid. Make sure to walk on the beach before the high tide comes in.

One of my favorite things to do in San Diego was driving on Torrey Pines road, parking near Prospect Avenue, and walking several streets around there to stare at the beautiful houses. Each one looks architecturally unique. Then I liked walking to the La Jolla village, take a nice to stroll and have a coffee.

Mission Beach and La Jolla Cove

Very nice places to walk near the ocean and watch the birds and the seals. Except for the smells of these very same birds and animals (overpowering/nauseating). Their sounds are surely entertaining.

Other Spots

The Gas Lamp Quarter is a vibrant place. Historic, modern buildings, eclectic and full of life, just as I like it. Could stroll, eat, drink, have coffee, people-gaze.

One could go over the Coronado bridge and see downtown and the beautiful convention center from the other side and wander around the shops near Centennial Park which gives you the feel of being close to a beach town.  The iconic and victorian Hotel Del Coronado is worth a visit when in this part of the little island. The movie “Some Like It Hot” with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis was filmed at Hotel del Coronado.

Free Subscribe