San Diego Travel Guide

Travel guide to San Diego, California with comprehensive information about events, shopping, and major San Diego sporting events to help you enjoy your visit more.

San Diego Overview

Just about as close to paradise as you can get in the mainland USA when it comes to fantastic weather and a gorgeous setting in Southern California, San Diego, with its stretches of golden beaches is a great place to visit on your American holiday.

Less polluted and quieter than its neighbour Los Angeles, San Diego gives visitors an enticing mix of sun, sea, and sand, which combined with all that there is to see and do within a short drive of the resort areas, including great shopping, and a laid back nightlife.

San Diego is a great place to chill out and enjoy yourself. There are too many great leisure attractions to list, although ones worth looking out for are the famous zoo and any number of theme parks. San Diego is also a wealthy city, and the locals have no problem about flaunting it, there are a number of galleries filled with important works of art and also a few pleasant open spaces and nice public parks to wander through.

San Diego does have enough to occupy you on a long holiday, but is often visited as part of a Californian fly drive holiday that takes in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

You can get cheap flights to San Diego as well as discount accommodation and car hire at most times of the year, and with everything that it has to offer, San Diego is just about as close to the ideal holiday destination as you would want.

Top San Diego Attractions

Aside from the stunning beaches, theme parks, the famous Gaslamp Quarter, and the Miramar US Air Force base, one of the most popular attractions for visitors to San Diego is the chance to head south over the border into Mexico and visit the last outpost of sleaze: Tijuana.

Famous for soft drugs and hookers, as well as having a thriving bullring and other Mexican attractions, Tijuana is a popular spot for Californians to head for in order to drink underage and have a good time.

Other attractions include San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, the Belmont amusement park, and Embarcadero, where there are plenty of bars and restaurants.

Shopping in San Diego

The downtown area of San Diego is replete with all the shops that you would expect to see in a large American City, including department stores like Macy's and Bloomingdale's, as well as a few up market boutiques. In the Gaslamp quarter, you can find a number of arty shops selling the work of local painters, and there are also plenty of great market stalls selling beach goods along the sea front. Los Angeles is less than an hour up the coast from San Diego and offers some great shopping, while Tijuana is a great place to buy a piñata.

San Diego Sporting Events

San Diego is a great place for fans of the great outdoors the long white beach offers some great surfing - particularly on the breaks to the south of the city. Inland, you can go mountain biking through some pleasant country parks. Numerous golf courses are available around San Diego, and offer players of all abilities the chance to play a round or two on payment of green fees.

If you'd like to see a game of American Football, you can easily get tickets for the San Diego Chargers, and enjoy all the pizzazz and showmanship that goes hand in hand with the NFL.