San Diego
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- jerk
Going to be there with the family at the end of this month. Could you local San Diegoians please fill me in on the best beaches, favorite restaurants, and anything else that may be of interest? Thanks.
- capn_ron0
where are you staying? That may help give you some options close by. Here are a few that I always take visitors to:
Balboa Park
Coronado
The Zoo
Walk around Downtown (Gaslamp District)
- jerk0
We're staying a few nights downtown then the remaining week out at mission Bay. What's Coronado like?
- capn_ron0
Coronado is cool. You can check out the Hotel Del Coronado and walk around. Plus you get to drive over the bridge. I guess i'm assuming you'll have a car. If not, you can take a ferry from Downtown to Coronado.
Do you have kids? Cause one restaurant I love doesn't allow people under 21. It's called the Gaslamp Strip Club. really good food, you cook your own meat.
- duhsign0
I can give you the skinny on the beaches. what are you looking for? beauty, places to learn to surf, snorkelling, party beach?
La Jolla has the best beaches by far. Windansea beach is the most famous and a good place to watch the surfers and beach scene. Just to the north is marine street beach which is much larger and spread out and really pretty, this would be my number one recomendation for beauty and some peace and quiet to enjoy the scenery. La Jolla cove is the place to go for snorkelling and you can take kayak tours to the caves inside of the cove.
Other beaches of interest.
Blacks in La Jolla- Long walk, beautiful beach with high cliffs, good surf, pretty uncrowded beach. Beware, the north end under the glider port is nude and not the sexy good looking you want to get a peak kind of nude.
Torrey pines beach is great for a walk, park and either walk south along the beach or up the hill along the torrey pines hiking trail.
Pacific and mission beach are great party areas, lots of tourists, a super long boardwalk you can walk bike or skate down with bars every mile or so. Mission beach has the rollercoaster and small amusement park on the sand including the wavehouse which has a standing wave and hosts big parties with djs on sundays.
Ocean beach is where the freaks are. Lots of divey bars and mexican food joints. Good pizza and beers spots too, pizza port and newport pizza. The beach is ok, gets crowded when its hot and a weekend. The main street of ob, newport is kind of freaky, get a tattoo, buy some medical herb, get panhandled, buy some starbucks, get drunk :)
when you coming to town?
- Wow, thanks for this. last week and a half of august.jerk
- oh nice! shoudl be greatduhsign
- < this.HijoDMaite
- jerk0
Sounds cool. Yah, we'll have a car and yes, kids.
- duhsign0
how old are the kids?
restaurants
downtown there is the diner at the hardrock hotel, yardhouse is family friendly, c-level is the best view of downtown from a restaurant and family friendly great food. Anthonys is seafood on the bayfront. You can take a hornblower cruise in the bay or if your adventurous seaforth does boat rentals from downtown and coronado and you can explore the bay.little italy is a good place for dinner and a stroll around, some great art gallerys and little hip design stores I can send you some if you like.
Balboa park is awesome, lots to see. Reuben h fleet space museum, natural history museum. The zoo is in the park so you can do both in a day or if you really like the zoo and museums you will need two days.
There is a MOCA contemporary art museum downtown and la jolla, both are worth checking out.
Theres a childrens museum in downtown SD that used to be really cool, lots of interactive stuff for families
- duhsign0
catch a sunset in Point Loma if you can at sunset cliffs. I live here and the sunsets and beaches are really great. Beaches are hard to access but if you have the time and desire there are cool tidepools at lowtides where you can see some cool stuff. There are stairs at the bottom of ladera street and you can look up the tides online or call the lifeguards daily report line
- duhsign0
also at the end of point loma is cabrillo light house and tidepools, definately go here if you can, amazing views, good history lesson, tidepools are great, amazing place. if you go to point loma there are a few good eats to consider
point loma seafoods is a classic right on the docks where the fishing boats come in. they are remoodeling now but still open. Alternatively mitches is right next door and equally good if not better but less famous.
both have good seafood although I would recomend mitches for the food, point loma seafoods for the hypejimmys famous has the best hamburgers around probably, right ont he water, cool design, pretty hip and great food
the pearl. a hip boutique hotel with really good food, pretty small but cool design. kind of fun to check out
- duhsign0
lego land is 30 mins north of downtown
seaworld is kick ass if you don't mind another day at a park : ) one of my favorite memories as a kid...you can do this when you stay in mission bay.
- duhsign0
oh yeah corvette diner is kid central, an ol dinr feel with tons of games, they have one in point loma and one in hillcrest
- jerk0
Thanks for all this awesome info, duhsign.
We're definitely doing seaworld and the zoo. Not sure on lego land or any of the others. Is the safari any good?
- duhsign0
have fun, it's a great town and aug is a good time to come.
if you have more questions post em here :)
- duhsign0
one more thing on the beaches, la jolla is the best beaches but the ocean can be rough for 5 year olds, keep an eye on them, at 5 they prob won't be too eager to get very far into the water anyways. The most mellow ocean conditions at beaches would prob be coronado, mission or torrey pines
- sea_sea0
old town san diego is cool too and educational. without the big expense.