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The best Hotels, Restaurants, Shopping, Art, Cultural Attractions, and just plain Fun Stuff to do and see in San Diego, California.

Hotels: San Diego

Accelerate your vacation at the Gaslamp’s super-swanky Keating Hotel, designed by same company as the Ferrari. Rent one while you’re there.

Relax at the historic Grande Colonial Hotel in downtown La Jolla, within walking distance of pristine La Jolla Cove.

The renowned Hotel del Coronado is the largest wooden structure on the West Coast. 

Restaurants: San Diego

In the last five years, downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp District has undergone a nocturnal renaissance. Prowl the historic redlight district after-hours and dine on homemade foccacia, organic salads, and mini burgers at the retro-chic, three-story Stingaree. The nightclub harnesses yesteryear’s hedonistic spirit in an ultra-modern setting. 

Next, head to Hard Rock Hotel’s revamped twin nightclubs: 207 and Float. While many clubs feel a little too exclusive, 207 and Float both possess that perfect Hard Rock vibe: pretension-free glamour laced with good music.

At Voyeur, a gothic-themed club, the creatures of the night come to play. Everything is dark, from the cackling skulls projected overhead to the wrought-iron details leading to the VIP Coffin Room. Special events include top DJs, burlesque dancers, and a circus straight out of a Tim Burton film.

Feast in the wee hours of the morning at the Broken Yolk Café, which stays open until 3 a.m. on weekends. Can you conquer the dozen-egg omelet?

Ignite la noche with Café Sevilla’s flamenco dinner shows and salsa dance lessons.

Munch on unique organic comfort food at North Park’s Spread, such as savory French toast, sweet carpaccio and various homemade spreads.

Dine at La Jolla’s Marine Room Restaurant, so close to the ocean that waves crash against the (super-reinforced) windows during high tides.

Cultural Attractions: San Diego

Board Old Town Trolley’s first car of the day (9 a.m.) at Old Town Depot. The 32-mile loop hits all the major tourist attractions—including Balboa Park and the Gaslamp Quarter—with entertaining narration along the way. Make use of on/off privileges, eliminating navigation and parking frustrations.

The San Diego Trolley connects the metro area. Though routes aren’t too extensive, they do link downtown’s Gaslamp District and the southwest corner of Balboa Park.

Walk the .7-mile Guy Fleming Trail at Torrey Pines State Reserve for a look at a wild and untouched California coastline. Sandy paths skirt desert-like flora, sandstone, and the namesake Torrey pines—which Fleming worked to preserve—en route to stunning blufftop ocean views. Aim to arrive at sunset.

Peruse the tide pools at Point Loma’s Cabrillo National Monument, which boasts the best view in San Diego. Keep an eye out for migrating gray whales.

Fun: San Diego

Try Laughter Yoga, a movement that unites laughing with controlled yoga breathing to help blood flow and increase oxygen to the brain. San Diego’s Laughter Yoga club holds free meetups Saturdays at 9 a.m. in Balboa Park, as well as other locations during the rest of the week. There’s more emphasis on laughing than striking a proper pose. In fact, even the most experienced yogis won’t recognize these karmic masquerades. Make barnyard noises and laugh. Fly like an airplane and laugh. Share your misfortunes and laugh like crazy, even if you have to force it. Here, all laughter is good laughter. And no matter how self-conscious you are at first, you’ll feel stress slipping away with every chuckle. Before you know it, you’ll be participating in the grand finale: lying on your back, gazing up at the trees, and laughing your way into nirvana.

Seek a more intense workout? Hike the Morley Field Gateway Trail and view a grove of Coastal Redwoods, California’s state tree.

Laugh yourself even sillier at the National Comedy Theatre’s side-splitting improv shows.

San Diego’s coastal caves are beyond compare, but only the most intrepid travelers see them up close. Located south of La Jolla Shores beach, all but one of the seven La Jolla sea caves are accessible only by kayak. Take a kayaking tour with La Jolla Kayak, the original company to offer the 90-minute excursion ($50). Once you veer away from the beach, San Diego’s secret scenery emerges: sea lions reclining on stone ledges, cormorants perching on narrow precipices. Make sure to peer into the water, where banners of seaweed from the offshore kelp forests drift in the current. You’ll have no trouble spotting tangerine-colored garibaldi, California’s official fish. Maybe you’ll spy the silhouettes of leopard sharks, who visit La Jolla yearly to spawn. The luckiest adventurers can spot seals and bottlenose dolphins carousing in the waves. Steer your kayak inside two of the caves, and gaze up at the architecture of stone. Add a snorkeling excursion to your tour to observe the coastal critters even closer, or to navigate the caves’ swim-throughs. If the water’s too cold—this is California, not Florida—you can rent a wetsuit for $7 to $10.

Rent a surfboard and conquer the La Jolla crests, or try your luck on the artificial wave at Wave House in nearby Mission Beach.

During the spring, journey about 100 miles east to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and behold the famous wildflowers.

Get dirty at the annual Mud Run, a grimy 10k and 5k obstacle course in San Diego’s east county.

Observe rhinos up close at the unforgettable San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. The Zoo’s Ultimate Encounter offers, as the name suggests, close encounters of the zoological kind, featuring an amiable cast of characters selected from the park’s 4,000-animal menagerie. Meet cheetah and canine BFFs during a lunchtime animal handler show. Pet a kangaroo. Learn from my unfortunate rhino-feeding experience: The farther back in line you are, the more copious the slime when you hold out your hand. Spend another day at the 1,800-acre Wild Animal Park, and get adrenaline-drunk zooming down the park’s Flightline, a cable suspended 160 feet above the African exhibit. Two-thirds of a mile long, the Wild Animal Park’s Flightline is the longest in the 48 contiguous states.

Then hop aboard a Photo Caravan Safari, which traverses the free-range enclosures of the African or Asian exhibits for an hour and 45 minutes. There’s nothing quite like being surrounded by long-lashed giraffes, wrapping their purple tongues around your hands in search of leaves. Humorous moments occasionally alternate with those more sobering, like viewing the last male Northern White Rhino in existence. When you book a backstage tour, your money keeps creatures like him on the planet—true animal appreciation.

Strap yourself to a paraglider and soar over San Diego cable-free at the Torrey Pines Gliderport in La Jolla.

Giggle at the aquatic antics of dolphins, sharks, and the famously interchangeable orca, Shamu, at SeaWorld in Mission Bay.