San Diego Travel Guide
After my recent trip to San Diego California with my family, (view my vacation recap here) and the hours of research we put in to find all of the great spots to enjoy while we were there, I wanted to make a little family-friendly San Diego Travel Guide! In this travel guide, I will include all of the family-friendly things we did and some of the things we ended up not doing but would have definitely been on our list if we would have had more time to explore San Diego.
Starting off with:
San Diego Zoo/San Diego Zoo Safari Park
The San Diego Zoo is first on my list because it is the activity that drew us to plan our San Diego vacation. Our son loves animals and so do we so we purchased a 3-way ticket to see the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (the third item on the 3-way ticket we will get to next). I highly recommend setting aside a day and a half to explore both of these parks. The San Diego Zoo alone is massive and took us about 5-6 hours to get through most of it. There were so many habitats, and different areas for kiddos to play (and I think I saw a splash pad thing) so it is a full and busy day when you visit the zoo. We tend to be a family that plows through a lot of things in a short amount of time. So I would try and get to the park right at opening and stay until close if you really want to see and experience everything. I would plan some time in the middle of the day to take a break and ride one of the zoo buses to eat some lunch because we tried the plowing through method and our 8-year-old was done walking by the 4th hour so he was no longer enjoying himself. (which was on us we should have planned for a break) If you are able to, I would maybe even split the zoo into two days just to keep your littles interested and happy. But overall we had a great experience at the zoo, the employees were super friendly and helped us navigate the park’s many trails.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park was also super fun and we had a great experience for the most part. My son loved riding on the free Safari Tram that is included in general admission. We were on budget when we visited San Diego so we missed out on some of the experience upgrades that are probably amazing. There seemed to be lots of habitats here too that we can walk through, but we went on an unlucky day and a lot of the habitats were being cleaned so we missed most of the animals. On the tram ride, however, our driver was so informative and told us a lot about the animals in the park and the San Diego Zoos’ efforts for conservation. Overall both these parks were a hit with our family and we sure recommend visiting them.
-
SeaWorld was the third activity included in the 3-way ticket we purchased online and this was probably my 8-year-old’s favorite experience. Seeing all of the shows with the sea lions, dolphins, and Orca was mindblowing. My 8-year-old loved getting soaked from the animals and now wants to be a dolphin trainer when he gets older. There was something for the whole family here, my son doesn’t enjoy rides so he was able to experience lots of hands-on learning exhibits, like getting to pet small sharks and we the parents still got to experience the thrills of the roller coasters. So if you love sea life and learning about different ocean creatures, for sure checkout SeaWorld. Check out their website for their events too, we lucked out because when we were there they had a culutral tasting experience going on where there were food stands from all around the globe for us to try.
-
Old Town San Diego is a very cute little area with tons of shops, restaurants, and history. We had some amazing Mexican food while we were there and my son enjoyed looking at all the shops. We were there during their farmers market so we were able to even see some incredible local handmade items which was really cool. We did not do this experience but I am pretty sure that Old Town is home to the Whaley House Museum, which is said to be America’s most haunted house, so if you love a good thrill and enjoy haunted houses you might want to check this place out! Because we had our 8-year-old with us (and honestly I hate scary things) we decided to skip the haunted house and instead walked through all of the museums and learned a little history about San Diego. Old Town was super fun and you probably only need about half of a day to explore it.
-
We absolutely loved visiting the La Jolla tide pools while we were in San Diego. And during our research, we learned that there is much more you can do when in La Jolla. From obviously the tide pools, you can also do different kayak tours and see some caves in La Jolla! When we were on our way to the tide pools we drove through the cute little town that also seemed to have lots of shops and places to eat so you could probably spend another day exploring this area around San Diego.
-
We spend one afternoon hanging out at the stunning Coronado Beach and admiring the Hotel Del Coronado. It was really a stunning beach and my son loved swimming in the ocean and building sand castles. We were able to find some parking on the road and had a short walk to the beach entrance. We even lucked out and were able to see some Navy planes take off and land over the beach which my kiddo found really cool! Plus driving over the massive bridge was a really fun experience.
Those were probably the top 5 things that we experienced while we were visiting San Diego however there are so many other great things you can do on your own trip that I wanted to make another list just for those “honorable mentions” that I personally did not get the chance to experience but if/when we decide to travel back west to San Diego we would like to make time for!
Balboa Park - is part of the San Diego Zoo (and it’s free I think?) and has lots of museums to see and gardens to explore.
San Diego Trolley Tour - simply put who wouldn’t want to ride around in a historic-looking trolley and the bonus of learning all about the history of San Diego, count me in!
Legoland California - located in Carlsbad CA, it’s about a 40-60 minute drive or 35 miles (depending on traffic obviously) from San Diego, and if you have a kiddo that loves Legos, probably worth checking out. I think Legoland also sells multi-day attraction tickets to help you save money on multiple experiences
Whale Watching Cruise - if you want to see wild sealife and spot some incredible whales!
USS Midway Museum - explore the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier and learn a bit about its history!
Those are some other experiences I had made on my initial list when planning our San Diego itinerary and they would all be great additions to your own trip to San Diego California!
Now when you travel you also have to plan for things like where you are going to stay and how are you going to get there.
I know these things look a little different for everyone but I just wanted to share what me and my family did on our vacation.
Let’s start with how we got around. When we travel to places we like to use Turo to rent our cars. We have had some great experiences with this company and the owners of the vehicles have always been great to communicate with and have brought the car right to us at the airport. Then when we are ready to leave we simply park the car, send the location to the owner and we are good to go. There are no lines or waiting and it makes that part of the traveling process so much easier. For our trip to San Diego, we rented a Jeep Wrangler so that when we went on drives to the beach or around town we would be able to take the top off of the vehicle. My son really enjoyed driving around with no roof!
Another thing we like to do when traveling is to book with Airbnb. We stayed at this Airbnb in Chula Vista and had an incredible experience with the hosts and the home. The hosts were so helpful in helping us fill in some gaps in our trip and gave us some amazing recommendations for places to eat in the area. Our son loved swimming and jumping into the pool and we loved sitting in the Jacuzzi and spending some time in the sauna. This Airbnb was beautiful and we highly recommend it! We like to book Airbnb’s so that we can save some money cooking meals instead of going out. This Airbnb had an outdoor cooking area which was super fun to use!
San Diego is a big area with so many places for people to stay depending on what your budget looks like. So take a look at all your options before you book! We loved being in Chula Vista, it was close by to everything we wanted to do and our Airbnb was in a nice quiet neighborhood for when we wanted to wind down for the night.