Start from 118 curated places around San Diego, CA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Animae
Art-deco Asian steakhouse in the Pacific Gate Tower in downtown, blending wood-fired cooking with bold Southeast Asian flavors — Filipino, Thai, and Japanese influences over an open fire with wagyu and fresh fish standing out equally.
Callie
East Village Mediterranean from Travis Swikard, alum of Daniel Boulud's Boulud Sud in New York. Spanish, Greek, North African, and Lebanese plates around a wood-fired hearth, named one of Esquire's Best New Restaurants in America when it opened.
Trails & outdoors
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
1,750-acre coastal reserve in La Jolla protecting the Torrey pine — only found here and on Santa Rosa Island. Cliff trails drop to a wide beach and the sandstone gorges look prehistoric in the right light.
Cowles Mountain Trail
Highest point inside San Diego city limits at 1,593 feet, on the western edge of Mission Trails Regional Park. 3-mile out-and-back climb with a payoff view spanning downtown to the Pacific to the Mexican border on a clear day.
Things to do
San Diego Zoo
100-acre Balboa Park zoo — one of the largest in the country with serious conservation programming, a working aerial gondola, and the deepest collection of pandas, koalas, and African primates west of the Mississippi.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps
Scripps Institution of Oceanography's public aquarium on the cliffs above La Jolla Shores — 70,000-gallon kelp forest tank lit entirely by the sun, plus tide pools and the cleanest seahorse exhibit in California. Smaller and quieter than the typical big-city aquarium.
Landmarks & sights
Balboa Park
1,200-acre Spanish Colonial Revival cultural park anchored by 17 museums, the San Diego Zoo, and a working 1915 pipe-organ pavilion. The El Prado promenade is the city's main outdoor stage and the architecture works as a destination on its own without paying for a single ticket.
Cabrillo National Monument
National park unit at the tip of Point Loma marking Juan Cabrillo's 1542 landing — old Point Loma Lighthouse, a tide-pool cove at the base of the cliffs, and the cleanest panoramic view of San Diego Bay anywhere. The visitor center museum is small but the views do the heavy lifting.