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San Diego
Alaska Airlines City Guide

San Diego International Airport

Airport travelers aid: 619-231-7361
24-hour operations: 619-686-8065

Touristy stuff: EnterSanDiego.com has some good information but some misleading stuff as well. A quick look at micro breweries included regular bars that aren't breweries - ticky-tacky, but inaccurate nonetheless. The Mexican restaurant list is okay. Try out SignOnSanDiego and SanDiegoReader as well.

Check out the San Diego Zoo. If you have access to a vehicle, you might also want to go to the Wild Animal Park, also run by the Zoo, with lots of wide open spaces where the animals basically roam free and the people get driven through on little cars, kind of like Jurassic Park but without the dinosaurs.

The Del Mar Fair is in June and July, and the horse race season starts a couple of weeks after that. Accommodations nearby are more pricey than usual and in demand at that time.

Public transportation: In the downtown-central San Diego area public transportation is good. Everywhere else, it is bad. Ditto regarding the Zoo and Wild Animal Park. You will be hard pressed to take a bus to the Wild Animal Park. It would be a long haul. There is a light-rail-type train in San Diego that goes a lot of places. You can take it from north of the city all the way down to Tijuana for fun and carousing and travel through a lot of interesting parts of the city along the way.

Bars, pubs, and restaurants: The Brigantine in La Mesa is very good, and their Brig Brew Beer is very good. The San Diego Brewing Company has good beers. Have a good time at karaoke night at the Charcoal House in La Mesa. The crowd is always interesting. The Charcoal House is immediately north of I-8 at the Grossmont summit. You can see it from the freeway. Go into the heart of downtown La Mesa and load up on inexpensive cocktails before making your way down to Ocean Beach. The Pacific Shores (aka Pac Shores) has the cheapest cocktails in town.

Beaches: Check out the San Diego Beaches web site. Ocean Beach is quite the counterculture spot. The beach is just okay, though - usually kind of dirty. Coronado, South Mission Beach, Mission Beach (north of the Crystal Pier, especially around Law Street), Windansea Beach (and the La Jolla beaches around there, especially Marine Street), La Jolla Shores, Torrey Pines Beach, and all of the beaches north of Torrey Pines are nice. Windansea and Marine Street look like beaches in Hawaii but with cold water. La Jolla Shores is family-oriented with no booze and usually small waves in the summer. Weekends are a bit sketchy with a bad gang problem at the South Mission Beach parking lot, especially on Sunday afternoons. A lot of gang bangers and wannabes clog up the boardwalk from the roller coaster to South Mission Beach and generally cause problems. Be careful down there. There are a lot of fights and occasional shootings. The parking lot south of the coaster should be avoided late at night. There are a lot of fights there, usually alcohol-fueled. Also, the roller coaster is quite rickety and scary. It is almost 80 years old. The bay side is much, much mellower. It is nice and quiet, and you can crawl to a couple of bars (Pennant and Beachcomber) and walk to a nightclub (Caines) that has live music nearly every night. Additionally, it's close to The Coaster Saloon. Oceanside is kind of rundown, although there are usually good waves.

Weather: The absolute best time for weather in San Diego is September and into October. The days are usually perfect, and the ocean temperature is still warm. The crowds (usually Arizonans) have all gone home. July can vary from coastal fog to absolute perfect sunshine. Bear in mind that it is pretty rare to have sunshine all day at the beach. Night and morning low clouds, aka the marine layer, are the rule.

Places to stay: There are numerous Super 8s, Motel 6s, and Howard Johnsons around San Diego. There is a hostel right off the water in Pacific Beach (PB), Banana Bungalow, and another two blocks from the ocean in Ocean Beach (OB). The PB one seems to get pretty crazy. The beach in front of it is one big party on the weekends when it is warm. OB is a little mellower. The Ocean Beach International Hostel is at 4961 Newport Avenue, phone 619-226-9027. Another one is in Point Loma (phone 619-223-4778). It is in a residential area away from the action. The Gaslamp Quarter hostel is the place for the beautiful people with deep pockets. Other hostels are Downtown Youth Hostel, 521 6th Avenue, phone 619-237-0387 and Grand Pacific/USA Hostel, 726 5th Avenue, phone 619-232-3100.

Recommended places to stay from Best Places San Diego:
* Glorietta Bay Inn (2 star)
* Hotel Del (3.5 star)
* Loews Coronado Bay Resort (4 star)
* Best Western Island Palms Hotel & Marina (six-person suites with/full kitchens; 1 star)
* Bahia Resort Hotel (good for family reunions; 2 star)
* Paradise Point Resort (2.5 stars; lots to do, right near beach)
* San Diego Hilton Beach & Tennis Resort (2 star)

Comments:

Torrey Pines State Beach north of La Jolla is awesome, as are the beaches directly north and south of Windansea.

I stayed in the Courtyard San Diego in the Gaslamp district. The hotel is really cool and is in a '20s bank; the decor and layout are really interesting. The world maps from the '20s that were on the walls were very cool as well. The Gaslamp Quarter seemed to be pretty cool - not near the beach, though.

I've only stayed at a few places in San Diego, usually around New Year's Eve, like the Embassy Suites, the Catamaran, and the Torrey Pines Hilton. All are nice. It really depends on what you are looking for. There are a lot of inexpensive places in Mission Valley, but it isn't the most scenic.

For a one-week stay, this condo rental on Mission Bay looks nice. One of my brothers lives right by it and absolutely loves it - bay and ocean view, watch the sun go down .... This condo looks nice and is within walking distance of a couple of cool beach bars, one of which (the Coaster Saloon) is supposedly one of the best dive bars in the U.S. This pad on the bay side of Mission Bay would really be nice. It is much, much quieter on the bay side, and the beach is just a quick walk. The traffic does suck on the weekend, though, getting in or out. There's Capri by the Sea in Pacific Beach. It's a condo complex, but it is on a bluff over a mellow beach (close by Law Street, an excellent beach). There is also a place that rents furnished apartments on Crown Point. It isn't on the water but close, and I'm sure it is a lot less expensive. Rental units that are right on the boardwalk on Mission Beach usually rent out a year in advance.

The Marriott and Hyatt on San Diego Bay and the Torrey Pines Hilton have good swimming pools. If you golf, the Torrey Pines Hilton is right next to the world famous golf course. The Hyatt (a high rise) has a lounge at the top that has an incredible view (from what I've heard). It might be worth it to check it out around sundown. You might want to consider staying in Coronado. There are a lot of smaller hotels close by the Hotel Del. Paradise Point is a really nice place in the middle of Mission Bay. It is a very nice getaway. The Omni Hotel downtown next to Horton Plaza is in a great location. I think it might have a rooftop pool. Another place is the Pacific Terrace Hotel, in between the Crystal Pier and the Capri. It is only three stories and is in a quiet area on a bluff above the beach. The pool area was refurbished and looks great. The Dana Landing resort is at least a mile each way to the beach, and the beach there is very crowded by beer swilling crowds on the weekends. The Catamaran Resort Hotel is a really nice place. It is on a really quiet, mellow place on the bay (with the exception of July 4th when the entire bay is a raging party). It's on the northwest corner of the bay (Sail Bay). It is a very short walk to the beach, but the closest beach is white trash city, which is kind of typical where there is parking right off the beach in both Pacific and Mission Beaches. It would be better to go a few blocks north or south of the closest beach (right where Pacific Beach Drive meets the beach). There is a lot of stuff in the immediate area if you don't mind a little walking (bars, restaurants, shops, etc.). There is even a decent brew pub close by. On the weekends traffic can be very bad. There are some motels north of Crystal Pier or stay on Crystal Pier itself. It might be fun to stay in a cottage on the pier. I know people who have stayed there and really liked it ... as long as you like the sound of the ocean! Shelter Island has a few places and is close to Point Loma but is a bit further away from everything. Humphrey's Half Moon Inn and Suites on Shelter Island has very good bands all summer long. There's the Carlsbad Inn. The beaches in the area (as long as there is enough sand) are excellent. The web page says that Fidel's Mexican Restaurant is at the same location. A lot of people rank it among the best Mexican places in San Diego. I ate there, and it was pretty good. Close by is a really good pizza-brew pub (Pizza Port). It has excellent beer and pizza, some of the best of both anywhere. Both Pizza Port and Fidel's are usually packed. From the Carlsbad you can walk to the train (coaster) stop as well, which would be convenient if you want to go to downtown San Diego and not have to drive (and park). Carlsbad also has a pretty decent nightclub (Nieman's). The Carlsbad village is nice and mellow. It would be a good place for a mellow vacation with other distractions/activities close by.