San Diego

Spanish-style halls built for the 1915 exposition marking the Panama Canal now hold over a dozen museums. Walking the park is free; only the museums sell tickets. Lilies float in the long pond by the Botanical Building, never short of photographers.

Spread down the slopes of a canyon in Balboa Park, its paths climb more steeply than you expect. The Skyfari aerial tram crosses the whole zoo in one go. Two giant pandas arrived from China in 2024.

A carrier commissioned in 1945 and in service until 1992 floats at a downtown pier as a museum. Many of the volunteer guides among the jets and cramped crew bunks served on this ship or in the navy. The flight deck has no shade, so bring a hat.

Sea lions haul out in crowds on the rocks of the little cove, and the smell reaches you first. To the south, Children's Pool beach is closed to people from December 15 to May 15 while harbour seals pup. Volunteer guides on the rocks keep visitors back.

The Torrey pine, among the rarest pines, grows wild only on these sea cliffs and one offshore island. Inside the reserve nothing but water is allowed, so picnics happen on the beach below. The trail down to the sand becomes a steep climb back.

Opened in 1888, the wooden hotel is recognisable across the bay by its red conical roofs. Some Like It Hot was filmed here. The ferry from Broadway Pier downtown crosses to Coronado, where a bike covers the rest without a car.

The settlement grew below the hill where the Spanish first stayed in California in 1769, so the state counts it as its starting point. Most old buildings in the state historic park are free. Through shop windows, tortillas are pressed by hand.

The headland honours Cabrillo, the first European to land here, in 1542. The old lighthouse, lit in 1855, survives on the hilltop, and from December to March migrating grey whales blow offshore. The tide pools to the west repay the descent only at low tide.

First of the twenty-one California missions, founded in 1769, it moved to this site in 1774 for water and land. Five bells hang in the white bell wall. It remains a parish church, so the interior cannot be toured during Mass.

Sandstone cliffs run for 2 km or so along the west shore of Point Loma, with almost no railings. At sunset people line the edges, but waves undercut them and pieces fall every year, so stay behind the signs. At low tide surfers climb down to the ledges.

The old downtown: about sixteen blocks of commercial buildings from the Victorian era. Bars and restaurants line streets of gas-style lamps, and on game nights at Petco Park next door the pavements jam solid.

The harbourside district where Italian tuna fishermen once settled. On Saturday mornings several blocks close for the Mercato farmers market, a run of flower, fruit and bread stalls. Restaurants around the piazza fill up quickly in the evening.

The zoo's own safari park in an Escondido valley to the north, a drive of under an hour. Giraffes and rhinos share wide plains built to resemble African savannah, circled by a tram. At summer midday the animals go to shade; come at opening.

A wooden roller coaster in Belmont Park on Mission Beach, running since 1925. Listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1987, it shows you the ocean between rattles of its timber frame. Bikes and roller skates crowd the boardwalk in front.

An iron sailing ship launched on the Isle of Man in 1863, and among the oldest vessels that still put to sea under sail now and then. It is moored at the Maritime Museum pier beside other historic ships, and visitors roam its decks and cabins.

In 1970 Barrio Logan residents occupied the empty ground beneath the Coronado Bridge and won it as a park. Murals of Mexican-American history cover the concrete pillars that hold up the bridge, and in 2017 it became a National Historic Landmark.

California's largest state park, about two hours east of the city. Over a hundred steel dinosaurs and dragons stand scattered in the fields around Borrego Springs, and after a wet winter the desert blooms with spring wildflowers in February and March.