🇺🇸 United States · West and California
San Diego is, for many, the perfect holiday city in the United States: sun almost all year, magnificent beaches, a relaxed family atmosphere, and that easygoing Californian lifestyle that invites you to take life slowly. In the far southwest of the country, wrapped by the Pacific Ocean and a step from the Mexican border, San Diego combines the best of many worlds: beach and surf, nature, a rich history, a very present Hispanic heritage and one of the best offerings for families in the country.
It is the city of Balboa Park, a huge park of museums and gardens that holds one of the most famous zoos in the world; of Old Town, where California was born; of beaches for every taste, from the elegant cliff-backed coves of La Jolla (with its seals and sea lions) to the legendary island of Coronado with its Victorian hotel; of the aircraft carrier turned museum; and of the big theme parks like SeaWorld or LEGOLAND. All of it bathed in a kind sun and a temperature that is rarely uncomfortable. For the Latin American traveler, its strong Mexican imprint and the closeness of Tijuana also make it feel especially familiar.
This guide covers the essentials of San Diego with a practical, warm eye: which beaches to choose, how to enjoy Balboa Park and its zoo, where historic San Diego is, which theme parks to visit, how to get around and how to make the most of its enviable climate. San Diego is relaxed, sunny and hugely enjoyable: one of those cities you go to in order to rest, sit in the sun and live the good weather, and that is hard to leave.
San Diego is where European California began. The area was inhabited by the Kumeyaay, a native people of southern California. In 1542 the navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in the service of Spain, reached the bay: he was the first European to set foot on the coast of the future California. But permanent settlement came in 1769, when the Spanish founded here, under Gaspar de Portolá and the friar Junípero Serra, Mission San Diego de Alcalá (the first of the California missions) and a presidio (fort). That is why San Diego is considered the birthplace of California: it was the first permanent European settlement in the state. Under Spanish and then Mexican rule (after Mexican independence in 1821), it was a small town around the mission and today's Old Town. In 1848, after the war between Mexico and the United States, California (San Diego included) passed to the United States. The city grew slowly at first, and its modern development shifted from Old Town to the bay area. In the 20th century San Diego consolidated thanks to its magnificent natural harbor, which turned it into one of the main naval and military bases in the country, and to tourism, drawn by its climate and its beaches. Today it is a prosperous city of science, biotechnology, defense and tourism, deeply tied to the sea and to its neighboring Mexican border. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The golden state of the Pacific: land of dozens of Native peoples and of the Franciscan missions, forged by the gold rush of 1849, today the largest economy in the United States and the cradle of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and legendary parks such as Yosemite and Sequoia.
Read the history of California →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
On 28 September 1542, three Spanish ships battered by months at sea sailed into a bay so sheltered and so perfect that their captain described it as 'a very good, enclosed port'. That captain was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, and without knowing it he had just become the first European to set foot on the coast of the future California. The exact spot where he landed is today called San Diego, and that is why this city claims, with reason, to be the place where European California began.
But long before Cabrillo sighted that bay, the region was inhabited by the Kumeyaay (also called Diegueño), a native people of the far south of California and the north of today's Baja California. The Kumeyaay lived in villages spread across the coast, the valleys and the mountains, making the most of a mild environment: they fished, gathered acorns and seeds, hunted and traded. Their territory extended on both sides of what is now the border between the United States and Mexico, a border that back then neither existed nor made any sense.
Cabrillo named the place —he called it San Miguel— and went on exploring the coast to the north; the name San Diego would only arrive in 1602, when Sebastián Vizcaíno renamed the bay in honor of San Diego de Alcalá.
After that first arrival, however, Spain did not establish a permanent settlement in the area for more than two centuries. San Diego Bay remained a known but uncolonized point, while the Kumeyaay went on living in their territory. Real colonization, the kind that would change everything, would not come until the end of the 18th century, with the missions.
The year 1769 marks the real birth of San Diego and, with it, that of European California. That year, as part of the Spanish effort to colonize and evangelize Alta California (driven in part by the fear of other powers expanding), an expedition led by governor Gaspar de Portolá and the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra reached San Diego and founded two fundamental institutions there: the Presidio (a military fort) and Mission San Diego de Alcalá.
Mission San Diego de Alcalá was the first of California's famous Franciscan missions, which over time would form a chain of 21 missions along the coast (linked by the 'Camino Real'). Being the first, San Diego is proudly considered the birthplace of California: the first permanent European settlement in the state. The missions set out to convert and 'civilize' the native peoples according to Spanish culture, a process that, as everywhere in the colonization, came at a tragic cost for the Indigenous population (the Kumeyaay), decimated by disease, forced labor and the dismantling of their way of life (there was even an uprising against the mission).
Around the presidio and, later, in the area that is now Old Town, a small settlement grew. Under Spanish rule and, after Mexican independence in 1821, Mexican rule, San Diego was for decades a modest frontier town tied to the mission, the ranches and the port, at the far edge of Alta California.
The fate of San Diego, like that of all California, changed in the middle of the 19th century. After the war between Mexico and the United States, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) handed California to the United States, and shortly after, in 1850, California became a state of the Union (the same year San Diego was incorporated as a city). The border between the United States and Mexico was drawn just south of the city, a border that would define its character forever.
During the first decades under American rule, San Diego grew slowly. The original population was concentrated around Old Town, at the foot of the presidio, but from the mid-19th century a visionary businessman, Alonzo Horton, pushed the development of a 'new town' closer to the bay, in what is today downtown. That shift of the urban heart toward the port shaped the modern development of the city, leaving Old Town as the historic quarter that recalls its origins.
San Diego's great asset was —and still is— its magnificent natural bay, one of the best on the Pacific coast, sheltered and deep. Although growth was gradual and uneven (unlike the meteoric rise of San Francisco with gold, or that of Los Angeles), the city gradually consolidated, drawn on by its exceptional climate and its port. In the early 20th century, the great international expositions held in Balboa Park (in 1915 and 1935) gave it visibility and left it with its characteristic Spanish colonial architecture and its cultural institutions.
The factor that did the most to drive San Diego's growth in the 20th century was its transformation into one of the main naval and military bases in the United States. Its excellent natural bay, deep and sheltered, and its strategic location on the Pacific coast made it an ideal site for the Navy and the Marines. Over the course of the century, and especially during the Second World War and the Cold War, San Diego filled up with military installations, shipyards, naval air stations and an enormous military workforce.
The naval presence shaped the city deeply: its economy, its population, its culture. San Diego became a major center of the defense and aerospace industry (Lindbergh's 'Spirit of St. Louis' was built here, for example), and the Navy remains to this day one of the pillars of the region, with one of the largest concentrations of naval forces in the country. The aircraft carrier USS Midway, now a museum, is testimony to that seafaring and military identity.
At the same time, San Diego developed its other great calling: tourism. Its exceptional climate —sunny, warm and pleasant almost all year, often described as 'the best weather in the United States'—, its magnificent beaches and attractions such as Balboa Park and the zoo turned it into a very popular holiday destination. The city grew combining its military role with that of a sun-and-sand tourist paradise.
Today San Diego is the second city of California and a prosperous southwestern metropolis that combines several identities. It is still a great military and naval city, but its economy has diversified enormously: it is an important center of biotechnology, science, telecommunications and research (with prestigious universities and institutes), as well as one of the country's main tourist destinations, thanks to its climate, its beaches and its family attractions.
One trait that defines San Diego deeply is its condition as a border city. It sits literally up against Tijuana, in Mexico, forming one of the largest binational conurbations in the world, with one of the busiest border crossings on the planet (San Ysidro). That gives it a strong Hispanic and Mexican imprint —present in its history, its food, its people and its culture— which makes it especially familiar for the Latin American traveler, and turns it into a meeting point between two countries.
San Diego also keeps its relaxed character and its enviable quality of life, tied to the sun, the sea and the Californian coastal lifestyle. From the first mission of 1769, which made it the birthplace of California, to the modern city of science, tourism and border life, San Diego has managed to combine its rich history, its exceptional climate and its unique location into a destination as welcoming as it is sunny, one of the most pleasant places to visit and to live in the United States.