San Diego
Seventy miles of surf, leopard sharks in water you can stand in, and pine-forest snow days forty minutes from the beach.
San Diego gets dismissed as a beach town with good weather, which is like dismissing Yosemite as a nice valley. The weather is the infrastructure: a climate so forgiving that every single week of the year is prime season for something. The coast runs seventy miles from the world-class walls of Trestles to the border bluffs — sea caves, snorkelable kelp, and the rarest pine tree on Earth clinging to the Torrey bluffs — while behind the city the Peninsular Ranges stack real mountains: gold-rush Julian in its apple orchards, the Laguna crest looking two vertical miles down into the desert, and Palomar, where the largest telescope on Earth spent a quarter of a century reading the universe. The Pacific Crest Trail starts here, at a fence on the Mexican border. So does California — the whole mission chain began at San Diego Bay.
San Diego is built on marine terraces — old seafloors lifted into steps — and the drama hides at the edges. At Torrey Pines the bluffs hold Pinus torreyana, the rarest pine in North America, hanging on in exactly two places on Earth: these sandstone cliffs and one Channel Island. At Black's Beach the drama is underwater — the Scripps submarine canyon runs nearly to the sand and focuses incoming swell into the heaviest beach-break wave in California. Inland, the Peninsular Ranges rise in ranks: Iron Mountain and Woodson's boulder fields first, then Cuyamaca and the Laguna crest at six thousand feet — black oaks, pine forest, and an escarpment that drops two vertical miles into the Anza-Borrego badlands in a single view — and finally Palomar's observatory ridge in the north. Fifty miles separates snorkel from snow. The whole county is a compressed transect of California: beach, lagoon, chaparral, oak savanna, conifer forest, desert rim, each in its own climate, all reachable between breakfast and dinner.
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See plans →Torrey Pines is the finest easy coastal hike in California — 2,000 acres of chaparral, sage, and the rarest pine tree in North …
South Carlsbad and San Elijo state beaches string clifftop campsites along the bluffs of San Diego's North County coast, delive…
The crown jewel of Southern California surfing. Lowers is a cobblestone-reef A-frame that the World Surf League chose as a comp…
La Jolla Shores is San Diego's classroom. A wide, sandy beach somewhat protected from the prevailing southwest wind, with gentl…
Trestles is the most dependable wave in California and one of the most coveted in the world — a cobblestone-bottomed point brea…
Mission Bay is San Diego's — and arguably California's — premier learn-to-ride destination, a huge protected bay of warm, flat …
Point Loma is the beating heart of West Coast sportfishing — the launching point for a legendary fleet that runs everything fro…
The South Grade Road up Palomar Mountain in North San Diego County is widely regarded as one of the greatest climbs in the Unit…
Torrey Pines is San Diego's most beautiful coastal run — clifftop singletrack winding through a grove of the rarest pine in Nor…
San Diego Bay is one of California's premier sailing destinations — a large, protected, sun-blessed bay with a deep sailing her…
At La Jolla Cove and the nearby Children's Pool, wildlife watching requires nothing more than a short stroll through a pretty s…
The 'Kitty Hawk of the West.' Charles Lindbergh made his first soaring flight from these cliffs in 1930, and the tradition of w…
La Jolla's seven sea caves are one of San Diego's most compelling outdoor experiences — and the kayak is the right vessel to se…
Skydive San Diego, tucked into the rugged hills of the county's East County near Jamul on Otay Lakes Road, is the region's prem…
La Jolla Cove is the most famous snorkel spot in California — a tiny, cliff-framed cove in the heart of La Jolla, protected as …
La Jolla Shores is Southern California's premier scuba beach — a broad, gentle sand beach whose easy walk-in entry gives quick …
The La Jolla sea caves are Southern California's most accessible and beautiful coastal caving — seven caves carved over million…
The tidepools at Cabrillo National Monument are San Diego's showcase intertidal — terraced sandstone shelves at the tip of Poin…
The roof of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, this is a steady lung-buster up the paved Lookout Fire Road to a 6,512-foot summit wher…
San Diego's most famous waterfall hike drops relentlessly into a shaded gorge where Cedar Creek plunges 80 feet into an emerald…
A cliff-top ramble along sculpted sandstone bluffs where the Pacific hammers into sea caves and arches — arguably the best suns…
Silver Strand is the only oceanfront camping on the Coronado peninsula - an RV-only state beach where you can walk to the surf …
Below the 300-foot Torrey Pines bluffs — and below the famous Gliderport where paragliders launch overhead — Black's catches se…
Named for the golden lotus-shaped towers of the Self-Realization Fellowship temple perched on the bluffs above — the same templ…
SoCal's most genuinely friendly surf experience. Old Man's nickname doesn't flatter, but it's earned — the crowd here is mellow…
Cardiff Reef is a consistent wave machine — a rocky reef that produces peeling lefts and rights for surfers of all levels, from…
La Jolla is the rare place where a paddler can reach genuine bluewater game fish without a big boat — the underwater canyon pus…
Hodges is the reservoir that put San Diego on the world bass map — its Florida-strain largemouth have produced fish flirting wi…
The Stagecoach 400 is Southern California's most storied bikepacking route — a roughly 400-mile self-supported loop through San…
Noble Canyon is widely considered the best mountain bike descent in Southern California — a 10-mile point-to-point that starts …
The biggest single preserve network in North County — a genuine full day of loops mixing doubletrack, singletrack and oak-meado…
The county's premier beginner-to-intermediate cross-country playground — miles of buff, mostly-flat singletrack wrapping a larg…
Cabrillo National Monument, crowning the tip of the Point Loma peninsula at the mouth of San Diego Bay, combines a superb winte…
Mission Trails is one of the largest urban wilderness parks in the country, and it packs genuine chaparral wildlife - quail, gr…
The Del Mar coast north of San Diego offers something few places in the country can — a coastal sunset balloon flight, drifting…
Wreck Alley off Mission Beach is San Diego's signature wreck-diving site — a cluster of intentionally sunk ships and structures…