San Diego runs on the water. Start at the bay.
Which harbour cruise is worth the ninety minutes. What a whale trip off Point Loma costs in February. Reviews of every tour you can book in San Diego.
The Zoo, the carrier, the bay and the whales.
Four bookings a first San Diego week is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The big oneSan Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day TicketA hundred acres of canyon in Balboa Park. Ride the Skyfari down and walk back up, and be at the gate for opening.
02The carrierUSS Midway Museum Admission: Valid Any DateA flight deck the length of three city blocks, moored on Navy Pier. Two hours minimum, and the audio guide is included.
03The ninety minutesSan Diego Harbor CruiseNorth bay or south bay, past the carriers and under the Coronado bridge. The cheapest way to understand the shape of the city.
04The whalesSan Diego Whale Watching CruiseGrey whales from December, blues in summer, dolphins most of the year. Morning sailings sit flatter than afternoon ones.
Four ways to spend a San Diego afternoon on the water.
The bay is a working harbour with a national park view. Narrated cruise, sunset sail, whale run or a yacht with a wheel you get to hold. What each kind of day costs to board.
Six San Diego neighbourhoods, and the best day out in each.
A Victorian grid of bars downtown, a park bigger than Central Park with fifteen museums in it, an adobe town from before California was a state, a beach village across the bridge, cliffs full of sea lions, and two blocks of Italian San Diego that eat better than the rest.
The San Diego days out more travellers take than any other.
Every San Diego tour we have reviewed →The bookings that fill up first in this city, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day Ticket
Review of the San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass, with panda tips, tram and bus rides, walking advice, costs, access, and family planning help.
From · $78
Read our review →
2
San Diego Harbor Cruise
from $37
3
San Diego Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tour
from $55
4
San Diego Whale Watching Cruise
from $85
5
USS Midway Museum Admission: Valid Any Date
from $41
6
San Diego Whale Watching & Dolphin Cruise
from $71
7
Harbor Cruise
from $37
8
San Diego Zoo Admission Ticket
from $78
San Diego keeps its best animals and its best aeroplanes indoors.
The Zoo, the Safari Park thirty miles inland, a decommissioned aircraft carrier on the downtown waterfront and a park full of museums. All of them run on timed entry, all of them are cheaper bought before you land.
San Diego eats like a border town with a brewery problem.
Fish tacos that came up the coast from Baja, a hundred and fifty breweries inside the county line, a mercato on India Street on Saturday mornings and a wine valley an hour east in Ramona. Book the walk before the heat, and turn up hungry.
- 1Taste of Little Italy in San Diegofrom $93
- 2Gaslamp Quarter Food and Drink Tour: Brothels, Bites & Boozefrom $94
- 3Gaslamp Quarter Downtown San Diego Food Tourfrom $89
What a day out in San Diego actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best San Diego days come in under the cost of parking downtown for an evening.
Walking tours, museum entries, ghost walks and the short harbour hops.
- 1San Diego Harbor Cruisefrom $37
- 2USS Midway Museum Admission: Valid Any Datefrom $41
- 3Harbor Cruisefrom $37
The full-day standards: whale runs, Zoo and Safari Park days, sailing afternoons, Tijuana crossings.
- 1San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day Ticketfrom $78
- 2San Diego Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tourfrom $55
- 3San Diego Whale Watching Cruisefrom $85
Private charters, fishing boats and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things that only happen in San Diego.
Beaches and zoos exist everywhere. A grey whale migration you can watch from a two-hour boat, a Midway-class carrier tied to a downtown pier, and a walk into another country before lunch do not.
The Grey Whale Migration
Around twenty thousand grey whales swim past Point Loma every winter on their way from the Bering Sea to the lagoons of Baja, which is the longest migration of any mammal on earth. Boats leave from Point Loma and the Embarcadero and are usually back inside three hours. Summer swaps them for blue whales, the largest animals that have ever lived, feeding on krill nine miles offshore.
- 1San Diego Whale Watching Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,317 reviews
- 2San Diego Whale Watching & Dolphin Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,588 reviews
- 3San Diego Whale Watching Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 663 reviews
The USS Midway
The Midway was the longest-serving aircraft carrier of the twentieth century and she is now tied up at the foot of Broadway with twenty-nine restored aircraft on her deck. You walk the hangar bay, the berthing spaces, the brig and the island, and climb into the cockpits. Allow two hours, more if you take the flight simulators, and go on a weekday if you can.
- 1USS Midway Museum Admission: Valid Any Date★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,165 reviews
- 2Maritime Museum of San Diego Admission Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 98 reviews
- 3San Diego Natural History Museum Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 33 reviews
The Walk into Mexico
San Ysidro is the busiest land border crossing in the western hemisphere, and the trolley from downtown drops you at the pedestrian gate in forty minutes. Walking south takes minutes. Walking back north is the part that takes planning, which is why the guided crossings exist. Bring a passport, and treat the return queue as the real timetable.
- 1Intro to Mexico Walking Tour: Tijuana Day Trip from San Diego★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 616 reviews
- 2Crossing Borders: Tijuana Day Trip from San Diego★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 519 reviews
- 3Tijuana Local Walking Tour from San Diego★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 283 reviews
Four San Diego bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this city can be sorted from a bar stool the night before. These four run on migration calendars, timed entry slots and a border queue that takes no interest in your plans.
- 01San Diego Whale Watching CruiseGrey whale season runs mid-December to April and the blue whales replace them in summer. Weekend morning sailings are the first to go in both.
- 02San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day TicketEntry is a dated ticket, and the gate is busiest between ten and two. Buying ahead is also the cheaper way in.
- 03USS Midway Museum Admission: Valid Any DateTimed entry on a carrier with a fixed capacity. School groups take the morning slots for most of the spring term.
- 04Intro to Mexico Walking Tour: Tijuana Day Trip from San DiegoThe northbound pedestrian queue at San Ysidro can run to two hours. A guided crossing books the day around it rather than hoping.
What to do in San Diego when the marine layer sits on the coast all day.
Late spring here does something the postcards leave out. A cold ocean under warm air parks a sheet of low cloud over the coastline that can hold until mid afternoon, and it burns off inland long before it burns off at the beach. The answer is the same either way. Go east, or go indoors.
San Diego by neighbourhood, bay to border
Every kind of San Diego day, deck or dry land
Bay, park, beach: the run almost every first San Diego trip does.
USS MidwayThe newest San Diego tour reviews.
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Private Cooking Demonstration of Indian Fusion Cuisine in San Diego
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Paranormal Investigation History & Ghost Tour Old Town San Diego
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Californian Tall Ship Sailing and Maritime Museum
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