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California, Destinations, North America, Travel, USA

San Diego Essentials

As you are well aware, Superstorm Sandy delayed my departure from San Diego. Knowing that we would be in California for a few extra days, we decided to rent a car and drive up to San Francisco. During the ride (I didn’t drive – lucky me!), I had a lot of time to soak in the scenery and contemplate what I thought of California and my stay there until that point.

The architecture in California is NOT what I was expecting

Maybe I haven’t been as observant when looking at pictures of buildings in California as I could have been, but I was pretty excited to find non-boring architecture in San Diego. Things are newer, yes, but it also has this cool vibe that you just don’t get on the East Coast.

Getting around was fairly easy to do by foot, airplane, etc.

The great thing about San Diego is that the airport is fairly close to the city. And by close, I mean, I was able to get a shot of a plane’s underbelly!

Since we stayed in downtown San Diego, it was easy to walk to the hot spots we wanted to check out. We walked about 7 miles the day we went to Balboa Park, we didn’t taxi while we were in town and we took a bus over to Coronado Island. We decided it might take too much time to swim over there, you see.

Driving up to San Francisco was a fairly easy ride as well. It took us nearly 8 hours, but it was 8 hours well worth it. We were able to see some of the California countryside while driving with the Pacific at our side.

A view of the Pacific Ocean from the 101

We saw nothing but blue skies on our way up to San Francisco from San Diego along the Pacific Coast.

California is beautiful

I already knew this. But now I’m finally able to say that I’ve seen it myself. I couldn’t help but be in awe as we drove up the 101 and had the Pacific Ocean right beside us. It was really cool to drive through so many different terrains in just one day. The East Coast is beautiful in its own way, but there is definitely not as much variety.

My verdict?

San Diego is awesome! I’d go again (and again) in a heartbeat. When I go next time, I hope to check out some of the things surrounding San Diego. We really only explored downtown because it was close and there was plenty to do, but there is so much more to do in the surrounding area – especially if you have a car.

Stars

5 stars of 5

Have you ever been to San Diego? What was your verdict?

Marina at San Diego
California, Destinations, North America, Travel, USA

San Diego Guide Part II: Exploring

Last week, I wrote about all of the fabulous food that I ate while in San Diego. Now this week, you get to hear what we actually did during the hours that we weren’t eating.

In researching the city prior to my trip, I just wasn’t finding many things that I was interested in doing or seeing that were plan-able. It turns out that you can’t really approach a trip to San Diego with that mentality. I found that the best approach was to just going with the flow, spending a lot of time outside enjoying the beautiful weather and exploring parks and beaches that sprinkle the city.

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California, Destinations, North America, Travel, USA

San Diego Guide Part I: The Eats

After I successfully conferenced myself out for the foreseeable future (Kidding! I love conferences!), I headed from Las Vegas to San Diego to meet up with my boyfriend, who had been partaking in the conference scene that week himself.

One exciting thing about going to San Diego is that it was my first time in California. Traveling to California means I’m one step closer to reaching my goal of visiting all 50 states, per my flux list. California and Arizona are the first new states that I’ve visited since starting Living in Flux, so I still have quite a way to go. My rough estimate is that I’m about half way there. Want to know what states I’ve been to? Well, there will be a post for that in the coming weeks!

However, I digress.

We spent about 4 days in the San Diego area, and I must say it: I’m in love with San Diego! The weather was gorgeous, the food was to die for, and I was definitely digging the Spanish-influenced architecture.

Today, I’ll talk about the eats in San Diego. Stay tuned for a follow-up post about what we did during the hours that we weren’t eating (spoiler alert: most of our exploring simply got us from one food venue to the next, so there weren’t all that many non-eating hours).

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