San Diego

The coast is the backbone of a San Diego stay, with around 110km of shoreline running from Imperial Beach up through North County. Coronado has a broad, flat strand of glittering sand in front of its grand old hotel, Mission Beach and Pacific Beach share a long boardwalk of surfers, cyclists and volleyball, and La Jolla Shores offers gentle surf that suits beginners and children. Further north, Del Mar, Encinitas and Carlsbad have quieter, cliff-backed beaches.

The catch is the water. It reaches about 20-22°C in August and September, cooler in early summer, and drops to around 15°C in winter, when most people only surf in wetsuits. Morning cloud known as June Gloom can hang over the shore well into early summer. Mission Bay's calm, sheltered beaches are the easiest place for small children to paddle.

San Diego eats best when it eats casually. The border is close and it shapes the food: fish and shrimp tacos in the Baja style, carne asada burritos and taco shops open late in every neighbourhood. California burritos, stuffed with fries, are a local invention. Seafood is fresh, and on summer evenings a fish taco by the water is as much a part of a visit as anything on a menu.

Beer is the other speciality. The county has one of the densest craft-brewing scenes in the country, with tasting rooms clustered in North Park, Miramar and along the coast, and hop-heavy West Coast IPAs are the house style. Convoy Street is a long run of Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese kitchens, and Little Italy has a weekly farmers' market and a strip of restaurants. Fine dining exists, but this is not a city of famous chefs.

Balboa Park is the cultural heart of the city: ornate Spanish Colonial Revival buildings from the expositions of 1915 and 1935 house the San Diego Museum of Art, the Museum of Us, the Natural History Museum, the Air and Space Museum and a run of smaller collections, with gardens and the California Tower between them. A day there covers most of what the city has in museums.

Beyond the park, the aircraft carrier USS Midway is a large and well-run museum ship on the waterfront, and the Maritime Museum keeps historic sailing ships alongside. Old Town preserves adobe buildings from the Mexican and early American period, Mission San Diego de Alcalá was the first of California's missions, and Cabrillo National Monument marks the first European landing on this coast. The Gaslamp Quarter has a run of Victorian commercial buildings. None of it is world class.

Going out splits into a few distinct scenes. The Gaslamp Quarter downtown is the loudest, with rooftop bars, dance clubs and weekend crowds of bachelor parties and conventioneers. Pacific Beach is younger and rowdier, a beach-town bar strip where students and surfers drink. North Park, South Park and Hillcrest are better for neighbourhood cocktail bars and brewery taprooms, and Hillcrest is the centre of the city's gay nightlife.

Last call is at 2am, and outside the Gaslamp and Pacific Beach most of the city winds down well before that. It is an easy, sociable place for a drink but not a city people travel to for its nights out.

The mild, dry climate makes San Diego an outdoor city all year. Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve has sandstone bluffs and trails above the ocean, La Jolla Cove has sea lions and harbour seals on the rocks and kayak routes into the sea caves, and the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument fill with anemones and crabs at low tide. Surfing is everywhere, from beginner breaks to famous reefs in North County, and grey whales pass offshore in winter.

Inland, the landscape changes quickly. The Cuyamaca and Laguna mountains, about an hour east, have oak and pine forest and hiking above 1,800m, and beyond them Anza-Borrego Desert State Park spreads out in canyons and badlands that bloom with wildflowers after a wet winter. Mission Bay is good for paddleboarding and sailing, and coastal bike paths run for miles.

The border makes the list unusual. Tijuana is reachable by trolley and a walk across, and a longer drive south leads to Ensenada and the vineyards of the Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico's best-known wine region, about two hours away. On the US side, Temecula's wine country is about an hour north, and the old mining town of Julian, known for apple pie, sits in the hills to the east.

Up the coast, the beach towns of Carlsbad, Encinitas and Oceanside make easy outings by train, and Mission San Juan Capistrano and the galleries of Laguna Beach are a little further. Los Angeles is about two hours by train or car, though traffic often stretches that. Most outings need a car, and the list is varied rather than deep in heritage.

Few cities are as well set up for children. The San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park is one of the world's great zoos, with gorillas, koalas, big cats and hundreds of other species spread through shaded canyons, and an aerial skyfari ride that saves small legs. Its sister Safari Park near Escondido lets families watch giraffes and rhinos on open plains. SeaWorld sits on Mission Bay, and Legoland California in Carlsbad is built for younger children. On cooler days the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, the Fleet Science Center and the children's museum downtown fill the gaps.

The everyday setting helps as much as the attractions. The climate is mild in every season, so outdoor plans rarely fall through, and the lawns, playgrounds and fountains of Balboa Park make an easy break between museums. Hotels, restaurants and parks expect children, and the casual style of the city means nobody minds a noisy table. The one thing to plan for is distance: the big parks are spread out, so a day usually goes to a single attraction.

Downtown, the Gaslamp Quarter, Little Italy and the waterfront are compact and easy on foot, and the trolley links them with Old Town and the Mexican border. Coastal trains run north to the beach towns. Beyond that the city spreads out: La Jolla, the beaches, the Safari Park and Legoland are far apart, buses are slow, and most visitors end up hiring a car or relying on ride-hailing. Parking at the beaches is tight on summer weekends.

Shopping here is mostly malls and neighbourhood browsing. Fashion Valley holds the city's luxury brands and department stores under open-air walkways, and a large outlet centre sits right by the border. Little Italy and North Park have independent boutiques, vintage shops and design stores, while La Jolla's village streets lean towards galleries and upmarket clothing. Old Town sells Mexican crafts and pottery, and surf shops are everywhere. There is no single great shopping street, and serious shoppers will not find much they could not get elsewhere.

San Diego is an expensive place to stay. Hotels near the beaches and downtown cost a lot, especially in summer, and sit-down meals add tax and tip to every bill. The headline attractions, from the zoo and Safari Park to SeaWorld and Legoland, charge high admission, and a hire car adds parking costs. Taco shops, brewery taprooms, free beaches and the gardens of Balboa Park keep a day's spending down, but it does not feel like a budget destination.

Theatre is the strength. The Old Globe in Balboa Park, with its Shakespeare festival stage under the stars, and the La Jolla Playhouse on the university campus are serious producing companies, and both have launched shows that went on to Broadway. The San Diego Symphony plays a summer season at its open-air waterfront stage on the bay, and the San Diego Opera gives a short season downtown.

Touring musicals, mid-sized rock venues and jazz nights round out the calendar, and Balboa Park's outdoor organ pavilion holds free concerts. It is a good programme for a city this size, but the live scene is not a reason to visit on its own.

Wellness here is about pace rather than bathing. There is no thermal or bathhouse tradition, but resort spas in La Jolla, Coronado and Carlsbad are plentiful, and Encinitas has a long-standing yoga and meditation culture centred on its clifftop gardens. The mild weather, sunset walks and unhurried beach-town mornings make it an easy place to slow down, though downtown and Pacific Beach are not quiet.