Six Fun Outdoor Activities For Visitors To Do While In San Diego
The most difficult decision to make when planning a vacation to San Diego is determining what things to do. San Diego has an excellent array of fine and trendy restaurants covering a wide range of cuisines, world-class beaches and hotels from lavish to budget. This article lists six things to do in San Diego that you should not miss when visiting one of America's finest vacation destinations.
1. The Gaslamp Quarter is San Diego's vibrant dining, entertainment and shopping district. A walk through this eighteen-square-block in historic downtown San Diego takes you by modern restaurants and nightclubs inside turn of the century architectural buildings, complete with gas lamps and brick sidewalks. Explore avant-garde art galleries, historic theaters, unique boutiques and shops, more than a hundred restaurants, chic bars, hot nightclubs and a hardware store founded more than 100 years ago. One of San Diego's best travel destinations, the Quarter is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and extends from Broadway to Harbor Drive, from Fourth to Sixth Avenue.
2. John D. and Adolph Spreckels donated the Spreckels Organ, one of the world's largest outdoor pipe organs, to the City of San Diego in 1914 for the Panama-California Exposition. This unique organ contains 4,530 pipes ranging in length from the size of a pencil to 32 feet and is housed in an ornate vaulted structure with highly embellished gables. Since 1917, San Diego has had a civic organist who performs free weekly Sunday concerts.
3. At dusk on the first Wednesday of each month, following the monthly "Sky Tonight" planetarium show in the Space Theater of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, members of the San Diego Astronomy Association set up big telescopes by the large fountain in Balboa Park for free public sky viewing. See Saturn's rings through a big telescope as well as the moon, planets, nebulae and globular clusters - up close and personal.
4. The San Diego Natural History Museum is where you will have fun combining education with knowledge. See the huge tree in the front yard? It's a Moreton Bay fig tree that has been documented as one of the largest of this species in the state. Inside you'll find a Foucault Pendulum that gives visual proof of Earth's rotation. You can become mesmerized watching it swing back and forth, knocking over a circle of dominos with no force acting to make it change direction other than the turning of the Earth beneath it. Wow!
5. Explore the tide pools just north of Swami's Beach in Encinitas when the tide is low and see things most people never see: Hairy hermit crabs, willowy sea anemones, yawning barnacles, and perhaps even a two-spot octopus are a few of the many species that might be discovered in the nooks and crannies of tide pools. Low tides during convenient daylight hours are most common in the winter during full and new moons. San Diego travel tip: check the newspaper tide tables.
6. Sun and Fun. There are more than seventy miles of coastline here in San Diego and the best part is that every one of them are free. They are all great for swimming, surfing, jogging, body surfing, boogie-boarding, reading that mystery novel, people watching, collecting seashells or just chilling.
1. The Gaslamp Quarter is San Diego's vibrant dining, entertainment and shopping district. A walk through this eighteen-square-block in historic downtown San Diego takes you by modern restaurants and nightclubs inside turn of the century architectural buildings, complete with gas lamps and brick sidewalks. Explore avant-garde art galleries, historic theaters, unique boutiques and shops, more than a hundred restaurants, chic bars, hot nightclubs and a hardware store founded more than 100 years ago. One of San Diego's best travel destinations, the Quarter is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and extends from Broadway to Harbor Drive, from Fourth to Sixth Avenue.
2. John D. and Adolph Spreckels donated the Spreckels Organ, one of the world's largest outdoor pipe organs, to the City of San Diego in 1914 for the Panama-California Exposition. This unique organ contains 4,530 pipes ranging in length from the size of a pencil to 32 feet and is housed in an ornate vaulted structure with highly embellished gables. Since 1917, San Diego has had a civic organist who performs free weekly Sunday concerts.
3. At dusk on the first Wednesday of each month, following the monthly "Sky Tonight" planetarium show in the Space Theater of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, members of the San Diego Astronomy Association set up big telescopes by the large fountain in Balboa Park for free public sky viewing. See Saturn's rings through a big telescope as well as the moon, planets, nebulae and globular clusters - up close and personal.
4. The San Diego Natural History Museum is where you will have fun combining education with knowledge. See the huge tree in the front yard? It's a Moreton Bay fig tree that has been documented as one of the largest of this species in the state. Inside you'll find a Foucault Pendulum that gives visual proof of Earth's rotation. You can become mesmerized watching it swing back and forth, knocking over a circle of dominos with no force acting to make it change direction other than the turning of the Earth beneath it. Wow!
5. Explore the tide pools just north of Swami's Beach in Encinitas when the tide is low and see things most people never see: Hairy hermit crabs, willowy sea anemones, yawning barnacles, and perhaps even a two-spot octopus are a few of the many species that might be discovered in the nooks and crannies of tide pools. Low tides during convenient daylight hours are most common in the winter during full and new moons. San Diego travel tip: check the newspaper tide tables.
6. Sun and Fun. There are more than seventy miles of coastline here in San Diego and the best part is that every one of them are free. They are all great for swimming, surfing, jogging, body surfing, boogie-boarding, reading that mystery novel, people watching, collecting seashells or just chilling.
About the Author:
Terry Hunefeld retired in 2007 from his job as a CEO to follow his bliss of sailing the Pacific Ocean to census pelagic seabirds and marine mammals. Hunefeld and his wife own and operate the delightful Inn At Moonlight Beach Bed and Breakfast in the San Diego area. For more information visit: San Diego Bed and Breakfasts or Encinitas Hotels.