Everybody books the zoo. The bay is the better day.
Which harbor cruise earns its ninety minutes. What the La Jolla sea caves cost by kayak. Whether the whales are actually running this month. Reviews of every tour you can book in San Diego.
The bay, the zoo, the sea caves and the whales.
Four bookings a first San Diego trip gets built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first afternoonSan Diego Harbor CruiseNinety minutes around the harbor, past the carriers and under the bridge. The cheapest way to work out how the city is laid out.
02The one everybody booksSan Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day TicketA hundred acres of canyon on the edge of Balboa Park. Go at opening, walk the far side first, and let the queues form behind you.
03The La Jolla morningLa Jolla Sea Caves Kayak Tour For Two (Tandem Kayak)Paddling into seven sea caves under the cliff, with the sea lions hauled out on the rocks either side of you.
04December to AprilSan Diego Whale Watching CruiseOut past Point Loma while the gray whales are heading down to Baja. Book a morning sailing; the afternoon chop makes the deck hard work.
San Diego Bay is the front door. Sail it, cruise it, or go looking for whales.
Three kinds of day off the Embarcadero: ninety minutes around the harbor past the carriers, an afternoon under sail against the skyline, or a run out beyond Point Loma while the grays are moving.
La Jolla, the Gaslamp, Coronado: pick the neighborhood, then pick the day.
San Diego is six small towns doing an impression of one city. A cove full of sea lions, a Victorian block that turns into a bar crawl after dark, a ferry to a beach with a red hotel on it, a park holding fourteen museums, an adobe main street, and a pasta district with a Saturday market.
The San Diego days more travelers book than any others.
Every San Diego tour we have reviewed →The tours this city actually runs on, and what earns each one the slot.
1
San Diego Zoo 1-Day Pass: Any Day Ticket
Use your mobile ticket for direct entry to the San Diego Zoo, then explore 100 acres of animal habitats and botanical gardens. See pandas, koalas, gorillas, tigers, and more, with the Guided Bus Tour and Skyfari Aerial Tram included. Plan for hills, crowds, and a full day.
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
LEGOLAND® California Theme Park Admission Tickets
from $64
7
San Diego Whale Watching & Dolphin Cruise
from $71
8
San Diego Zoo Admission Ticket
from $78
Gray whales in winter, blues in summer, sea lions all year round.
Boats leave the Embarcadero and clear the point inside twenty minutes. December to April it is gray whales running down to Baja and back; from June the blues come up onto the feeding grounds. The sea lions on the bait barge are not seasonal.
Fish tacos before noon, Little Italy after dark, a brewery somewhere in between.
San Diego eats outside. The food walks work the Gaslamp and Little Italy, the taco trail runs out to the beach towns, and the county pours more craft beer than any other in the country. Book the walk before the heat and the crawl after it.
What a day out in San Diego actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what it costs. A good number of the best San Diego days come in under the price of parking downtown.
Self-guided walks, museum entry, the harbor loop and a paddle on Mission Bay.
- 1San Diego Harbor Cruisefrom $37
- 2USS Midway Museum Admission: Valid Any Datefrom $41
- 3Harbor Cruisefrom $37
The full-day standards: whale trips, sea-cave kayaks, food walks, the zoo and the border run.
- 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 guides, chartered sailing afternoons and the dinner cruise you only do once.
Three things San Diego has that nowhere else does.
Beaches, zoos and old towns exist everywhere. Seven sea caves under a cliff full of sea lions, a bus that drives itself into the bay, and a Victorian block with a documented body count do not.
The Seven Sea Caves
The sandstone under the La Jolla cliff is undercut into seven caves, and only one of them, Sunny Jim, can be reached on foot through a tunnel. The rest are a paddle from La Jolla Shores, past the sea lions on the rocks and through kelp that turns the water green. Guides call the cave leg on the morning: too much swell and the group stays outside looking in.
- 1La Jolla Sea Caves Kayak Tour For Two (Tandem Kayak)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,205 reviews
- 2Original La Jolla Sea Cave Kayak Tour for Two★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 871 reviews
- 3Kayak Tour of the 7 Caves★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 355 reviews
The Bus That Swims
The SEAL tour starts on the road like an ordinary sightseeing bus, then drives down a ramp on Harbor Island and keeps going into the water. The second half is a boat trip past the bait barge, where two hundred sea lions have permanently colonised a working platform and nobody has managed to move them.
- 1San Diego Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,523 reviews
- 2Hop-on Hop-off Narrated Trolley Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,323 reviews
- 3San Diego Seal Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,226 reviews
The Gaslamp After Midnight
The Whaley House sits on the site of the town gallows and the state once listed it as officially haunted. Downtown, the Gaslamp blocks were the Stingaree, San Diego's red-light quarter, and most of the ghost walks are really Victorian crime tours with the lights turned down. The stories are documented; the endings are not.
- 1Haunted San Diego: The Only Ghost Tour with Exclusive Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 584 reviews
- 2Tequila, Tacos & Tombstones: Old Town Food & Drink Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 225 reviews
- 3San Diego Ghosts and Gravestones: A Haunted Trolley Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 165 reviews
Four San Diego bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on migration windows, the morning swell, the border queue and the angle of the sun, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01San Diego Whale Watching CruiseGray whales run roughly December to April and the blues arrive in summer. Outside those windows the boat still sails; the whales are the part that does not.
- 02La Jolla Sea Caves Kayak Tour For Two (Tandem Kayak)The cave leg is called on the morning by the swell. Book it early in the trip so a cancelled day still has a spare one behind it.
- 03Intro to Mexico Walking Tour: Tijuana Day Trip from San DiegoYou cross on foot and queue to come back. Passport in the bag, and the northbound line is the part that decides how the day ends.
- 04Sunset Sail Along the San Diego SkylineSunset departures run to the light, not the clock, so the slot slides by an hour across the year and the summer sailings go first.
When the marine layer sits on the coast until two in the afternoon.
Late spring and early summer the coast wakes up under gray and the sun does not turn up until the early afternoon. The answer is to flip the day: a museum, the zoo or a tasting room in the morning, and the water once it burns off.
By neighborhood — coast, canyon and bay
By kind of day — boat, bike, plate or ghost story
Gaslamp, the bay, Balboa Park, La Jolla, Coronado, and one day across the line.
TijuanaThe newest San Diego tour reviews.
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Ultimate La Jolla Self-Guided Driving & Walking Audio Tour Bundle
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