24 Hours in San Diego
A 1,200-acre park built for a world’s fair, a real aircraft carrier you can walk through, and a coastline that earns every bit of its reputation, one proper day in America’s Finest City.
San Diego packs an unusual amount into a single day, a genuinely sprawling cultural park, a piece of naval history you can walk through deck by deck, and a coastal neighbourhood that justifies the whole trip on its own. Here’s how I’d spend 24 hours here.
Balboa Park
Start at Balboa Park, a 1,200-acre cultural park built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, its Spanish Colonial Revival buildings now home to 18 museums and the San Diego Zoo. Walk El Prado, the park’s central promenade, and pick one or two museums rather than trying to cover all of them, it’s considerably bigger than it looks from the entrance.
The USS Midway Museum
Head down to the Embarcadero for the USS Midway Museum, a decommissioned aircraft carrier that served for 47 years, now the most-visited naval ship museum in the country. Allow a proper three to four hours, the self-guided audio tour covers more than 60 stops across the flight deck and below.
Getting there A short walk or trolley from downtown
La Jolla and fish tacos
Head to La Jolla for the evening, the coastal views along the cliffs are genuinely some of the best in the city, particularly at sunset. Grab fish tacos for dinner, widely a San Diego signature dish, before heading back for a proper evening in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Getting around
Downtown San Diego and Balboa Park are genuinely walkable, most of the day’s central sights sit within a comfortable stroll of each other. A rideshare or drive is worth it for La Jolla specifically, a proper distance up the coast.
If you only have time for one thing
Make it Balboa Park. It’s the single largest concentration of culture in the city, and wandering El Prado is a proper introduction to San Diego before you’ve even left the park.
That’s everything I’ve got.
A note before you plan around this: prices, opening hours, booking requirements and admission details in this guide were correct at the time of writing, but venues change these often and sometimes without notice. Always check directly with the attraction or its official website before you travel or build a schedule around a specific time or price.
Before travelling to any destination featured on this site, please also check your government’s latest travel advice, as safety situations, entry requirements and travel warnings can change.
