What To Do

ANZA-BORREGO DESERT  

Most of eastern San Diego County, which otherwise consists largely of sleepy suburban
communities, is taken up by the more than 600,000-acre Anza-Borrego Desert , much of it a
state park (free; $5 per vehicle). Some of it can be covered by car, although four-wheel-drive
vehicles are necessary for the more obscure - and most interesting - routes. The best time
to come is winter, when daytime temperatures stay around the mid-eighties. In the fiercely
hot summer, it's best left to the lizards, but when the desert blooms , between March and
May, scarlet ocotillo, orange poppies, white lilies, purple verbena and other wild flowers paint
a memorable, and fragrant, picture. To find out more information, and begin your trip at a
good jumping-off point, stop by the park visitors center , near park headquarters at 200 Palm
Canyon Drive (daily 8am-5pm, weekends only during summer; tel 760/767-4205).

Historical reminders in the desert span Native American tribes, early white explorers and
Gold Rush fortune-hunters. Approaching from the west, Hwy-78 descends to Scissors
Crossing, the junction with Hwy-22, which follows the Butterfield Stage Route , the first
regular line of communication between the East and the newly settled West, which began
service in 1857. Further on, the old adobe rest stop of Vallecito (vy-ay-SEE-toe) Stage
Station gives a good indication of the privations of early desert travel. To the south, around
Imperial Valley in the least-visited portion of Anza-Borrego, there's a vivid and spectacular
clash as gray rock rises from the edges of the red desert floor. Along Hwy-22, east of
Borrego Springs, is a memorial to Peg Leg Smith, an infamous local spinner of yarns from
the Gold Rush days who is celebrated by the Peg Leg Liars Contest on the first Saturday in
April; anybody can get up before the judges and fib their hearts out.

BALBOA PARK AND SAN DIEGO ZOO


Sumptuous Balboa Park contains one of the largest groups of museums in the US, scattered
either side and to the south of El Prado, the road that bisects the park. Yet its greatest
charms are its trees, gardens, statues, traffic-free promenades and Spanish Colonial-style
buildings. Within easy reach of downtown by buses #7, #16 or #25, the park is large but
fairly easy to get around on foot - if you tire, there's a free tram. The $30 Balboa Park
Passport , which allows one-time admission to all twelve of the park's museums and its
Japanese garden (though not the zoo), is available from the visitors information center (daily
9am-4pm; tel 619/239-0512), inside the beautifully reconstructed House of Hospitality. Most
of the museums are closed on Mondays, and most are free on varying Tuesdays.

Minor works by Rembrandt and El Greco and a stirring collection of Russian icons make the
stifling formality of the Timkin Museum of Art (Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm;
closed Sept; free; gort.ucsd.edu /sj/timken) worth enduring. The San Diego Museum of Art
(Tues-Sun 10am-4.30pm; $8; ) has few individually striking items in its permanent collection,
save for a small selection of 17th-century Dutch works by Hals and Rembrandt, but it's the
main venue for touring shows and offers some exquisitely crafted pieces from China and
Japan. Outside, don't miss the free Sculpture Court and Garden , with formidable works by
Henry Moore and Alexander Calder. The Museum of Man (daily 10am-4.30pm; $6; ), which
straddles El Prado, veers from banal crafts demonstrations to excellent Native American
displays, artifacts, folklore and physical remains.

The child-oriented Reuben H. Fleet Science Center (Mon & Tues 9.30am-6.30pm, Wed-Sun
9.30am-9pm; science center $6.50, with theater or simulator $9, all three $11; ), close to the
Park Boulevard end of El Prado, is notable mainly for its Space Theater's huge IMAX screen
and virtual reality simulator, which take you on stomach-churning trips into outer and inner
space. Across the plaza, the Natural History Museum (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; $6; ) has a
great collection of fossils and pulls no punches in its coverage of threatened species. Just
behind, in the Spanish Village Art Center (daily 11am-4pm; free), craftspeople in 37 studios
and galleries practice skills such as painting, sculpture, pottery and glassworking.

The enormous San Diego Zoo (daily: mid June-early Sept 7am-10pm; early Sept-mid June
9am-dusk; last entry an hour before closing; ), immediately north of the main museums, is
one of the world's best. Its wide selection of animals, many of them rare, are restrained in
"psychological cages," without bars. (Don't depend on the much-hyped but usually sleeping
Chinese pandas for entertainment, however.) Basic admission , including the children's zoo,
is $18.50 (kids 3-11 $9.50); a Deluxe Tour ticket ($28.50, kids $16.50) includes a bus tour
and a round-trip ride on the Skyfari overhead tramway.

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO AND CORONADO  


Always vibrant and active, downtown San Diego is the best place to start exploring. Since the
late 1970s, several blocks of 1920s architecture have been stylishly renovated, with the
sleek modern bank buildings symbolizing the city's growing economic importance on the
Pacific Rim. Downtown is safe by day, but can be unwelcoming at night, as much of it shuts
down after business hours, and you should confine your after-dark visits to the restaurants
and clubs of the comparatively well-lit and well-policed Gaslamp District.

The tall Moorish archways of the Santa Fe Railroad Depot , at the western end of Broadway ,
built in 1915 for the Panama-California Exposition, still evoke a sense of grandeur. Broadway
slices through the middle of downtown, at its most hectic between Fourth and Fifth avenues.
Shoppers, sailors, yuppies and slackers linger around the fountains outside Horton Plaza
(Mon-Sat 8.30am-5pm, summer Mon -Sat 10am-9pm, Sun 11am-7pm;
hortonplaza.shoppingtown.com), San Diego's major upmarket shopping venue, with a
somewhat dated postmodern style that borrows heavily from Art Deco designs and motifs.
Head for the open-air eating places on its top level; though the cuisine may be more
expensive than in the streets - and offers little more than the standard fast-food fare of other
shopping zones - it's fun to sit over a coffee and watch the parade of tourists go by. Take
time on your way out to visit the 21ft-tall Jessop Clock on level one, made for the California
State Fair of 1907.

South of Broadway, a few blocks and yet a world away from Horton Plaza, the sixteen-block
Gaslamp District , heart of frontier San Diego, is now filled with smart streets lined with classy
cafés, antique stores, art galleries, and, of course, gas lamps - now powered by electricity. A
tad artificial it may be, but its late-nineteenth-century buildings are intriguing to explore.
Worth a peek is the Horton Grand , 311 Island Ave, a reconstruction of two
nineteenth-century hotels originally located a few blocks away, with Old World decor and
hotel staff in Victorian costumes.

West of downtown, the Embarcadero pathway follows the curve of the bay, and leads to the
Maritime Museum , 1306 N Harbor Drive (daily 9am-8pm, summer closes at 9pm; $6; ), where
the most interesting of three vintage sailing craft is the Star of India , built in 1863 and now
the world's oldest still-afloat merchant ship.

Across San Diego Bay from downtown, the isthmus of Coronado is a well-scrubbed resort
community with a major naval station occupying its western end. It's of somewhat limited
interest, save for the majestically modern Coronado Bay Bridge , a curving 11,000-foot span
that's one of the area's signature images ($1 toll for southbound travelers without
passengers), and the historic Hotel del Coronado , around which the town grew. The
massive Victorian-turreted "Del" is where Edward VIII (then Prince of Wales) first met Mrs
Simpson (then a Coronado housewife) in 1920 and where Some Like It Hot was filmed in
1958, posing as a Miami Beach hotel. The simplest and most scenic way to get to Coronado
is on the San Diego Bay ferry ($2 each way; tel 619/234-4111) which leaves Broadway Pier
daily on the hour between 9am and 9pm (10pm Fri & Sat). Tickets are available at San
Diego Harbor Excursion , 1050 N Harbor Drive

HILLCREST, OCEAN BEACH AND POINT LOMA  


North of downtown and on the northwest edge of Balboa Park, Hillcrest is a lively and artsy
area at the center of the city's gay community . Go there either for something to eat - there's
a selection of interesting cafés and restaurants around University and Fifth streets - or
simply to stroll around the fine gathering of Victorian homes.

Ocean Beach , six miles northwest of downtown and reached by bus #35, rivals Pacific
Beach in its surfing and party atmosphere, although Ocean Beach has a more
down-to-earth, bohemian feel, and is replete with excellent secondhand music shops.
Despite being a former, notorious Hell's Angels hangout, this has become one of the most
sought-after San Diego addresses, with Newport Street the prime spot where most young
backpackers spend their time, among rows of cheap snack bars, surf and skate shops and
T-shirt stalls.

The Cabrillo National Monument (daily 9am-5.15pm; 7-day pass $5 per car, pedestrians and
cyclists $2), at the southern extremity of the hilly and very green peninsula of Point Loma ,
stretches south from Ocean Beach. It was at its southern extremity where Cabrillo and crew
became the first Europeans to land in California. That's as far as the historical interest goes,
for they quickly reboarded their vessel and sailed away again. The startling views from this
high spot, however, across San Diego Bay to the downtown skyline and right along the coast
to Mexico, easily repay the journey here. From the western cliffs of the park, a platform
makes it easy to view the November-to-March winterwhale migration , when scores of gray
whales pass by en route to their breeding grounds off Baja California, Mexico.

OLD TOWN SAN DIEGO AND PRESIDIO HILL  


In 1769, Spanish settlers chose Presidio Hill as the site of the first of California's missions.
They soon began to build homes at the foot of the hill, which was dominated in turn by
Mexican officials and then by early arrivals from the eastern US. Old Town San Diego ,
reachable from downtown via the Trolley, is now a state historical park holding a number of
original adobe dwellings, plus the inevitable souvenir shops. The stores and restaurants stay
open until 10pm or later, but the best time to be around is during the afternoon, to enter the
more interesting of the adobes on the daily free walking tour (2pm), which leaves from the
Seeley Stable , just off the central plaza, home to many nicely preserved horse-drawn
carriages and wagons from the nineteenth century. Details are available from the visitors
center , 4002 Wallace St (daily 10am-5pm; tel 858/220-5422).

The Spanish-style building now atop Presidio Hill is only a rough approximation of the original
mission - moved in 1774 - but its Serra Museum (Thurs-Sun 10am-4.30pm; $5) is an
intriguing examination of Junipero Serra, the padre who led the Spanish colonization and
Catholic conversion of California. The Mission San Diego de Alcalá itself was relocated six
miles north to 10818 San Diego Mission Rd (daily 9am-5pm; $3 donation), to be near a water
source and fertile soils - and to be safer from attack. The present building (on bus #43 from
downtown) is still a working parish church, a peaceful complex with a small museum that
holds craft objects and historical articles from the mission, including the crucifix held by Serra
at his death in 1834.

TIJUANA: A TASTE OF MEXICO  

You could hardly find a more intriguing day-trip out from San Diego than Tijuana , just over
the border in Mexico. While far from the most culturally rich place in Mexico, every year
twenty million people cross here from the US. Most of them are Californians and tourists on
day-long shopping expeditions, seeking somewhere cheap and colorful to spend money on
blankets, pottery, cigarettes, tequila, dentistry, car repair, and, more recently,
pharmaceutical drugs - available through many of the town's cut-rate pharmacies and
usually without a prescription. Keep in mind, though, that while everything is lower-priced in
Tijuana than in the US, the quality and safety of the merchandise are sometimes
questionable.

Although you can't help but be made aware of the vast economic gulf separating the two
countries - you're immediately confronted by shabbily dressed food vendors and children
selling woven bracelets and gum - Tijuana is, in fact, one of the wealthiest Mexican cities,
and somewhat safer than it was a decade ago. The main streets and shopping areas are a
few blocks from the border in downtown, where the major thoroughfare is Avenida
Revolución. Stroll around for a while to get the mood and then retire to one of the many bars
and watch the tourist throngs lubricate themselves with potent margaritas. At night, the
action mostly consists of inebriated North American youths dancing themselves silly in flashy
discos and rowdy rock'n'roll bars. Iguanas-Ranas (Avenida Revolución at Calle 3; tel
66/85-14-22) is a good example, and for big food and revelry, check out Tia Juana Tilly's
(Avenida Revolución at Calle 7; tel 66/85-60-24), where you can sample traditional Mexican
specialties such as roast pig and chicken mole (mo-lay).

Heavy traffic, and insurance problems, make crossing into Mexico by car a risky business;
from San Diego you can take either the Trolley ($4 round-trip) or bus #932 from Santa Fe
Railroad Depot. However, if you do decide to drive into Mexico, invest in auto insurance ,
which can be had for as little as $10 per day in San Ysidro. Dollars are accepted as readily
as pesos, so there's no need to change money , though prices are better if you do. Border
formalities are minimal: you only need a Mexican Tourist Card (free from consulates in the
US or at the Mexican Customs office just inside the Tijuana side of the border) if you're
planning to go further than 75 miles into the country or stay for more than three days.
Returning to the US, however, even within a single day, immigration procedures are stringent
- even joking about smuggling weapons or illegal drugs can bring a humiliating interrogation,
so be wary of saying or doing anything foolish. Hotels are cheap, with many low-cost
lodgings close to the center. At the lowest end of the price scale is Hotel Jaliscense , Calle 1
#7925 (tel 66/85-34-91; up to $35); slightly more upmarket, La Villa de Zaragoza , Avenida
Madero 1120 (tel 66/85-18-32; $50-75), has clean rooms with air conditioning and cable TV;
and Camino Real , Paseo de los Heroes 10305 (tel 66/33-40-01, ; $100-130), best of all, has
plush rooms and two fine restaurants and bars