Today San Diego trades on its climate as much as its history — 'America's Finest City,' roughly seventy degrees the year round, with the Pacific at the doorstep. Visitors and locals split their days between Balboa Park's museums and gardens, the coves and cliffs of La Jolla — where bright-orange garibaldi, California's state marine fish, cruise the tide pools and the underwater park — the lighthouse of Point Loma, and the long beaches of Coronado, Mission Beach, and Ocean Beach. The city eats from its own taco shops: fish tacos, carne asada fries, and the california burrito, invented right here. The bay glitters, the sun drops behind Point Loma, and the same harbor that started the whole story keeps right on working into the evening.
The Kumeyaay (Tipai-Ipai) people lived on San Diego Bay and its mesas for thousands of years before European contact, and remain part of the region today.
Why People Visit San Diego
San Diego rewards visitors with a rare mix: deep early-California history, a working Navy harbor, great parks, and miles of Pacific coast under a famously mild sky. People come for Balboa Park and the bay, the beaches and Point Loma sunsets, and the story of the city where California began — historic, easygoing, unmistakably Californian.
