Activities

With average daily temperatures of 70.5ºF, San Diego is built for outdoor activities year-round. As you’d expect, the ocean is one of San Diego’s most popular natural attractions. Surfers, swimmers, kayakers, divers, snorkelers, and paddleboarders have 70 miles of shorefront to explore. What might surprise you is there is also great hiking, horseback riding, rock climbing, biking, and more.

The possibilities for outdoor activity really are endless and evidence of San Diego’s outdoorsy spirit is apparent everywhere; you’ll likely see runners swarming the waterfront and Balboa Park, groups of surfers bobbing in the water at dawn, hang gliders swooping off sandstone cliffs, and white sails gliding gracefully along the shore. Outdoor enthusiasts are as much a part of San Diego’s landscape as the sea, sand, and hills, and if you want to get in on the action, it’s easy. Companies offering kayak and snorkeling tours and rentals are prevalent, especially in the beach communities of La Jolla, Mission Beach, and on Coronado. If you want to learn to surf, sign up for a lesson at one of the many surf schools in La Jolla or rent a board in Mission Beach and go out on your own. If sightseeing is more your style you can head out on a fishing or whale-watching excursion aboard a charter boat or take a sunset stroll on a wide, sandy beach. At the end of the day at any beach in the county, you’ll surely see a local ritual: everyone stops what they’re doing to watch the sun’s orange orb slip silently into the blue-gray Pacific.