Hmm…where do I start?
Cecilio and I spent 3 nights in San Diego for our 1-year anniversary. We wanted to get away for the weekend to celebrate, and originally (like months and months ago), we were looking into traveling somewhere far and via plane, such as Hawaii or New Orleans. Then we saw how expensive the plane tickets were (and we didn’t really save up much), we decided to go somewhere closer where we could drive. We then started thinking about driving up to Portland (which is 9 hours away from Sacramento). Then I realized how brutal the weather has been here, and I am not someone who takes winter well (I’ve even had some moderately bad flare-ups, which hasn’t happened since 2014). If I can’t handle the weather where I live right now, I sure as hell couldn’t handle the constant rain and colder weather in Portland, especially driving through the mountains to get there. So we decided to go back to SoCal for the third time in less than a year in a half: we went to the LA area in September 2016 and Disneyland this past December. This time, we wanted to experience something different, so San Diego it was.
It was my 3rd time (and Cecilio’s 2nd time) visiting San Diego. My first time was in 2008 for a winter college Christian conference, and the second was with my family in 2010. Cecilio visited in 2006 to take a tour of UC San Diego (which he ended up not going to for university, otherwise we would never have met). It is roughly an 8 hour drive from Sacramento, but we stopped in LA to meet up with his best friend and have some tacos. And of course, we dealt with the typical LA traffic. So the drive ended up being 10 hours.
We stayed in Old Town Inn, which of course, was a few blocks away from Old Town San Diego. It was cute, though very simple and barebones. I really liked how close it was to the popular neighborhoods such as Hillcrest (where San Diego Zoo and Balboa Park are located), Little Italy and Gaslamp Quarter. On our first night, we strolled around Old Town, but not for too long because it was actually pretty chilly (I came unprepared!) and quite dead on a Saturday night. But here’s a little journal of the rest of our trip…
Hip hip, horray! This day, we officially made it to the 1-year mark in the marriage realm. We started the day by having breakfast at this hip coffee shop in Hillcrest called Subterranean Coffee Boutique. I ordered the most delicious cinnamon latte I have ever had in my life! For breakfast, I had a fiesta-style breakfast scramble with eggs, sour cream, salsa and soyrizo. Cecilio ordered a pesto bagel with tomato. Afterwards, we headed out to the Zoo, where we spent the whole day.
Here are a few animals we saw, but trust me, there were WAY more! I wanted to highlight the Giant Panda, happily eating her bamboo. We waited in line for 20 minutes to see her and another panda, which was actually less time than waiting in line for 45 minutes to ride on “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland. I was just so happy and elated, seeing a panda in real life for the first time ever. We also saw tigers, hippos, California condos (eating a baby bird, yikes!), elephants, llamas, monkeys and even polar bears!
We took a photo with this sloth right here (and yes, there was a real sloth but it was sleeping, but we took a photo of it anyway to send to Cecilio’s mom since it’s her favorite animal).
The Zoo was so huge that we had to take the skyride all the way back to the entrance! Yes, it was included in our tickets (tip: if you have a AAA card, use it! Tickets are 10% off! Tickets are normally $54/person, but because I had a AAA card, we ended up only paying $97 total for entrance).
We then headed back to our hotel to relax for a few hours before having dinner at Juniper & Ivy, a New American restaurant located in Little Italy. Cecilio made reservations for us, and here we are eating strawberry pavlova 🙂
I woke up with my body aching everywhere and in so much joint pain that it took all my might and strength for me to get up. I had to though; we were going to Torrey Pines State Beach to hike up and down the trails there! I took my meds, popped some ibuprofen, and off we went (but first, we had breakfast). The trails were a little steep, but not overly-so. We still had to take a few breaks going uphill though. It was all worth it once we hit the top and explored a bit in the Visitor’s Center. Going down was a lot easier, though we had to be careful and watch our steps because the surfaces and stairs were pretty uneven. I will say that those who hiked uphill from the beach had a tougher time than we did (we came from the opposite way, starting off in the parking lot). The views were magnificent.
After that, we decided to hit Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego’s most popular attraction full of restaurants, bars and shops. It’s located in their downtown area, and right next to it lies the San Diego Convention Center and Petco Park, where the San Diego Padres play. As expected, it was dead on a Monday afternoon. We had a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant called The Blind Burro, which had the FRESHEST and hottest chips and guac we have ever tasted (it’s on par with some of the chips we had during out honeymoon last year in Mexico). And Happy Hour started at 3, so I was able to enjoy a strawberry margarita for a few dollars cheaper 🙂
After that, we wanted to go shopping for some souvenirs for our family. I hinted that I wanted to go to Westfield Mall UTC to check it out, though it was all the way in La Jolla and that is where Torrey Pines is near. I only brought it up because Cecilio wanted to go back to the first Starbucks he has ever been to, which was in La Jolla when he did that UC San Diego tour many moons ago. So we decided to make a trek, but I mainly wanted to go because I wanted to check out Credo, a green beauty store (I’m trying to transition to green beauty products, but I’ll save that for another post).
Now we couldn’t find a souvenir store for our families, but I was able to shop for a few goodies at Credo (check back for some reviews soon!) and buy a sweater for Cecilio at Macy’s because he was feeling cold. It was the least I could do, considering that he bought me a panda sweater at the Zoo. We also had some drinks from the Pressed Juicery, and I had a delicious golden milk latte with turmeric and cinnamon!
We wrapped up our trip by going to Coronado Island, a posh resort (yet quaint) beach town across the Bay from Downtown San Diego. The skies were perfectly blue, the ocean smelled of fresh salt and the sand was so smooth. I spent most of my time lying down on top of our beach towel, relaxing while Cecilio took off his shoes to wade on the water for a little bit. I left for a few minutes to spend time with him and take pictures of him, but when I did…a seagull plucked our bag of Ruffles! I ran to try to get it back, but it was too late: a flock of seagulls flew by and started eating them within seconds.
We then eventually stopped by Walgreens to buy souvenirs and snacks. And after that, we stopped by Starbucks and hit the road. Everything was going smoothly, except when we of course hit LA traffic and got stuck there for 2 hours. It started raining too: in California, even the slightest drizzle can halt the roads. However, once we left LA, it started pouring brutally. It was quite scary actually, because we had to drive 3 hours worth in vast nothingness and it was super dark. We made it though!
It was a memorable trip for both of us 🙂 the next day sucked though because I had a bad doctor’s appointment and a fever, and then had to go back to work right after (though I love where I work). We just created more memories of a lifetime to look back on, and we will have way more to come in the future!
Hannah is a travel writer, graphic designer, and the founder/editor of Hannah on Horizon. She is based in Sacramento, California, living with her husband and two adorable dogs. She shares tips on how to experience luxury travel on any budget, and how to maximize time at each trip or destination, no matter what your budget or amount of vacation time at work. She enjoys making you feel like you have visited each destination with her through her storytelling and informative writing style.