San Diego travel guide

Top 10 sights in San Diego

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© en:User:Cburnett · CC BY-SA 3.0

   San Diego Zoo

   Founded on animals left behind by the 1915 Panama-California Exposition and an early pioneer of open-air, cage-less enclosures. It covers 100 acres of Balboa Park and keeps more than 12,000 animals from over 680 species, drawing more visitors than any other zoo in the country.

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   2© Antoine Taveneaux · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Balboa Park

   Four hundred and ninety hectares of urban park, set aside in 1835 and laid out with Spanish Colonial Revival pavilions for the expositions of 1915 and 1935. Seventeen museums, the zoo and a 1915 outdoor pipe organ are inside it.

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   3© Eric Kilby · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Cabrillo National Monument

   A national monument at the southern tip of the Point Loma peninsula in San Diego. It marks the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in San Diego Bay on 28 September 1542, the first time a European set foot on what is now the west coast of the United States.

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   4© https://www.flickr.com/photos/97964364@N00/ · CC BY 2.0

   San Diego Museum of Art

   A fine art museum of 1926 in Balboa Park, its front carved in the Spanish plateresque manner with portraits of Spanish painters. The collection is strongest in Spanish old masters — Zurbarán, Ribera, El Greco — along with South Asian painting.

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   5© ZooFari · CC BY-SA 3.0

   SeaWorld San Diego

   A marine park on Mission Bay, opened in 1964 and the first of the SeaWorld parks. It stopped breeding orcas in 2016 and ended the theatrical orca show; the killer whales that remain are shown in a presentation about the animals themselves.

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   Timken Museum of Art

   An art museum in Balboa Park in San Diego, near the San Diego Museum of Art, established in 1965. It is free, and holds the only Rembrandt in the city.

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   7© Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mission San Diego de Alcalá

   The first of the Alta California missions, founded by Junipero Serra on 16 July 1769 in Kumeyaay country. A rising burned it in 1775 and killed Father Luis Jayme, California's first Christian martyr; the church standing today, fifth on the site, dates from the early 19th century.

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   8© Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Gaslamp Quarter

   Sixteen blocks of Victorian commercial buildings downtown, saved from demolition in the 1970s when the district was a skid row. The restoration was thorough and the quarter is now the city's bar strip, which is a mixed outcome for the architecture.

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   Point Loma

   The peninsula closing San Diego Bay, where Cabrillo's expedition landed in 1542 — the first European footfall on the west coast of what is now the United States. The national monument at the tip has the lighthouse and, in winter, grey whales passing below it.

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    10© Adbar · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Pacific Beach

    A seaside neighbourhood of San Diego between La Jolla to the north and Mission Beach to the south. Bars, restaurants and clothing shops line Garnet Avenue and Mission Boulevard, which makes it one of the centres of the city's nightlife.

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Popular tickets & tours in San Diego

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Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

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   1© Philkon Phil Konstantin · CC BY-SA 3.0

   USS Midway Museum

   An aircraft carrier museum at Navy Pier in San Diego in California. It occupies the decommissioned carrier Midway and carries a number of aircraft built in southern California.

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   2© Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Old Town of San Diego

   A district of 230 acres in San Diego in California. It is where the city first began, and the site of the first European settlement in what is now California.

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   3© Antoine Taveneaux · CC BY-SA 3.0

   San Diego California Temple

   A Latter-day Saints temple of 1993 in white marble aggregate, with two clusters of pointed towers either side of a glazed atrium, standing beside the freeway. It is among the most photographed modern religious buildings in California.

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   4© Nehrams2020 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Miramar

   A district in the north of San Diego in California. Its name is Spanish for sea view, and most of its residents live on Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

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   Downtown San Diego

   The central business district, holding the ballpark, the convention centre and the harbour front. It was largely derelict in the 1970s and has been rebuilt since, which is why almost everything in it is either Victorian or thirty years old with nothing in between.

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   Naval Base Point Loma

   A United States Navy base at Point Loma in San Diego in California. It was formed on 1 October 1998 by consolidating the naval installations of the area and consists of seven commands including the submarine base and the information warfare centre.

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   Ocean Beach

   A beachfront quarter at the mouth of the San Diego river, south of Mission Bay, laid out in 1887 and still known for its low-rise, counter-cultural streak. Its pier of 1966 runs nearly 600 metres into the Pacific.

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   8© David S. Roberts · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Belmont Park

   An old amusement park on the seafront at Mission Beach in San Diego in California. The sugar magnate John Spreckels built it, and it opened as the Mission Beach Amusement Center on 4 July 1925.

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   9© Rpotance · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Chicano Park

   A park of 7.9 acres at Barrio Logan in San Diego in California. It lies under the Coronado bridge, holds the largest concentration of outdoor murals in the United States, and was designated a city historic site in 1980.

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    San Diego Air & Space Museum

    An air and space museum in Balboa Park in San Diego in California. It occupies the former Ford Building, listed on the National Register; it was founded on 12 October 1961 and opened on 15 February 1963.

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