Several people had advised us that San Diego is the most child-friendly city in California hence we had decided to spent our last two weeks in the USA here. San Diego has dozens of attractions, wonderful weather year-around, and a great family vibe making this town a favourite holiday destination for parents. Key attractions are the Balboa park with some 14 musea and the famous Zoo, Legoland, Sea World, Safari Park, plenty of beaches, great scenery in Torrey Pines National reserve and interesting neighbourhoods to explore like Old Downtown, Coronado or Gaslamp Quarters.
We had found a small ground floor apartment with nice garden close to the Balboa park. After all the Disneyland excitement we needed a break and Balboa park just offered this. Balboa Park was created for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition (like a World Expo) and has been expanded since and it is a great area to explore for a few days. There are playgrounds, several very good musea, grand buildings along palm tree lined avenues, an old carrousel and art and music everywhere. We went there several days; one day to just stroll around, one day for the Make Music Day festival, one day to visit the NAT (San Diego Natural History Museum) to see the dinosaurs and a day to visit the carrousel and the Spanish art village.
We also did Legoland. Our ticket allowed us up to 5 entries in 5 days, but two days were enough for us. One day for Legoland itself and one day to visit the Legoland Waterpark. We are Lego fans and we liked seeing all the fantastic sculptures they created from Lego. Elephants, Globe, Manhattan Skyline and many many more. But also if you don’t like Lego that much it is still a fun place to go with younger kids. Most rides are very easy and designed for kids under 8 and for our kids, 2 and 4, there were plenty of rides and attractions to choose from. Some of our favourites: getting a driver’s licence at the driving school; Sky Patrol; the Hideaways playground; Lego Friends Heartlake City; splashing water in Pirate Reef and the Bionicle Blaster.
Going to Legoland was fun, but going to the Waterpark was even much more fun. What kid does not enjoy going to a waterpark filled with slides, pools, floating tubes and lego boats.
We also went one day exploring Coronado island, San Diego’s sea side resort city and we went hiking for a day in the Torrey Pines State reserve, a desert-like coastal reserve with very spectacular views of cliffs on the ocean. The other days we just stayed at home to catch-up on our blogs, journal writing, world schooling and planning for our next leg of the journey.
So looking back at the advice we got, yes the weather was nice all the time, the vibe in the city is friendly and there are many things to do and see for kids. So well worth a trip if you are in this part of the world.