Things to Do in San Diego

This is about La Jolla Cove. Right now, before the day starts, the water's gone glass-still, the tide's out, the caves are wide open, and there is not one other person standing where you could be standing — sea lions on the rocks, the light coming in low and gold. By ten it's a circus: full lot, a hundred tourists, a wait for everything. At seven it's the edge of the country and you. Those are your people, the handful already down there — the ones who got up, not the ones who did La Jolla at noon in a crowd. The whole cost is an hour of sleep you'll never miss and can't remember. And a beach is a beach only holds because you've never seen this one — not the real one, not the empty one. In three hours it's gone: same cove, different place entirely. Go have San Diego to yourself for an hour, or sleep through it like every other Saturday. Go.

This is about the Mercato. Saturday morning, right now, India Street is closed to cars and the whole neighborhood is out in it — flowers going by under someone's arm, coffee steaming, three languages crossing in one breath, somebody's grandmother arguing over tomatoes like it's a sport. It's the one morning a week San Diego stops being a pile of people and acts like a town. Those are your people — not because you know them, because they did the thing you're deciding against: got up and went where the people are. You'll say you don't need groceries. You're not going for groceries. You're going because being around people with nowhere to be on a Saturday is a thing you can't buy and can't make at home, and it's exactly what you're short on. And it's over at noon. Coffee in your hand, twelve minutes out, the whole neighborhood already in the street. Go be part of the town for a morning. Go.

This is about the Zoo — the real one, not the one in your head. The one in your head is eight years old, July, noon, a mob, your feet hurt. That's why you keep skipping it. Go at opening instead: the canyons cool and shaded, the paths nearly empty, the animals actually up because it's the only civilized hour of their day too. A hundred acres climbing the hillside, and for the first hour it's almost yours. Your people here are the early ones — the few who know the secret isn't the Zoo, it's the Zoo before the crowd, when it stops being a field trip and turns back into the thing you loved before you decided you were too old for it. You didn't outgrow this place. You just never did the good version. It costs a ticket and an alarm, and an hour from now the strollers land and it's done till tomorrow. Go do the version nobody told you about. Go.

This is about Balboa Park. It's the middle of the afternoon and 1,200 acres are just sitting there — Spanish towers, jacaranda going purple overhead, seventeen museums, gardens you couldn't finish in a week, and on a Sunday an organ playing free to whoever wanders close. You don't need a ticket for most of it, and you don't need a plan at all — that's the part that trips you up. You keep waiting for a reason, and Balboa is the one place in the city that punishes having one. It's built for the aimless afternoon: you show up with nothing and let it take the day apart for you. Your people there are the wanderers, the ones who understood no plan was the invitation. The errands will still be there tomorrow. This exact light through these exact trees won't be. It's the soul of the city and it's free to walk into. Go get lost in it. Go.

This is about the Midway. You've driven past it on Harbor Drive a hundred times — the gray wall of it, bigger than the buildings behind it — and never once gone in. That's the whole problem. A ship like this does not happen from a car window. You have to stand on the flight deck, three city blocks of steel under your feet, the jets parked at the bow where they used to scream off into the Pacific, the wind carrying eighty years of men who shipped out from right here. Your people on it aren't military buffs — they're people who wanted to feel something at a scale nothing else in the city delivers, and got it. You don't have to care about the Navy. You just have to stand on a thing this big, once, and let it work on you. It's quieter up there than you'd think, and it stays with you longer. An hour, right there on the water, where it's been the whole time. Stop driving past it. Go.

This is about Sunset Cliffs. In about forty minutes the sun goes down over Point Loma, and you can watch it through your window like you do every night — which is exactly why you never actually watch it. Free makes it worthless to you. Or you drive out to the raw edge of the country: no railing, no ticket, no line, just the drop and the water and a scattering of strangers who all came for the same thing and go dead silent at the same second the light lets go. Those are your people — the quiet crowd on the cliffs who decided a sunset was worth leaving the house for. It happens once. Tonight's sky does its exact thing one time and never repeats it, and I'll catch the next one is how you catch none of them. You've got just enough time if you leave now. So leave now. Go stand at the end of the country and watch it go quiet. Go.

This is about downtown when the Padres are home. Right now, if there's a game, the whole East Village is about to detonate — the last out lands and forty thousand people pour out of Petco into the Gaslamp, and six blocks turn into one loud, spilling, everybody-out night. Here's the part you're using as an excuse: you don't need a ticket, you never had to see an inning. You just have to be downtown when it lets out and let the crowd carry you. Those are your people — forty thousand of them, all deciding at the same moment the night's not over. You could be home, or you could be in the middle of the most alive stretch of the city, on a night it only does this when the team's in town. It's happening right now, and it's free to walk into. Go stand in it. Go.

This is about Convoy. It's late and you're eyeing the fridge, about to settle for something sad and call it dinner. Fifteen minutes north there's a whole district that doesn't even wake up until this hour — Kearny Mesa, the real Asia-town: Sichuan, Korean BBQ, Vietnamese, bubble tea past midnight, kitchens full of people who, like you, weren't ready to let the night end. The signs are on, the tables are full, and nobody there thinks it's too late, because it isn't. Those are your people — the ones who know the best meal in the city is the one you have to stay up for. You're not choosing between effort and comfort. You're choosing between a sad plate at home you'll forget by morning and a loud, late, real dinner you'll want to do again. It's better right now than at any other hour. Get in the car hungry. Go.