San Diego Geography
When most people think of San Diego they are typically thinking of San Diego County. San Diego proper, the actual city, excludes a lot of places that many consider to be “San Diego”. Coronado, Del Mar, and Solana Beach are not part of the city of San Diego. Escondido, Poway, and El Cajon are not part of the city of San Diego. La Mesa, Imperial Beach, and Chula Vista are not part of the city of San Diego. Yet most people in those neighborhoods would be fine with saying they live in San Diego.
So for our purposes, San Diego includes all of these places – all of San Diego County, as well as many places that you can get to with just a short drive out of the city – west to Mount Laguna and Anza Borrego State Park, south to Baja Mexico, north to Oceanside.
We tend to lump a few areas together outside of San Diego proper. As follows:
North County: refers to Del Mar and the beach towns north of this (Solana Beach, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Oceanside), as well as Escondido.
East County: refers to La Mesa and everything east of this (El Cajon, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley, Santee, Ramona, Lakeside, Alpine).
South Bay: refers to National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, all the way south to the Mexico border
San Diego Neighborhood Guide
La Jolla: A wealthy beach town which also includes UCSD campus, University City, Torrey Pines, and Bird Rock
PB/Mission Beach/Mission Bay: PB (Pacific Beach) is a straight up party. Think twenty year olds drinking at beach bars and non-beach bars. It bleeds south into Mission Beach which is where Belmont Park is located. Both border and include Mission Bay.
OB: A beach town stuck in some sort of time warp. Kind of grimy, kind of charming. Borders Point Loma which is more conservative and rich. Also borders Sunset Cliffs which is much, much more rich.
Clairemont/Kearny Mesa/Linda Vista: Group of neighborhoods where the best Asian restaurants are located among strip malls, car dealerships, and various housing developments. Not walkable.
University Heights/North Park/South Park/Golden Hill: Neighborhoods surrounding Balboa Park with lots of post-college folks, young families, and trendy bars, restaurants, and coffee shops.
Normal Heights/City Heights: More diverse with an artsy feel and still a more affordable and community vibe.
Hillcrest/Bankers Hill: The gayborhood of San Diego – wild night life and good restaurants. Bleeds into Bankers Hill to the south.
Old Town/Mission Hills: Old Town is the historic heart of San Diego. Mission Hills is the wealthy neighborhood sitting on the hill looking down on the rest of the city with several quaint restaurants and shops scattered about.
Coronado: Wealthy neighborhood that has placed itself a bridge away from the rest of San Diego. On purpose. Includes a large naval base and Silver Strand State Beach.
Little Italy: Trendy neighborhood where you cannot throw a rock without hitting a new restaurant or entertainment establishment. Retains some of its historic charm from the old tuna fishing days.
Downtown San Diego (Gaslamp/East Village/Seaport): The main tourist district of San Diego. Includes numerous restaurants, late night bars, clubs, historic theaters, the Embarcadero, Petco Park, the Convention Center, and lots and lots of hotels.
Barrio Logan: Historic Mexican-American neighborhood with a walkable business district with bars, restaurants, and shopping, as well as Chicano Park.
San Diego Transportation
Most parts of San Diego are quite spread out. The neighborhoods around Balboa Park stretching all the way south to Downtown is ostensibly a walkable grid, but even in this more dense part of the city walking can be a task. Most people in San Diego get around by car, but know that parking can be a hassle in the busier neighborhoods, such as Downtown and Little Italy. There is a reliable and clean trolley that runs a few routes in the city and hits a lot of the bigger destinations so taking this whenever feasible is a great idea. If you’re adventurous the buses in San Diego are legit and go literally everywhere. You just have to know how to read a bus schedule.
Here are your options for getting around:
Drive/Rideshare
Driving is how most people get around San Diego. The city was built for cars, as was most of California, so people visiting from east coast cities might want to take this into account. There are few places you go in San Diego without getting on a highway at some point.
NORTH SOUTH TRAFFIC
The north-south commute is as follows: traffic goes north in the morning and south in the afternoon. We would recommend you do not get caught going north on weekdays between 7:30 and 9:30 am and not going south between 3:00 and 7:00 pm. If you can’t avoid it – add 30 minutes to your drive.
The major north-south highways in San Diego are the 5, the 805, and the 15. The 5 and 805 run essentially parallel and are interchangeable – one runs west of Balboa Park and one runs east, then the reconnect. The 15 branches of the 805 and heads more east as you go north – serving Escondido, Temecula, and eventually heading into the Inland Empire around Riverside County.
EAST WEST TRAFFIC
The east-west commute is as follows: traffic goes west in the morning and east in the afternoon. We would recommend you do not get caught going west between 7:30 and 9:30 am and not going east between 3:00 and 7:00 pm. If you can’t avoid it – add 30 minutes to your drive.
The major east-west highway is the 8. It drives through Mission Valley and deposits you to Mission Bay with the option of heading to OB or Mission Beach/PB.
PARKING
Parking in Little Italy, Seaport, Gaslamp, and East Village can be rough – take an Uber to these places if possible. The farther you get from downtown the better parking is, so it is less of a risk to just drive into these neighborhoods. Obviously the beach in the summertime and things of this nature are considerations, but you don’t need us to tell you that.
Trolley
There are three lines to the San Diego trolley – the Blue Line, Green Line, and Orange Line. One weekdays, the trolleys run every 7-8 minutes during extended business hours (6am to 8pm) then every 15 minutes until around midnight or 1am. On weekends the trolleys are about every 15 minutes. This is a reliable and quick way to get around the city, you just have to be going somewhere that the trolley serves, which is unfortunately relatively few places except for downtown San Diego.
Check the schedule and plan your trip on the trolley here.
Blue Line
The Blue Line is probably the most useful of the trolley lines, particularly for those visiting the city. It runs north and south closest to the coast – starting at the UTC Mall in University City on the northern end and ending at the San Ysidro Border Crossing to Tijuana in the south.
The Blue Line hits lots of good locations in San Diego including the UCSD Campus, Old Town, Little Italy, Downtown, East Village, Petco Park, and Barrio Logan. We’d recommend taking it to any of these locations if you can, as parking at any of them can be difficult.
The Blue Line is also a great option for getting to the Tijuana border at San Ysidro – the busiest border crossing on earth. Walk across to Tijuana and get a cab from there if you plan on staying anywhere Rosarito or north.
Green Line
The Green Line travels from east to west from La Mesa through Mission Valley, then turns south to head downtown. The Green Line is a good option for folks staying at a hotel in Mission Valley as it passes through there. If your stops are in Mission Valley – SDSU, Snapdragon Stadium, or Fashion Valley Mall – this is a good option. It also takes you closer to Seaport and the Convention Center than any other line. The Green Line stops at Petco Park (12th and Imperial).
Orange Line
The Orange Line is probably the least useful for folks visiting San Diego, as it is mostly a commuter line, and does not pass through many of the more touristy centers of San Diego. It leads from El Cajon in the east to downtown San Diego. The Orange Line does pass through the heart of La Mesa which has a cute downtown area for walking around.
Bus
San Diego does have an extensive bus system if you are coordinated enough to use it. The place is all served by roads and there is almost nowhere in the city that you can’t get to by bus. We are not even going to start in on the bus lines and where they go. The best way to figure out how to use the bus is to use the MTS Trip Planner service.
Bicycle/Scooter
San Diego is becoming a bike friendly city, but it still has a little ways to go. In the neighborhoods near Balboa Park, all the way to Downtown, Little Italy, and Seaport, there are extensive networks of bike lanes that allow for bike commuting. There are also longer bike paths going out to the coast – to OB, Mission Bay, and even up to La Jolla.
There are also electric scooters to use around San Diego, but we would only recommend these for very short trips within the same neighborhood as, for one, there are increasingly more scooter accidents these days because people are not used to them, and two, there are lots and lots of dead zones for these scooters so you may find yourself lugging a scooter several blocks to get back to a legal area to ride.
Our Final Suggestion
The reality is you will probably have to drive most places in San Diego, outside of the downtown areas. Check the prices and see if an Uber makes sense. The trolley is a great addition to San Diego and we use it as much as possible, especially in going downtown for bigger events like Padres games. San Diego is not yet the bike friendly city it wants to be, but if you are staying in the neighborhoods and only traveling a few blocks away biking is a great option.
