San Diego: A Curious Kid’s Destination
The end of this month marks a full year of getting to work on the Tourism Stewardship Plan for San Diego. It’s been an incredible twelve months getting to engage with industry stakeholders across the destination – hotel and restaurant managers, economic development officers across the County, and marketing professionals at major museums and attractions – and hearing from them about market challenges they face (labor supply and costs, permitting and regulations, and the list goes on) and the opportunities they see for growth and diversification within the market.
If you’ve never heard of a tourism plan, well quite simply it’s a strategic document that outlines goals, policies, and key actions that will guide the development, management, and promotion of tourism for any destination. Most importantly, a tourism stewardship plan is intended to help ensure a destination remains at the forefront of traveler preferences while maintaining its sustainability for both visitors and locals alike.
While I’ve had the privilege of traveling to San Diego a number of times throughout the past year to work on the tourism stewardship plan, the family hadn’t. So, I thought it was time to finally take them on a quick getaway to experience all the stunning sights and experiences that the destination had to offer.
As any parent will know, traveling with a toddler can be challenging but as we discovered, San Diego made it incredibly easy. And if it was as much fun as it was for a family of three, imagine how much cooler it is for literally anyone else.
Here are five reasons why San Diego should make your travel list from a very biased source:
Hotel and lodging options in the market are so diverse.
We were spoilt for choice – especially during Kids Free October. For a family travelling with a toddler, we typically search for anything but a tiny hotel room. In urban destinations, Airbnb normally works out best because we can filter out homes with cribs/highchairs or kid-friendly amenities. And while we did look at the wide range of Airbnb options (Note: there has been significant growth in the short-term rental supply since 2015. Available short-term rental room nights increased from slightly more than 500,000 in 2015 to more than 4.3 million in 2022.), this time we chose to go with one of the many cost-efficient hotel-experience packages available through the San Diego Tourism Authority. More specifically, we picked an all-inclusive resort option by the beach because we wanted to maximize time on a beach while on vacation. We are, afterall, a Northeast family that goes nearly an entire year without running our toes through sand so having a lodging option with beach access was the icing on the cake.
San Diego is more than the sum of its beaches – it’s a mosaic of cultures and experiences.
Yes, we enjoyed spending every evening along Mission Beach but most of our days were spent across a variety of attractions available throughout the region. We knocked out all the obvious must-do’s for families like Legoland and the Safari Park (and zoo) but we also explored the museums in Balboa Park, the city’s cultural crown jewel. As a younger adult traveler, I had had the opportunity to appreciate the Japanese Garden and the Museum of Art many years ago. So, visiting Balboa Park with a toddler was an entirely new experience and yet we still spent a whole afternoon there hopping from the open space areas to the Air & Space Museum and the Automotive Museum. On our last day, we headed downtown to explore the Gaslamp Quarter weekend markets and check out the new Children’s Park by The New Children’s Museum and Convention Center. Needless to say, there was plenty to do in the destination beyond the coast that sparked our little one’s creativity and ran them tired.
Diverse ecology and an outdoor adventurer’s playground.
Most people who are aware of San Diego as tourism destination might probably know it for outdoor recreation experiences on Coronado Beach, Mission Beach, or Ocean Beach. However, the reality is that San Diego has a wealth of natural resources that extend beyond the coast - from valley to the mountain and desert. The Safari Park that we visited, for instance, sits in the San Pasquale valley and allowed our family to enjoy the different landscapes of San Diego. On our way back into the city, we hopped out to grab fresh strawberries and check out one of the many farms in the region. It is clear that over the next decade, San Diego will need to leverage this significant opportunity to build on its identity as an outdoor recreation and adventure destination by diversifying the visitor’s experience of the local ecology in areas beyond the coast – particularly as we think about the natural carrying capacity of the beaches that continue to face flooding and erosion issues.
San Diegans are generally laidback but when it comes to food, they’re serious. The destination offers top tier culinary experiences across its neighborhoods.
Fortunately for us, our toddler mostly eats regular people food. This blessing gave us the opportunity to enjoy the top-tier culinary offerings in neighborhoods like North Park, Barrio Logan, Old Town, and Convoy. From made-to-order donuts at Copper Top Coffee & Donuts and fresh handmade supermarket ramen in Convoy Cultural District to the crispiest, juiciest smash burgers at The Friendly Tavern and traditional Indonesian street food in Barrio Logan, we were able to taste the real flavors of the diverse communities of San Diego and were so appreciative we could share this experience as a family.
San Diego may be a large destination but it’s incredibly accessible.
For travelers from urban cities (like us!) who are most familiar with getting around by public transit or walking, unfortunately, San Diego is still working hard at making better multi-modal connections across the destination. The car therefore remains the most convenient way to travel for groups of 3+ and especially for groups with travelers of different abilities. As a family, we wanted to limit our environmental impact, so we went with a compact, all-electric vehicle, and it was surprisingly an easy mode of travel. We found charging stations at all the major attractions we visited and even in parking garages/lots in and around destination neighborhoods we ventured out to.
From California’s Beach City to a Cultural Hub that Welcomes the World
While San Diego’s stunning coastline, centrally located convention center, and mild climate may have drawn visitors to its shores for decades, it’s clear from our recent trip as a family that San Diego is a destination beyond the beach. And that’s exactly the strategic positioning that the destination is taking with its forthcoming Tourism Stewardship Plan. The strategy urges the destination to embrace a broader, more nuanced vision of the destination’s identity – one that showcases San Diego for what it is: a vibrant mosaic of cultures and experiences that extend far beyond what people already know.
If you’re interested, click here to read the draft tourism stewardship plan that addresses gaps in the market, including low-impact mobility and connectivity between destination neighborhoods, building on the cultural fabric of the city, and diversifying outdoor experiences across the region’s myriad natural assets. And if your destination is looking for guidance on strategic planning, get in touch!
