So What Do San Diegans Do for Leisure & Fun? (San Diego: rent, how much)

[IsSD4Me?]

We read all the time about the wonderful weather in San Diego...so I have a two-part question:

1) Do you San Diegans get to enjoy it much? Or is there too much traffic, too many crowds, and too little time and money leftover after paying for essentials to enjoy the outdoors much?

2) What are activities that you (the replier) do frequently, if you manage to get out and have fun or relax and enjoy some leisure time? What do those activities cost?

Thank you for all the excellent feedback you give to those considering moving to your area!

[bloom]

1. No. No.
2. Walk, hike, swim, go to parks. No significant direct cost.

[earlyretirement]

1) Absolutely we get to enjoy it. All of my friends really enjoy it tremendously. Traffic isn't too bad for a major metropolitan city (this has been discussed on many threads). San Diego is very spread out so it doesn't feel too crowded. While some people do work a ton, most people I know definitely get to enjoy the great weather, outdoors, etc.

Some of the best things don't cost a penny here. It doesn't cost anything to walk on the beach, go hiking, many parks, etc.

2) As bloom mentioned, tons of great hiking, swimming in the ocean (admittedly it does get cold but nice in the summer), many parks are free or very low cost, walking on the beach and enjoying a gorgeous sunset. These things are really priceless and don't cost anything at all.

If you have kids there is TONS to do with many great parks. You can get San Diego Zoo annual passes which are affordable and tax deductible and allows visits to the Safari Park in Escondido as well as the Zoo. We go several times each year to both.

If you feel like a drive, you can drive to a number of different places which are all affordable. Things as simple as going to go pick apples at an Apple Orchard in Julian are a nice drive and totally different vs. San Diego.

If you are lucky enough to live near the beach you can easily go a few times a week. I typically at least walk by the beach or play in the park with my kids at the beach at least 2 or 3 times each week.

San Diego is a pretty incredible city to live in.

[Fran66]

Balboa Park, which is phenomenal. Museums are free to residents on Tuesdays, on a rotating basis; in other words, not every museum is free every Tuesday but one or two are. Also concerts are held in The Pavilion in BP, mostly during the summer. Organ Pavilion Stage | Balboa Park Balboa Park | A landscape of Arts and Culture

Upstart Crow, which is a unique book store and has live entertainment (mainly on Saturday nights, I think). Upstart Crow

Lots of concerts. Best San Diego Concert Venues | Reviews of Concert Venues in San Diego, CA

Seaport Village San Diego Shopping, Restaurants, Entertainment | Seaport Village During the summer, there is outdoor entertainment, which is free. Buy yourself a cup of coffee or ice tea, and just walk around.

The Presidio -- Presidio of San Diego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Little Italy! Little Italy Association of San Diego

Here's a good starting point: Find Things to Do in San Diego | Activities, Attractions, Tours & More

You could easily live in SD all your life and never get bored. As for expense, it depends on your income and how much you want to spend on entertainment that is not free. The beach is always free (except for parking in some areas) and always phenomenal, especially in the early morning and late evening.

As for traffic -- you'll get used to it and learn how to maneuver in it, through it and around it.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Shooting various small animals and eating them. It keeps the food bill down. The usual gas bill and boolits are pricey right now if you can find at all.

[sav858]

Since when does it cost money to enjoy the outdoors?

I loved going to the beach in SD and it was free ovbiously. During summer I would go after work sometimes, swim in the ocean, lay out, and wait for traffic to die down before I drove back down to PB from North County. Nothing beats enjoying the beach after work while skipping rush hour traffic.

[Jenkay]

Originally Posted by IsSD4Me?

We read all the time about the wonderful weather in San Diego...so I have a two-part question:

1) Do you San Diegans get to enjoy it much? Or is there too much traffic, too many crowds, and too little time and money leftover after paying for essentials to enjoy the outdoors much?

2) What are activities that you (the replier) do frequently, if you manage to get out and have fun or relax and enjoy some leisure time? What do those activities cost?

Thank you for all the excellent feedback you give to those considering moving to your area!

1) There's only traffic for like an hour in the morning and an hour in the evenings, during rush hour, and only on certain freeways heading in certain directions. Easy to avoid, never been a factor in pretty much anything ever, since it's so predictable (barring a big accident or something) and easy to avoid. Crowds? what? the beach can get crowded on a hot summer day, and sometimes it'll be a little bit harder to find parking in Balboa Park, but again, not really an issue except on certain holidays, but again, very predictable and easy to avoid. Time? if you work a normal job you have just as much time as anyone else anywhere. As for money, I don't have much, but:

2) I hike at least three times a week at places like Mission Trails, Daley Ranch, Mt Woodson, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, Torrey Pines, Laguna Mountain (just to name a fraction of our open space recreational areas), After work and on my days off. During the summer I also bodysurf and snorkel after work and on the weekends. I ride my bike a lot, both for recreation and to run errands and such. I also enjoy our burgeoning craft beer scene, which is really the only one of my more frequent activities that costs anything.

[earlyretirement]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention bicycling. Jenkay brings up a good point about that. I ride my bike a few times a week. There are all sorts of places to ride your bike here. Also, they have GREAT places like Miramar Lake that you can ride your big, run/job around a beautiful lake. We go there on the weekends with the kids and ride our bikes and we'll bring some bread and our kids get a kick out of feeding the ducks bread after a bike ride.

Places like this are totally free.

And I totally agree about the traffic. It's really not that bad here for a major city. There was another post where a poster made a big deal about the traffic but really it's not bad here compared to other major cities. As Jenkay mentioned, you can typically avoid it and it's predictable for the most part. NOTHING nearly as bad as many other cities where there seems to be traffic ALL day EVERY day.

[Think4Yourself]

Hike, fish, go to the beach, go to a bar with friends, go to an art gallery, take a class on something artsy (I took one on pottery and glazing which was nice), visit a farmers market, go to the park, play video games (either at home or at a place like Dave & Busters), write, surf the net, tend my garden, take the dog for a walk. I'm sure there is more but I can't think of them right now.

Edit: I forgot, go to a play at one of the many play houses, go to the symphony, go to the movies (there are many great ones), listen to a concert, go to a museum in Balboa Park (they're free on the first Tuesday of each month), in the summer time watch Pops at the Park (a cultural event held in many city parks with live music and sometimes even free public movies with an educational bent), during the summer go to the free Silent Movie Night at the Sprickles Organ Pavilion, rent a boat and go sailing, go whale watching, go deep sea fishing, try to catch lobsters with a hoop net, snorkle in the La Jolla Marine Park and explore the sea caves, go to the local mountains and enjoy the dense forests and high sierra like environment, go dune buggying out in the desert, pan for gold in Julian, go wine tasting in one of the county's two AVA regions or drive 45 minutes north to the Temecula AVA, taste the craft beer as San Diego is rated America's #1 beer city, go across the border to Tijuana for fine food & fun, run in a marathon, do the annual Camp Pendleton Mud Run, ride a bike on the boardwalk or hit a mountain trail, go surfing, go skying at Big Bear (you can sky in the morning and surf in the afternoon), go camping in dozens and dozens of locations, enjoy the best bass fishing in the country in the many reservoirs here, watch a steelhead run on San Mateo Creek, go cheese tasting from locally produced cheeses, there are more restaurants then you could ever try in a life time, and god knows what else.

It's really up to you because there is simply more to do here than any other place I've ever been with the exception of NYC or London and even though San Diego is much smaller than those two it has a lot more open space to do outdoor stuff even while punching above its weight class in cultural events. As far as I'm concerned there just isn't a better place to live in the world.

[Think4Yourself]

I also love to do cooking classes at local stores and restaurants. Tommy from Catalina Offshore Products, who has worked there since the place has opened 20-30 years ago, not only will sell you the freshest local sea food for the lowest prices (virtually every sushi and sea food place in town uses Catalina for their seafood) but they also have a test kitchen where they'll let local chefs try different things plus they have regular free classes where they'll show people fast but delicious recipes for most of the region's native sea life.

I saw him do something like this with the local spot prawns (caught off La Jolla that same day)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KJ8Tex0XfM] and quickly decided they were the best shrimp/prawns I'd ever had any where in North America, Europe, or Asia. Catalina Offshore is like a treasure trove of all things sea food related especially the uncommon stuff or extremely high quality stuff. If you get a chance to go to one of their free cooking classes then go because they're great.