San Diego Travel Guide
For details of what to do and see in San Diego check out our San Diego guide to car hire in San Diego.
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Lying in the southernmost part of California, within shouting distance of the Mexican border town of Tijuana, San Diego is the quintessential American beach resort. Visitors to San Diego are instantly charmed by the laid back culture, relaxed atmosphere and great hotels that they experience in the city, along with the less crowded beaches and cleaner air than you would find in and around San Diego's northern neighbour Los Angeles.
San Diego is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state of California, a beachfront city where all the attractions of a much larger city can be found practically on your doorstep. Aside from the pleasure on offer within the city itself, San Diego's unique status as a place that practically straggles the Mexican border ensures that the town has a feel that is different to the rest of the country, and that your experience of the contrasts apparent in San Diego will remain with you for a long time.
While San Diego offers the kind of beach pleasures, luxury hotels and relaxed pace of life that one expects from California, a short drive to the south, and a few cross border checks see you entering the city of Tijuana, the Mexican border city which offers a very different kind of lifestyle to San Diego, and could in many ways be considered its polar opposite.
While north of the border you have order and wealth, in Tijuana, you experience chaos and poverty. Tijuana manages to amplify every aspect of Mexican culture to an unparalleled level. You can watch bullfights, visit brothels, and relax on a beach with a package of "herbal" remedies. Tijuana is popular with Americans because it is a million miles away from their own culture, yet just a few steps from their border.
Because of the contrasting experiences on offer in and around San Diego, it is highly recommended as the destination for a California holiday, where else in the world can you experience all that is good and bad with two separate cultures so close together: From the sanitised pleasures of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter nightlife, to the sleazy underbelly of life in the Latino world on Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana; and from the designer boutiques of Mission Beach to the bustling markets and street traders just a few miles away. Only one thing is certain in San Diego - the chance to enjoy a cross border holiday is an experience that you will never forget.
