There are so many places in California that I have been told about and would love to visit one day. I have been lucky enough to go to San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco so have put together my top 10 favourite things to do across these three cities, starting with one of my FAVOURITE places in the whole of America, San Diego!
1. SAN DIEGO, CORONADO ISLAND – My dream is to live on this island one day… The journey itself over to it is just breath taking! The views are amazing. There is a famous hotel on the island (Hotel Del Coronado), beautiful beaches, places to eat, and lots of pretty houses to look at. You MUST visit Coronado island if you go to San Diego.
2. SAN DIEGO, MISSION BAY – I cannot explain how beautiful Mission Bay is! It is just so so pretty. It is surrounded by luxury houses and hotels, sailing boats, people doing water sports, Bonita Cove Park is very close by which is also beautiful, and there is a small theme park between Mission Bay and Mission Beach. It is a great place to spend the whole day.
3. SAN DIEGO, SAN DIEGO BAY – Home to one of the largest bases for the United States Navy, San Diego Bay is so picturesque. I think I spent a whole morning just walking up and down, taking pictures and enjoying the gorgeous view!
4. SAN DIEGO, SEAL BOAT TRIP – We got told a lot about the history of San Diego and the importance of the military whilst driving through the streets of San Diego. We then went into the water where we got to see the navy ships, and of course you get to see all the seals!
5. SAN FRAN, Alcatraz Tour – Embarrassingly I had not heard of Alcatraz before visiting San Fran, but I still really enjoyed the tour and found it very interesting! You have to catch the boat from Fishermans Warf (which is so pretty!) and are free to walk around the island at your own pace, listening to the tour through headphones.
6. SAN FRAN, CITY OF SAUSALITO – We took the city’s tour bus over the Golden Gate Bridge which took us to the stunning city of Sausalito. The houses and views here were amazing! I 100% recommend doing the city tour buses in any place you are visiting for the first time. It is such a cheap and great way to see what is around the city, recommend spots to visit, good places to eat etc.
7. SAN FRAN, LOMBARD STREET – The famous steep, curvy road where you get a great view of the Oakland Bay Bridge!
8. LA, WARNER BROS. STUDIO – You cannot go to LA without doing a studio tour we chose to go to Warner Brothers Studio where they filmed many well known things like The Big Bang Theory (we got to see the set they were filming on at the time!), Batman (we got to see the Batmobile), Harry Potter, Pretty Little Liars, Gilmore Girls, Ellen and of course FRIENDS! As they no longer film Friends, they put all of the furniture used in the Central Perk Cafe set into a smaller room so that tourists were able to have a look around and sit on the sofa!
9. LA, TOUR BUS – Like typical tourists, we went on numerous private tours including tours of celebrity houses in Beverly Hills, a tour of the Hollywood Hills and the celebs who live there, and a tour which took us all the way along Malibu beach where we got to see amazing houses including Beyonce’s house. Although I am cringing writing this, I actually really enjoyed seeing where all these people live and all their luxury mansions. Sadly however, we did not see any celebs…
10. LA, THE GROVE – We only discovered The Grove because our hotel was right by CBS studios, which is just around the corner from the Farmers Market and The Grove. It is a really nice area which has loads of well known shops (A&F, Nike, Apple), The Cheese Cake Factory, a supermarket, pretty fountains, a massive sweet shop, and a car park filled with insanely expensive cars!
Thanks for reading! I would love to hear of any other recommendations of things to do in California, as I definitely plan on visiting again very soon!
Sophie :)