One of the most common features of our blog will be what we call ‘The Combination’: a look at what we consider to be three of the best things to do in a city – to help “unlock” the best experience possible for a traveler. Where to stay, where to eat, and what to do – the three essentials of a destination. That doesn’t mean these are the only things to do, and in fact, we hope to come up with multiple combinations for places that we visit more than once. But if you’re going to a place for a single visit, we hope these lists will provide you with a few surefire essentials that will make your trip spectacular. For our first ‘Combination’ style travel guide, we wanted to showcase San Diego, California!
Our trip to San Diego was a quick one. Karen had a conference that I (Dallas) was able to tag along for, which meant that even though we didn’t have a ton of time, I was able to spend all of my free time exploring (with Karen joining when she could!) At first glance, San Diego seems like a town perfectly suited for conferences like this – tons of things within walking distance of the convention center, namely in an area called the Gaslamp District. As we explored, though, we found that there was a lot more to the city than our first impressions; so, even though this list is our top three things, there’s a ton more to do in the city – these are some of the basics that we thought could make a trip particularly great!
Where To Stay: The Pendry, San Diego
One thing you’ll get to know about us is that we’ve become particularly picky when it comes to hotels throughout our travelling experiences. That doesn’t mean that we look down others who stay in certain places (on the contrary – we can always appreciate a solid deal on Expedia or another similar site), but it does mean that when we stay somewhere, we’re going judge it like crazy. It’s not the feature we’re most proud of, but it does make for some detailed reviews of the hotels we stay in – something that can hopefully help with your own trip planning!
For this trip, neither of us had ever been to San Diego before, so we really had no initial preference in where we would stay. As a result, we began with the conference-recommended hotels, and would stray from that list if we needed to; however, we ultimately found that there was no need for that. Looking through the photos online, we ultimately decided to stay at The Pendry, a newer hotel that had recently opened within walking distance of the San Diego Convention Center that was one of the preferred hotels of the conference.
That’s the way travel seems to work for us: with only a bit of online research, we somehow seem to stumble into something that will turn into an all-time favorite experience. The Pendry became just that – one of (if not our absolute) favorite hotel(s). Although there are a number of advantages in staying in a historic hotel, it’s also difficult to beat staying in brand new hotel. Everything is noticeably clean, with new furniture and amenities, almost as if everything has the hotel equivalent of new car smell. When checking in, we were greeted with their fresh fruit juice concoction of the day; however, that wasn’t the best part. As we sipped on the juice, the front desk agent gave us the day’s “password,” which allowed us to take our glass of juice to the bar and have it spiked with rum! To this day, I think that may have been the most unique feature in a hotel I’ve ever seen.
We stayed in what Pendry labels a ‘Grand Room’ – a room type that has a living space apart from the bedroom portion. There are several features that we loved, particularly the comfortable couches and seating options, the spacious layout, and most of all, the absolutely huge shower. Even though the Pendry isn’t a large scale brand like other hotels (at the time they only had two in the United States, and have only added two more to their portfolio since then), the hotel clearly went out of the their way to compete with even the best hotels in San Diego. We loved everything about our stay with them – the location was perfectly central to the Gaslamp District, within walking distance to the Convention Center, and the overall luxury experience of the hotel was one of the best we’ve ever seen.
Where To Eat: Bencotto Italian Kitchen
The biggest surprise we found in San Diego? Hand-made pasta. As we planned our trip, I expected certain things when it came to eating: fish, tacos, fish tacos. Having never been to San Diego, though, we relied on locals’ recommendations for where we chose to eat. To our surprise, the common theme in recommendations was to try the Little Italy area of the city. We ate at several different restaurants throughout our trip – luckily, all were delicious – but the restaurant that stood out above the rest was Bencotto Italian Kitchen.
The menu seemed to be the perfect combination of extremely well-executed Italian with touches that were unique to San Diego. To say that one dish was the “star” of the menu wouldn’t be fair, but that’s because we both would argue that our respective dish was the best! Karen had the ‘Tortelli di Zucca,’ hand made ravioli filled with pumpkin, parmigiano and amaretto, served in creamy butter and sage sauce with crunchy bacon, and I had the ‘Tagliatelle al Nero Di Seppia,’ which consisted of hand cut black squid-ink fettuccine in a spicy pink sauce with shrimp.
The pumpkin ravioli was the perfect combination of sweet and savory, both of which were amplified by the bacon and the fresh pasta. Ever since Bencotto, Karen has ordered pumpkin pasta dishes (which sounds odd, but shows up on menus more often than you’d think), and none have even come close.
As for my fettuccini – it was one of the best pasta dishes I’ve ever had. I was hesitant about the squid aspect of the dish, but as I found out, the ink only adds color to the dish; I never noticed any additional flavor. The result was still an amazingly fresh pasta dish that also made for some pretty cool instagram pictures!
What To Do: Visit the San Diego Zoo
Is it ‘tourist-y’? Absolutely. Is it still worth going anyway? Absolutely. To start, the San Diego Zoo has polar bears, a must-have exhibit for any zoo the Keys visit. (One of my bucket-list items is seeing a polar bear in the wild, but for now, a zoo will have to do.) The San Diego Zoo is located in Balboa Park, which is where we spent a lot of our time overall. The park itself has a ton of things to do, many of them free, including several different museums. To be honest, the park is so beautiful and expansive that it’s fun to just explore on its own, but tourist-y or not, the Zoo is one of the highlights to say the least!
The San Diego Zoo was really one of the first things we heard about prior to going, and everyone that suggested it made it seem as though it was a must do activity. I was skeptical at first, but afterwards, I would agree – it’s hard to imagine a better zoo out there. There are tons of exhibits, all thorough and well-organized. It’s a bit cliche, but I actually learned a ton throughout the different exhibits, and as I left, I was a bit jealous of those San Diego-area students that got to visit the zoo for field trips. The zoo itself has really earned it’s reputation as one of the best in the world, so if you can make the time, we’d put this at the top of the the list of things to do in San Diego!
We’re not breaking any news here by saying that San Diego is an amazing place to visit. However, as two people who had never really thought about visiting San Diego (except for a work convention like this), we were genuinely surprised at how much there is to do in the city. Naive of us, sure, but it was great surprise – one that we wanted to share as one of our first blog posts. Our hope is that these three steps will provide the foundation for your great trip to San Diego, and if you aren’t sure about whether or not this is the next destination for you, you’ll surely be surprised as well!
