🥾 Outdoors: Just south of the tiny beach town Del Mar, there’s a massive, 2000-acre coastal state park that’s the lone home to the Torrey Pine (the rarest pine in North America!), wildlife like bobcats and coyotes, fragrant coastal chaparral, and some of the most mind-blowing views in all of Southern California. Park at the top of the state reserve and hike your way down to the beach; pack a burrito and your bathing suit for a triumphant, sweaty plunge into the Pacific Ocean.

🥾 Outdoors: If you’re a fan of intertidal coastal wetlands (*raises hand*), then this sprawling, 1,500-acre estuary, at the mouth of the Tijuana River, is for you. It’s located right on the border of Mexico, in Imperial Beach, the most southwesterly city in the continental U.S. The bird watching is robust, the trails are wide and well maintained, and the salty Pacific Ocean air keeps things refreshing and cool. The Visitor Center is free and great for kids.

🥾 Outdoors: For one of the finest examples of SD’s iconic "coastal scrub" landscapes, look no further. There are over 12 miles of winding, mostly flat trails, taking you through grassy hillsides, flat mesa tops, trickling stream corridors, and even a waterfall cascading through volcanic rock. Walk slowly and take in the swaying wild fennel, the curling vines of coyote melons, and, in the spring, the hills bursting with blooming chaparral. Forget palm trees—this is the real San Diego flora.

🥾 Outdoors: San Diego is famous for its easygoing, mild climate, which means that anything and everything grows and flourishes at the exceptional botanic garden in Encinitas. You could get lost here, and I have; wander around the native plant fields (you’ll smell the rare coastal sage scrub before you notice it), the swaying bamboo grove (the largest living collection of bamboo in North America!), and the tropical fruiting tree orchard (with every kind of citrus you can imagine).

🍽️ Restaurants: This small restaurant is relatively new to the bursting Asian food district in Kearny Mesa, and it’s now one of my favorites, too. They’ll ask you to assign a number between 1 and 10 for every dish you order, in accordance with your heat tolerance. The sai oua (thumb-sized, deep-fried pork sausages), tom kha (galangal-scented coconut soup), and the nam khao (crispy rice and herb salad), are incredibly delicious and reviving no matter what number you can handle.

🍽️ Restaurants: It’s a fool’s errand naming the definitive spot for ordering a California-style burrito, which comes stuffed with an only-in-San-Diego blend of chopped carne asada, guacamole, cheese, pico de gallo, and french fries. I’m partial to La Perla (there are three locations; the Grand Ave outpost is my preference), where the flour tortillas are just the right balance of blistered and chewy, and the salsas are fresh and hot. They have a great variety of breakfast burritos, too.

🍽️ Restaurants: If Guy Fieri loves it, then you know it’ll be good. This Fieri-endorsed, family-run restaurant, tucked into a strip mall on El Cajon Blvd, makes some of the best Lebanese food in the city. They specialize in oven-baked flatbreads, or bajeen (don’t miss the intensely lemon spinach pie, which comes dusted in sumac), but everything is amazing and made from scratch—including their house-made yogurt, garlicky fava beans, and baked lamb spooned over rice.

🍽️ Restaurants: It was hard to come by a restaurant in San Diego that gave me that “big city” glam of great restaurants in NYC—until I ate at Callie. The chef, Travis Swikard, cooked with Daniel Boulud for years, and he brings that continental palate and rarified technique to dishes that feel more Mediterranean and easygoing. He has a thing for local seafood—order anything with local uni or line-caught fish and you’ll know what I mean. And if it’s spiny lobster season, you know what to do.

🍽️ Restaurants: If one has hiked Escondido’s Elfin Forest all morning and one is consumed with a hunger that feels bottomless, then one should drive immediately to Esperanza’s, a tortilla factory buttressed by a tiny but mighty grocery-butcher-taqueria heaven. The back counter serves up creamy bean-and-cheese burritos, crunchy rolled tacos, bowls of menudo, and more—all made with their in-house flour and corn tortillas, of course. Don’t forget to stock up on their jarred moles and marinades.

🍽️ Restaurants: I’m so jealous of everyone who lives within walking distance of this cozy, ocean-facing bakery, in the Windansea Beach stretch of La Jolla. The bungalow is draped in passion fruit vines and surrounded by vining watermelons and squash; inside, you’ll want to feast on flawless croissants oozing with ham and cheese, crisp-chewy baguettes, fluffy English muffins, and seeded sourdough loaves.