20 Best Activities to Do When Visiting San Diego With Kids

My favorite thing about San Diego is the enormous variety of things to do! Whether you live here or are visiting for the first time, there is SO much to do with kids here. We love adventuring all over San Diego with our kids. Here are our absolute can’t miss activities if you’re new to San Diego or if you are touring visitors around!

1) The San Diego Zoo: It’s world famous for a reason, don’t miss this spot! Our favorite things to do here are: visit the reptile house, ride the sky tram (included with admission but no strollers allowed), see the polar bears, and visit the gorillas! We like to eat at Busy Bee cafe because there’s a great area for kids to run there.

2) The San Diego Safari Park: This zoo is owned by the same company as the zoo in Balboa Park. I actually prefer it over the Balboa Park zoo. It’s less crowded, a bit smaller, and you get tons of close animal encounters. Our favorite things to see here are the kangaroos and the platypus. The best part about this zoo is the Africa tram that takes you right into the animal enclosures! It hasn’t reopened yet due to COVID but it hopefully will soon.

3) Old Town San Diego: This open air state historic park showcases San Diego’s history! You’ll find tons to do with kids here including visiting the plaza where there’s lots of Mexican inspired architecture and tiling, running in the open field, watching the performers, and our boys loved the rock store! We parked near and ate at Barra Barra Saloon. They have a good kids menu and one kid eats free with a paying adult!

4) Bonita Cove Park: This is a newer park in Mission Bay. It’s right next to Belmont Park Amusement Park with all the roller coasters and the play equipment is kinda amusement park themed. They have things I’ve never seen before like a carousel swing my kids went nuts for and a roller coaster slide you can climb up and down. Plus it’s just a really nice setting right on the water and the parking is super easy. Go early in the morning because it gets crowded. This park is very popular.

5) Coronado: Ok here’s a place that can seem overwhelming with kids, but we actually love coming here. When we go we park near Panera Bread on Orange Avenue (they have clean bathrooms too!), and just kind of wander up and down Orange. We love letting our kids run in the hotel lobby and playing on the beach in front of the hotel. When I took my family here they were crazy about the stationary store Seaside Papery. There are also a ton of restaurants. A kid friendly one is Village Pizzeria. Our final activity was running the kids at Spreckel’s Park!

6) Lake Hodges Hike: I love the hills in this area of San Diego. You really feel like you’re in nature even though you are still technically in San Diego. My favorite place to enjoy this area is around Lake Hodges! When we hike Lake Hodges we start at Rancho Bernardo Community Park and take the trails by the parking lot.

It’s 18 miles around Lake Hodges but we just do a tiny portion of that with the kids. Our best tip for hiking with kids is we bring a bag of Skittles or M&Ms and give them one when they climb a big hill! It really helps keep everyone moving.

7) Kenny’s Strawberry Farm: This place is up in Fallbrook, about a 30 min drive from North County. But the drive to get up there is absolutely gorgeous. We visited the strawberry fields in Carlsbad and they were fun but Kenny’s has a real farm feel without the bells and whistles of Carlsbad, plus there were way more strawberries! Plus it’s just cool to see Fallbrook. I actually took my kids here in the morning one day and then in the afternoon my husband and I went on a date night to the Gaslamp District! That right there is why San Diego is so cool. How many cities can you visit a farm in the morning and then a thriving downtown city area at night?

8) The Gaslamp District: This is a place that kind of hard to enjoy with young kids. If you’re visiting during the day you can check out the Gaslamp museum and just walk around and enjoy the architecture and the Gaslamp sign. Late at night it has a party vibe so not really kid-friendly but we did something kind of cool there, we took a ghost tour! This would probably be for older kids, they talk a lot about how there used to be a ton of brothels back in the day. We learned a ton and the ghost guide is all dressed up and everything! We parked in a lot by Petco Stadium on 6th Street.

9) Mast Park Santee: It’s a toss up between this park and Bonita Cove for my kid’s favorite. Mast Park is out in Santee and it has this Disney feel when you pull up to it. The equipment is huge, super new, and they have the biggest slide I’ve ever seen. I even had to go down it a few times.

10) Lake Dixon: This is a place I feel like not a lot of San Diegans know about. It’s a lake in Escondido and you can actually go camping here! We went over Memorial Day. It was so amazing to camp so close to home especially since my baby refused to sleep, climbed out of his crib, and was terrorizing the tent. So we just packed up and slept at home. Lake Dixon is also open for day use. There’s a really pretty park by the lake, you can fish here, and rent paddle boats!

11) The San Diego Temple: If you’ve driven on the 5 freeway in La Jolla you’ve seen this building! It’s huge and looks like a Cinderella fairytale castle. It’s actually a temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons. Did you know you can actually tour the grounds? It’s a really pretty place to let your kids run around and it’s fun to take pictures here and admire the architecture. At Christmas they have a really pretty light and nativity display.

12) La Jolla Shores Beach: This is our favorite place for a beach day hands down. The parking lot is huge and it’s free! The lifeguards are super attentive and the huge stretch of flat sand goes on forever. Down the beach there are some cute surf shops and don’t miss the nearby Kellogg Park!

13) Moonlight State Beach Playground Encinitas: This is a recently renovated playground that’s right on the beach in Encinitas. They have a really cool surfboard ramp my kids loved climbing up and down! I like that it’s kind of removed from the beach so if you just want to take the kids to play and not go in the water you can do that. But if you want to play at the beach afterwards it’s just right there! They have a pretty good snack shack here and a free parking lot. If you don’t want to walk down the hill you can do street parking next to the playground.

14) Coastal Rail Trail Fairy Garden + Downtown Carlsbad: This was one of those hidden gem San Diego activities I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this much but we loved it! There’s this lady who makes fairy doors and puts them in trees around Carlsbad. She put a ton on this small stretch of the coastal rail trail that’s about a mile long. It’s a flat path with tons to look at for kids. The kids leave the fairies the cutest notes! You can actually buy the fairy doors too for your own garden via @carlsbadvillagefairies on Instagram. Afterwards check out Downtown Carlsbad. Some spots we like here are The Succulent Cafe, The Goods Donut Shop, and Yokino Sushi. Park on Tamarack Avenue!

15) La Jolla Tidepools / La Jolla Seals: One of the best things about San Diego is you don’t have to pay any admission to see wildlife! The La Jolla seals are pretty famous and worth a visit especially if you haven’t been in a while but just down the road are the La Jolla Tidepools! We love coming here to spot animals and teach our kids about wildlife. Tide pools are so great for kids because they are right at their level and it’s a bit of a treasure hunt to find the animals. Sometimes as moms i feel like we don’t visit the beach because it’s so much work to gather all the stuff etc, but activities like this are so much more relaxed. I always wear rain boots so I don’t leave with wet feet! Also any day I can casually visit the ocean on a weekday with my kids I feel like I’ve won the lottery with living in San Diego.

16) Julian Day Trip: This tiny mountain town an hour East of San Diego is absolutely worth your time. The first time we visited I was surprised by how different of a feel Julian has from San Diego, but it’s still just an hour away!

It can get crowded on a weekend, especially in the fall so go early in the day if you can. Our favorite thing to do here is of sample all the apple pie! If you want to try lots of different kinds of pie it’s best to start as early as possible because the lines get long in the afternoon. Yes, this is me telling you to have pie for breakfast.

Another fun thing to do here is tour the mines. This activity was super kid-friendly, the guides were really into it and my kids loved climbing through the tunnels. At the end they let the kids pan for gold. The best place to park is off 4th street, you turn just past The Pioneer Museum and there’s a big lot up the hill.

17) Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum Vista: This activity was better than Disneyland for my 1 year old. It’s much cheaper too, in fact it only cost $2 for our whole family to visit and we were the only people there on a weekday.

It is essentially a giant field where people have discarded old tractors. I am guessing somebody came along and decided they could charge admission and so that’s what they did! My kids loved sitting on all the tractors and there is a cool old fashioned playground there too.

We saw lots of other stuff like cars on display, an old schoolhouse, and a model railroad, but I literally could not pry my kids off the tractors so we didn’t get to see them. We will have to go back! I’ve heard Danny’s Donuts is amazing in this area for an after playtime snack.

18) LEGOLand: Everything about this theme park is amazing from the food to the rides for kids and the LEGO structures! My kids love the Duplo playground and all the train rides. There are lots of offerings for older kids as well. My main advice for LEGOLand is to ride the rides early in the morning or late in the afternoon. It gets really crowded around 10-2 ish and the lines can get super long!

19) Balboa Park: This place is HUGE and there is so much to do! Some of our favorite spots are The Alcazar Gardens, Spreckels Organ Pavilion, and the Japanese Flower Gardens! We also love hanging out around the San Diego Botanical Garden Pond! Park next to the organ pavilion for easy access to all these spots plus bathrooms!

20) The USS Midway: This aircraft carrier turned museum is amazing to tour with kids! Don’t miss the mini-helicopter room and the giant anchor room. We also like visiting Waterfront Park in this area!