San Diego (California)

San Diego is how tourist envisage Los Angles to be, the real Bay watch. It’s the tantalizing American dream just across the troubled Mexico border. The Los Angeles beaches are empty in summer, the Angelinos too cool for school and just don’t go near the beach, the sand and seafront the domain of pseudo surfers and down and outs pushing shopping carts full of cans and bottles to earn a buck or two, dive-bombed by aggressive seagulls for their efforts. San Diego is the real California, sunsets, parties on the beach and pretty girls on roller blades jammed into tiny bikinis! When I stayed there, our backpacker’s hostel was right on the beach walkway and we had this little courtyard where we judge the passing talent with scorecards, the Banana Bungalow the choice location for ogling the real C J Parkers (Pamela Anderson) of California.

The city itself is home to the nearby Miramar Top Gun airbase, as featured in the movie, and a city notorious for uncontrolled immigration and drug money, very much one-way traffic on that score, especially at HSBC bank. The military remains the biggest employer in the city. Anyone going south to Tijuana is either a drunken college student or being deported. Tijuana is the Mexican border city and one of the worlds worst shi*holes. San Diego, on the other hand, is anything but and surely one of the best places on the planet to be a college student or young family. Its glorious beaches and many marinas mean it’s a classic beach city and so you have no excuse but to be healthy there.

Surprisingly, considering its proximity to Northern Mexico and its raging drug wars, San Diego sits ninth in the top ten safest American cities list although if you think what happened in that benign Colorado cinema then nowhere is that safe in America. The fact firearms sales went up 40% this week in Colorado is all you need to know how dumb Americans are. San Diego is the sixth lowest for crime in American cities with over one million populous. It also has the second best climate of America’s cities, and tenth in the world, the sea breeze off the Pacific meaning you’re not baked all the time. It does have a lovely fresh and clear feel to the weather in the way Melbourne does. If you like sailing or beach sports like surfing then this is the place to go, the deepwater port meaning its industry is all about the marine and cruise ship industry. It’s also the home of the Americas Cup yachting races. Spinnakers flapping in the breeze are what this city is all about.

It has the very popular San Diego zoo for when the cloud creeps in and plenty of big roller coaster theme parks. Their sports teams are pretty rubbish and generally sit bottom of the gridiron, basketball and baseball tables although always worth taking in a sports events, if you can get tickets. The American sports match is always an experience for tourists. Bizarrely, its biggest growing sport is rugby, one of the 16 teams in the Rugby Major League. The city also has the world’s oldest freeway and beautiful it is as it sweeps up and through palm trees and azalea bushes. The new Mormon temmple is also something very American to behold.

Hotels are no problem through the budget range and the backpacker’s hostels (around $23 a night) and cheap hotels good fun, very much a beach resort party town. You can launch yourself into Mexico from here although I would personally do that from the Texas coastline and Houston as North West Mexico is deteriorating fast, President Obama’s recent amnesty on illegal’s meaning increased gang activity in their major west coast cities as turf is battled over by the cholo’s. If you do enter Mexico by Tijuana make sure you head for the stunning Baja California, the tongue of land that peels off Mexico’s east coast that offers great wild coasts and camping and brilliant surfing. If you want to be all alone with a beautiful woman then that’s the place to go. I went there by train and the service surprisingly cheap, clean and good fun, unlike Mexico.