Old Town in San Diego is one of the main places to explore in the city

Old Town in San Diego is very unique place and has a very interesting setup overall. On very first day, after landing in San Diego we headed to Old Town as our check-in time was a little late. So we went their with our backpacks and explored the place on foot. This post shares about our experience of Old town, how to reach here from different parts of San Diego & Airport along with some estimates about time you need to explore this place. We also intend to share few tips about making your San Diego trip memorable and keeping it pocket friendly. 




San Diego is one of the busiest airport in USA and also a popular destination amongst domestic & international tourists/travelers. It’s very easy to reach Old Town from San Diego Airport. There are free cabs available to one of the MTS train station (blue colored mini buses). If you don’t find these, go to bus stand just across the road from Airport and ask someone that you want to go to any MTS train station. On MTS station, we got our 3 days card and that’s highly recommended if you plan to commute in public transportation. This not only covered MTS trains, but buses as well. 

Old Town in San Diego is visited by locals as well as tourists. History and the setup of this part of the city attracts lot of folks multiple times. There are various museums in Old Town and it's a best place to find authentic cuisines. There are 20+ restaurants which are always full. You need to wait outside for some time in any of these restaurants in Old Town of San Diego. Since we came here from the airport, the very first we did was finding a restaurant and have our first meal. Restaurants were not open by then and it's cold outside. Finally we located one restaurant and the lady switched on heaters first. Then she brought the menu. Food in old town is little costlier. We couldn't find any reasonable option. Apart from being costly, portion sizes were smaller. Since we only had food in one of the restaurants but checked menus of 3-4 more restaurants. So overall we got a sense that place is little expensive for budget travelers. Having said that, it was worth. 

After having some food and picking a water bottle, we started walking inside the Old Town. As of now we were going through some of the shops with colorful stuff all around, but the real thing was inside. For a moment we were wondering if we are at right place or not. Because certainly we didn't want to come to Old time to see these shops or do any shopping. We were carrying our backpacks with us and a little tired. 

As we moved ahead and went deep into the town. Then we started feeling the place and it's heritage. There are some pretty old houses and sign-boards are placed at most of the places which explain the history about these houses. Apart from old houses there was one stable where different kinds of horse gears are kept from past. 

There are some interesting hotels within Old town and we were wondering if we should have booked our hotel inside the Old town. Now after exploring various parts of San Diego, we feel that we could have chosen to stay here. Old Town MTS station is very well connected to most of the places we wanted to explore - San Diego Zoo, Sea World, some of the popular beaches, Downtown etc. 

There are few green areas in Old town and we chose to sit down around these places to observe the hustle bustle around the place. We observed that lot of trolly tours of city start from Old Town. We also enquired about these tours but found them little expensive and we didn't want to strict ourselves to fixed routes. These trollies look awesome and have fixed pick/drop locations & routes. So it's important to decide about your itinerary and good amount of time, if you plan to explore San Diego in these trollies.  

Many of these old houses sell some interesting stuff created within this town, but there are very few such shops. Otherwise most of the shops in Old Town sell touristy stuff which is manufactured in bulk. 

Above photograph shows one of the old houses inside this town. There are different rooms dedicated for different activities and some of the old stuff is kept safely here. In the main courtyard, there are some machines & water sources. These houses looked much similar to Indian rural houses which are built over a huge piece of land. In fact, this style of having open space in front of every room is pretty common in Indian houses. We spent good amount of time around these houses. We couldn't explore many of the museums in Old Town of San Diego. 

There are different sections of markets within Old Town and we reached a point where we found plenty of shops all around. And in the middle of this market there were few artists who were performing one by one. All of them were encouraging my Travellingcamera to click. The lady you see in above photograph was awesome with her guitar and the voice. We stood there for some time and listened to her songs. 

As you climb a bit, you reach an area which has some brilliant houses. I am not sure if I should the word 'house' or 'mansion'. And interestingly all these mansions are tagged with some details and if I remember correctly, there are also the names of the owners. Some of these houses have boutique shops and tea lounges etc. I found this part the most interesting part in Old Town of San Diego. 

Such houses are rare to find, when we talk about the space & the open areas around. Especially in main cities like San Diego. All these houses in Old Town were huge and had plenty of green space around. There are good amount of lush green lawns and healthy plants around these houses. 

Roaming around Old Town was an interesting experience and if you have time & interest in exploring museums, please ensure that you take out at least a full day to explore this place.