In 1769 a Spanish friar founded Mission San Diego de Alcala above the bay, the first of California’s 21 missions and the start of European San Diego. The Spirit of St. Louis was later built here by a small San Diego firm before Charles Lindbergh flew it across the Atlantic, and today the carrier USS Midway rides at anchor as a museum on the same waterfront. Almost five centuries of California history line up along one harbor.
I spent a career teaching American history before joining my sons at More Than Just Parks, and few cities pack as much of it into such good weather, including Balboa Park, where 17 museums stand under Spanish Colonial towers on more than 1,000 acres. These are the 15 San Diego landmarks I would send you to, counted down from number 15.
San Diego Landmarks At A Glance
Here is a quick comparison of all 15 landmarks before we dig into the stories behind each one.
| Landmark | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Balboa Park | Urban park / museums | 1868 set aside |
| San Diego Zoo & Safari Park | Zoo / wildlife park | 1916 |
| Cabrillo National Monument | National Monument (NPS) | 1913 |
| Belmont Park | Amusement park | 1925 |
| USS Midway Museum | Aircraft carrier museum | 2004 (museum) |
| Davis-Horton (William Heath Davis) House | Historic house (NRHP) | 1850 |
| La Jolla Cove | Beach / marine reserve | n/a |
| Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala | Spanish mission | 1769 |
| Gaslamp Quarter | Historic district | 1800s |
| Whaley House Museum | Historic house museum | 1857 |
| Old Town San Diego SHP | State Historic Park | 1968 (park) |
| Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial | National memorial | 1954 (cross) |
| Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve | State reserve | 1921 dedicated |
| Presidio Park | Historic park | 1929 (park) |
| Legoland California | Theme park | 1999 |
For more in the region, see our roundup of California landmarks and the national parks near San Diego.
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15. Legoland California
Legoland California in Carlsbad, north of the city, is built entirely around the famous plastic brick. When it opened in 1999 it was only the third Legoland in the world, after the parks in Denmark and England, and the first in North America.
The Lego Group bought the 128-acre Carlsbad site in the mid-1990s and built a park aimed squarely at families with younger kids. Its heart is Miniland USA, where Lego-brick versions of American cities sprawl across the grounds. Over the years the park has added a water park, a hotel, and rides like Lego City Deep Sea Adventure and Lego Movie World. It remains one of Southern California’s most popular family attractions.
14. Presidio Park
Presidio Park overlooks Mission Valley from the hill where European California began. In 1769 Spanish soldiers and Franciscan missionaries established the first presidio and mission on the West Coast here, the start of a chain that would reshape California and its Native peoples.
The expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra raised the San Diego Presidio in 1769, beside the homeland of the Kumeyaay people who had lived in the region for thousands of years. After Mexican independence the presidio was abandoned and decayed. In 1907 businessman George Marston bought the land to preserve it and hired planner John Nolen to design a park, dedicated in 1929. The Spanish Colonial Junípero Serra Museum crowns the hill, and the site is a California Historical Landmark.
13. Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve protects roughly 2,000 acres of wild coastline within the city limits, including the rare Torrey pine, one of the most uncommon pine trees in North America and found naturally in only this stretch of coast and on Santa Rosa Island.
Broken cliffs and ravines drop to the Pacific, and trails wind through wind-sculpted pines down to the beach. Conservationists began pushing to protect the area around 1900, and the state set aside the first acres in 1908, with the reserve dedicated in 1921. The 1920s adobe-style Torrey Pines Lodge now serves as a visitor center. It is one of the wildest places you can reach from a major city.
12. Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial
The Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial sits atop a 822-foot hill in La Jolla with sweeping views of the coast. It honors veterans living and deceased, from the Revolutionary War to today, on thousands of granite plaques arranged around a tall cross.
A cross has stood on the summit since the early 20th century, and the present concrete cross dates to 1954. The Mt. Soledad Memorial Association added walls of veteran plaques over the decades. A long legal fight over a religious symbol on public land, begun in 1989, was resolved when the federal government took ownership in 2006 and designated it a national veterans memorial. Today thousands of plaques honor service members of every faith and background.
11. Old Town San Diego State Historic Park
Old Town San Diego State Historic Park preserves the heart of the original Mexican-era and early American town, with five original adobe buildings among restored shops, museums, and restaurants. It is one of the most visited state parks in California.
San Diego’s town grew below the presidio hill, becoming the commercial center of the area through the Mexican period and into early statehood, before the city’s focus shifted south to New Town in the 1860s. California created the state historic park in 1968 to protect and restore what remained. The centerpiece is the Casa de Estudillo, a grand 1827 adobe, and the park stages living-history demonstrations and a lively Día de los Muertos each fall.
10. Whaley House Museum
The Whaley House in Old Town, built in 1857, is one of the oldest brick buildings in California and is often called one of the most haunted houses in America. Whether or not you believe the ghost stories, it is a vivid window into early San Diego.
Thomas Whaley built the house as his family home, and over the years it also served as a county courthouse, a theater, and a general store. The state of California has officially recognized it as a haunted house, one of only a couple so designated. Today it operates as a museum with period furnishings, daytime history tours, and evening ghost tours for those who want the spookier version.
9. Gaslamp Quarter
The Gaslamp Quarter is downtown San Diego’s 16-block historic district, a dense run of Victorian commercial buildings that now holds the city’s busiest nightlife, dining, and shopping.
The district grew in the 1860s as Alonzo Horton’s New Town pulled the city toward the bay, and it filled with ornate late-1800s buildings. By the mid-20th century it had decayed into a rough quarter, and demolition loomed. A preservation campaign beginning in the 1970s won historic-district status and restored the old facades. Today the Gaslamp’s gas-style lamps, rooftop bars, and the Davis-Horton House anchor downtown’s social life.
8. Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá
Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá was the first of the 21 Spanish missions in California, founded by Father Junípero Serra on July 16, 1769. It is still an active Catholic parish, and the church holds the title of minor basilica.
The mission system brought Catholicism and Spanish rule but also forced labor, disease, and the upheaval of Kumeyaay life. That tension surfaced violently in 1775, when Kumeyaay people attacked and burned the mission and killed Father Luís Jayme, the first Catholic martyr in California. The mission was rebuilt, secularized under Mexican rule, and restored in the 20th century. Pope Paul VI named it a minor basilica in 1976. Visitors can tour the church, gardens, and a small museum.
7. La Jolla Cove
La Jolla Cove is a small, sheltered beach tucked among sandstone bluffs in the upscale seaside village of La Jolla. Its clear water and protected marine reserve make it one of the best spots in California for snorkeling and swimming.
The cove is the gateway to the San Diego-La Jolla Underwater Park, an ecological reserve where fishing is banned and sea life thrives. Snorkelers share the water with the bright orange Garibaldi, California’s state fish, while sea lions and harbor seals haul out on the nearby rocks and beaches. Galleries, shops, and restaurants line the bluff above, and the whole scene glows at sunset.
Top 6 San Diego Landmarks
6. The William Heath Davis House
The William Heath Davis House, now also called the Davis-Horton House, is the oldest surviving structure in downtown San Diego. It is a wooden saltbox home, prefabricated in New England and shipped around Cape Horn by boat in 1850.
William Heath Davis was a merchant who tried to launch a new city by the bay in 1850, buying 160 acres and building wharves and streets. His “New Town” failed at first, and the saltbox houses he imported from the East Coast mostly disappeared. This one survived, later serving as a home, a hospital, and a boarding house. Alonzo Horton, who finally made New Town succeed, lived here in the 1860s, which is why it now carries both names. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it houses the Gaslamp Museum.
5. USS Midway Museum
The USS Midway Museum is set aboard the longest-serving U.S. Navy aircraft carrier of the 20th century, moored at Navy Pier downtown. It is one of the most visited ship museums in the world.
Named for the pivotal 1942 Battle of Midway, the carrier was commissioned just days after World War II ended in 1945 and served for 47 years, through Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm, before retiring in 1992. It opened as a museum in 2004. Visitors walk the flight deck among more than two dozen restored aircraft, tour the hangar deck and crew quarters below, and try flight simulators. The ship’s island offers a wide view of San Diego Bay.
4. Belmont Park
Belmont Park is the seaside amusement park on the boardwalk at Mission Beach, home to the Giant Dipper, a wooden roller coaster that has thrilled riders since 1925.
Developer John D. Spreckels opened the park in 1925 as the Mission Beach Amusement Center, with a roller coaster, a plunge swimming pool, and a dance hall. The Giant Dipper is one of only a few surviving wooden coasters from that era and is a National Historic Landmark in its own right. After decades of decline the coaster was saved and restored in the early 1990s. Today Belmont Park mixes its historic rides with modern attractions and oceanfront dining.
3. Cabrillo National Monument
Cabrillo National Monument crowns the tip of Point Loma, marking the spot where Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo led the first European expedition to set foot on what is now the U.S. West Coast, in 1542. The views over San Diego Bay and the Pacific are among the finest in the city.
Cabrillo, sailing for Spain, reached San Diego Bay in September 1542 and met the Kumeyaay people who already lived along the coast. President Woodrow Wilson set aside the monument in 1913, and the National Park Service now manages its roughly 160 acres. The 1855 Old Point Loma Lighthouse is restored as a museum, the rocky tidepools shelter sea stars and anemones at low tide, and from December through March the point is one of the best places on the mainland to watch gray whales migrate.
2. San Diego Zoo & Safari Park
The San Diego Zoo is one of the most famous zoos in the world, and its sister site, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, gives animals room to roam across open savanna. Together they are a global leader in wildlife conservation.
The zoo grew out of animals left behind after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition and was organized in 1916 in Balboa Park. It became a pioneer of open-air, moated enclosures rather than cages. The 100-acre zoo holds thousands of animals across exhibits like Africa Rocks, Panda Ridge, and Elephant Odyssey. The 1,800-acre Safari Park, 35 miles north, lets visitors view herds of rhinos, giraffes, and antelope across wide habitats, by tram, by safari truck, or even by hot-air balloon.
1. Balboa Park
Our number one San Diego landmark is Balboa Park, a 1,200-acre cultural oasis of 17 museums, lush gardens, Spanish Colonial architecture, and the San Diego Zoo. It is one of the great urban parks in North America.
San Diego set aside the land in 1868, and serious development came with landscape architect Samuel Parsons Jr. in the early 1900s. The 1915 Panama-California Exposition, marking the opening of the Panama Canal, gave the park much of its signature look, including the California Tower, the Botanical Building, and the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, home to one of the largest outdoor pipe organs in the world. Today the park holds museums, gardens, theaters, and trails, and it remains the cultural heart of the city.
More Things To Do At Balboa Park
- Tour the museums. The San Diego Museum of Art, the Fleet Science Center, and the San Diego Air & Space Museum are among 17 in the park.
- Walk the gardens. The Japanese Friendship Garden, the Botanical Building and Lily Pond, and the Desert Garden are all free or low cost.
- Hear the organ. The Spreckels Organ Pavilion hosts free concerts on Sunday afternoons.
- Ride the carousel. The historic Balboa Park carousel has spun hand-carved animals since 1910.
- Catch a show. The Old Globe Theatre stages year-round productions, including a celebrated Shakespeare season.
The Full Ranking
- Balboa Park
- San Diego Zoo & Safari Park
- Cabrillo National Monument
- Belmont Park
- USS Midway Museum
- The William Heath Davis House
- La Jolla Cove
- Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá
- Gaslamp Quarter
- Whaley House Museum
- Old Town San Diego State Historic Park
- Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial
- Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
- Presidio Park
- Legoland California
You should know that this guide does not come out of thin air. More Than Just Parks is a family operation. My sons Will and Jim have spent their adult lives exploring and filming America’s national parks and public lands destinations, working with the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior, the USDA, and the U.S. Forest Service along the way. In 2018, after a career teaching history, I joined them to help tell the stories behind these places.
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