Drafting San Diego

Here's the thing. When you head to a new city or destination, what happens is that you know so little about the place that a lot of your precious vacation time is spent on trial and error, as in checking out places and stuff, which you might or might not like. End of the trip, you have a fair idea, but its too late to go see and do everything that remains. Which calls for a repeat trip. Kind of like drafting an article. The first draft is just a collection of your thoughts. Next time round, you polish it, weed out the things you don't like and give it a focus and an identifiable train of thought. So I thought I'd apply the same principle to traveling, and check out San Diego in preparation for an upcoming July family vacation in San Diego.

First things first. Need to find a good hotel. Best palce to stay in? Gaslamp Quarter or Mission Beach. All hotels near the San Diego Convention Center are sold out. Seems if you want to spend July 2008 in San Diego, you need to plan for it in July 2007... Which I didn't. So I'll have to make do with Mission beach or somewhre else on the outskirts. I'd have loved to put up at the Omni or the Hard Rock hotel, but guess that'll have to wait, cause on July 4th,  there's a dazzling range of things to do in San Diego - like the Padres game at PETCO Park and the post-game fireworks, the grand finale at the Del Mar fairgounds, Big bay firworks and lots more. SeaWorld is also an excellent place to be in on the 4th of July.

And the party scene in the Gaslamp and at places like Pacific Beach is truly Vegas gone wild. Can't let the family in on it, but just something to keep in mind, if you have some time to yourself. WIth family, the place to be at would be either SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo or the Bay fireworks. One thing for sure - 4th of July in San Diego is going to be memorable.