Socal/San Diego Surf Trip Ideas?

Before you seek advise, let me advise you to create a proper’ intro tread.

Maybe if you’re lucky scobey** will trow you some tips. He was good to my crew when I came.

The spots I had most fun at were in Pacific Beach and Oceanside, but that was also in the summer during S. swell season. There’s lots of coastline to do reconne. I would recommend you do some homework and then just sand/reef reconne in your free time when you get out there.

 

Head north and go straight to Mavricks.

 

Roberto's Taco Shop, DO IT!!!!!!! Get the carne asada burrito! PB is fun, Scripps is fun, OB is fun, Wind and Sea is fun, just drive and look. Last time I surfed CA, I surfed La Jolla, fun little 3 to 4. Have fun! Go to TJ, just watch out for the cartel.

 

Which part of La Jolla are you staying? It's a big city with an even bigger variety of surf conditions.

If you're 20 years old and single, good nightlife to be found in nearby Pacific Beach (PB to everyone in SD) and the Gaslamp Quarter in Downtown SD.

Touron activities not to be missed include the world famous SD Zoo, Balboa Park and Old Town, although there are dozens of other options.

I prefer La Jolla reefs around Palomar and Marine streets, with Blacks and Imperial Beach being high on the list for favorite beach breaks.

OB is consistent but is the repository for every single kook east of I-5 and is usually clogged. Give Oceanside a try on clean small swells with lower tides.

Don't forget to check out the side streets along Encinitas and Leucadia, usually glassier than other spots and produces the occasional nug.

Oh yeah, and the Roberto's thing for sure. A lot of Filberto's and Alberto's and other similar knockoffs abound, but gotta try Roberto's carne asada burrito at least once in your life.

 

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I like to go North toward Cardiff and Swamis, Moonlight can be a fun spot then if you go far enough you'll hit San-O and Trestles, don't get caught drinking beer on the beach to cops hang out on the cliff with binoculars looking for violators.

In regards to Robertos...Filibertos is the original. However the original Robertos located on the road headed toward toward the Sub base at Point Loma is the best one. Many late nite stops back in the day before headed back to base.

 

Oh, almost forgot check the water temps. I spent last winter down there and all I needed was a Spring suit. My 3/2 just sat in the closet the whole time. Locals thought I was crazy but the air temp was 75-80 the whole time and the water temp was 68.

 

Goode treade, and timely for me as I'm headed to SD for a week this coming Saturday. Went there once before in Jan-Feb 2015 for a two-week work trip that is high on the list of best vacations I've ever taken. My sister in law lives there with her boyfriend so I've got a lot of info from them but will def be keeping an eye on this treade for additional suggestions as well. Did not get to Roberto's that time so I'll have to check that out. For OP, when I was there once before I was obsessed with oscar's mexican seafood, kiko's place taco truck on texas st., bird rock coffee, the burritos and salsas at lucha libre, and all of the breweries. specifically stone liberty station's outdoor area was maybe the coolest ambiance of a brewery i've been to, not even sure which was my favorite beer-wise, probably alpine which is about a half hour east of the city and the vibe there was the most bizarre mix of hipster beer snobs from all over the west coast and local redneck backyard white-trash bbq, i've never seen anything like it, the beer was awesome though. I think this was not too long after green flash bought alpine so hopefully they haven't impacted the quality produced at the original location too much, i'd like to get back out there.

As far as waves, I didn't find any secret spots but surfed all sorts of different areas from sunset cliffs up to blacks and in between. It was head high for a good portion of the time I was there. Basically just lived on fish tacos and beer and surfed good waves for a couple hours every day for a week straight. And it was work travel, so I was on per diem and everything was free. Like I said, best vacation of my life, until maybe my recent trip to hawaii (also free). But I digress. If anyone more familiar with the area wants to tell me my food recommendations suck, feel free to go **** yourself. I know good food and good beer and the places I mentioned have it.

Question for current or former locals though: aside from the phenomenal beer, mexican food (seafood mostly, to be honest the non-seafood mexican, while far better than NJ, was not quite as amazing as I expected), waves, and legal weed, what other things are great about living in SD? (I feel like the correct answer to that question is "who ****ing cares, is that not enough?") I am working on a full-on sales pitch for my wife while we are out there to convince her we need to move there. Also, how practical is it for one of us to be working in SD (I'm in a Government-related field so tons of opportunities for me there) and one in Irvine (her employer has an office there, she could start showing up there tomorrow basically with minimal paperwork) and living somewhere in between? Doable if working from home and only commuting a couple days a week? Or completely out of the question?

 

Most restaraunts in San Diego are over priced, the foods subpar, the service sucks and we are in the middle of a hepatitis epidemic. There are some gems though. Irvine would be a hell of a commute. I live in Oside and go up there for work sometimes, if you don't hit traffic it only takes 45 minutes, same as downtown San Diego. On a Friday afternoon you are looking at a 2-3 hour commute one wsy, whether it's from La Jolla or Anaheim or El Cajon. Freeways become parking lots. Cost of living is very high. The average home price is over $500000. Gun laws sucks. Gas is over $3 a gallon and only going up. Taxes suck. 2/3rds of all live births in the county are to non-resident aliens. Schools are crowded and we have state and local pension liabilities that are about to explode. If you work in government be prepared to have between 7-15% taken from your paycheck for pension obligation. The water is dirty. The waves are crowded. People are stand-offish and it takes a long time to form a social circle. The weather's nice though. As long as you dont live more than 3 or 4 miles from the coast.

My wife and I have a lot of family out here. I work 8 minutes from home and live less than 2 miles from the beach. I'm know just about everybody i surf with. LMy house's mortgage is less than the average single bedroom apartment ren't. My kid goes to a good school and I make enough that my wife doesn't have to work.

If you can swing it, it's great out here; but mlost people are living pay check to pay check and carry 3x more debt than the national average.

Aloha

 

So you are saying I can buy an overpriced home, overpriced car, run up credit card bills....then default on all of it, transfer pay-off to tax payers, live like a king for a while, then split and move back to Mejico BEFORE I am caught?? Wow...that sounds like the American Dream!! And all thanks to Jerry Brown, Mr. MoonBeam!!!!
Only in America!!!!

 

Love California, the land.

Mex food is great, but it stops there really.

The people are (in general) so full of themselves I'm not sure how they get by each day.

Get ready to hear "born and raised" a lot when you visit. They love that term out there.

 

I was "born and raised" and lived over half my life there.

Just got back from spending a week there to surf and visit friends and family.

I'm so totally over SoCal. It's the greatest place in the world, and it's the worst place in the world.

But since the OP is only 20, I'm sure he'll enjoy it.

Commute to Irvine? Lmao. Just the drive from SDSU to anywhere west, north or south is a primer in Road Rage 101.

 

Yeah, I kinda realize how ludicrous the idea sounds. I guess I was just wondering if there's anywhere in the north san diego - orange county stretch where if my wife was commuting to Irvine and I was commuting to one of the SD naval bases we could balance it out to each only drive an hour each way on a typical day. Sounds like no. Which means we'd both need to find new jobs to make it happen, not just me. Though she only goes in 2-3 days a week so she could potentially handle that for a few months during the transition period.

Idk if we're going to make it happen anytime soon or not. But it's a thought. Cost of living is not a huge deterrent... we're by no means super rich but each earn decent incomes and we live a pretty simple life. No TV, rarely eat out, would just as soon take a road trip to go camping as fly to an all inclusive resort. And I've always held the view that I'd rather take fewer/simpler vacations and pay more to live in place where other people take their vacations. I suspect the "born and raised" mentality is pretty similar to the "Native" mentality in Colorado. Or to a lesser extent VT. Or even here in the summer, for that matter. Whatever.

Funny sidenote, my parents are both from California, my mom from Santa Barbara and my dad from Santa Cruz. But they left in 1971, never to return except for brief visits. They've been in Jersey for 40 years now. And they still, especially my Mom, talk about southern California as absolutely paradise, and complain about how Jersey sucks in comparison. And by a lot of metrics, they're right. Waves, weather, mexican food (my favorite type of food), craft beer, weed laws, hiking/mountain biking, skiing within a day's drive... no one in their right mind could argue for NJ as beating CA for any of those things, without putting major caveats on it. Like jersey waves are better cause they're less crowded. Or jersey weather is better cause we don't have earthquakes or wildfires.
I mean, yeah... but no.

But they aren't talking about any of that. The primary reasons they think jersey sucks compared to California are: traffic, taxes, cost of living, and generally too many people. LOLOLOL. Every time this comes up, I'm like... have you even been to Southern California in the last 30 years???

 

Appreciate the input. Was hoping to hear from zaGaffer, but I guess you'll do. Haha. Some of these things concern me, some don't really bother me. At least on paper. Many, like traffic and taxes, are the same things that suck here when compared to most parts of the country... I know CA has it even worse, but it's really all relative. Thing about high cost areas, there's usually a reason they're so expensive. I mean, I could live like a ****ing king in Mississippi, but I'd rather live paycheck to paycheck here (I don't... but if that was the best I could do here I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to endure it). A few years in semi-rural MD, which was even THAT bad compared to 80% of the country by land area, was enough to convince me no amount of affluence or career success is worth living somewhere that I'm miserable. So I'm often like, why not follow the logic to the opposite end of the spectrum?

When you reference pension obligation for Government employees, is that just state and local or all types of Government (I'm Federal)? Or is it just part of the state's tax structure for everyone employed there?

 

I just flew back from San Diego last night from a weeks vacation. I lived in SD in the early 90's while in the Navy. I have been a half dozen times since then but the last time was about 5 years ago. Traffic definitely sucks, just have to plan on it by really early surf sessions. Got pretty fun waves this trip...swell started filling in Friday morning, peaked Saturday & still OH sets through Monday.

 

Those pictures are prime evidence why people tough out the expenses, crowds, and BS to live there. I love California, north and south, warts and all.

 

I surfed the Outer Banks this past week with absolutely no one in sight at my own private beach, the gas was cheap, I could of carried a gun if I owned one, the people on the way in and out of town were accommodating and we found some cheap food and good beer. There was a little traffic when those two cars passed but when the waves are firing you deal with it Granted they don't get as good as often but I'll trade that any day for all those headaches. If I were 15 again or Kelly rich MAYBE I could see the attraction? We also live on the beach here for about half what you can get a below average home there so I can't seem to make sense of it. Visiting or vacation fine but dealing with that on a daily basis sounds truly horrific! I would also say my quality of life (things to do, weather, safety, etc....) are just as good here in NC making the insane cost of living out there questionable at best, at least for me. Sounds like you have a nice set up though.