TourGuideTim Tours, Tips, and Things to Do

Welcome to San Diego. I want to make sure you have a great vacation or holiday in San Diego. Whether you join us for a famous sightseeing tour or use our TourGuideTim.com web site to design your own adventure, you are going to find San Diego offers much more than you ever expected.


In a few moments, I’ll share with you tips to make the most of your San Diego vacation. First I’d like to answer a question I’m often asked by the thousands of guests I’ve personally met on my sightseeing tours of San Diego and the hundreds of thousands who have used this online San Diego travel guide to plan their holiday. What motivated me to create both an award winning tour business and such a useful travel web site so visitors could find a better way to explore on their own?

Why we provide the most in-depth travel guide & tours of San Diego

paragliders launching off cliffs at Torrey PinesThe Motivation: I was lying in a hospital room for two weeks recovering from heart surgery due to a random viral attack on my honeymoon. My hospital room looked out over the famous Torrey Pines Golf Course and the Pacific Ocean where I could see paragliders flying along ocean cliffs and watch the sunset night after night and I asked myself, how many people in the world get to enjoy this spectacular view. It created a burning desire for me to share this hidden gem with others.

The Realization: It also dawned on me that most people coming to San Diego saw it just as a place to lie on the beach and visit the World Famous Zoo or SeaWorld and not much more. So, after I fully recovered, I started talking to local hotel concierges and they thought it would be great if someone would share the beautiful places and fascinating history most people miss during a visit to San Diego. And so I launched the San Diego Coastal Tour to La Jolla and Torrey Pines.

Why we are the best source for your vacation

Tim leading a group of professional tour guides on his Coastal Tour.

Tim leading a group of professional tour guides on his Coastal Tour.

The best San Diego tours: I used my detailed nature sharpened by my earlier career as a corporate auditor and Certified Public Accountant to create a rich, in-depth, and memorable tour experience for guests seeking more than just a beach vacation. By earning a great reputation, I’ve been able to persuade other select professional tour guides in San Diego, who typically only do private group tours, to join me in offering you the best publicly available City Tours of San Diego and to fill in for me when I’m not available to do the Coast Tour.

Unlike a typical bus tour available to the public, our sightseeing tours provide both a driver and a guide. That way our guides can give you 100% of their attention so you get more stories, more information and more interaction with your tour guide. We can also make good use of our time by having the driver drop-us off for guided walks so we can take a closer look where the sea lions play on the rocks or where the seals lie on the beach. Meanwhile, if anyone in your tour party has a hard time walking, they can stay with the driver in the comfort of the bus and be driven along the same area.

The best San Diego travel web site: I also created this detailed travel guide for visitors to explore even more of San Diego on their own. Rather than being a superficial web site that gives just a brief summary of the area’s most well known attractions, I provide in-depth detail on a wide variety of attractions, many of which would be major attractions if located in other cities but are instead hidden under the shadow of the more well known San Diego attractions like the San Diego Zoo. I provide tips on how to make the most of your visit to each of the attractions, where they are located relative to the other attractions in San Diego and how to reach them by transit or by car, and try to organize them in a way that you don’t miss out on finding any attractions that suit your particular interests.

Tips for Visiting San Diego

orange glow of sunshine over the mountains of San Diego and below dark clouds

Sunrise in San Diego

Planning for the Weather: So, here are a few tips for planning your vacation in San Diego. First, no matter what time of year you visit be sure to bring a light jacket or sweater and bring a pair of shorts. That’s because during our summer months, we have warm days but cool evenings, especially if you are near the ocean. Those cool evenings can feel brisk if you are visiting from someplace that is typically hot and humid all summer. And during our winter months, we can have days that reach 80 degrees Fahrenheit or 27 degrees Celsius. In fact, our winter months are the sunniest months of the year along the San Diego coast.

Amtrak train alongside palm trees and high-rise condos.

View from the platform of San Diego’s main train station (Santa Fe Depot) serving AMTRAK, Coaster, San Diego Trolley, Bus Rapid Transit and TourGuideTim Tours

How to get around San Diego: Another tip is helping you decide whether you need to rent or hire a car for your visit to San Diego. If you are planning to visit attractions in and around downtown San Diego, including the San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, SeaWorld, Old Town, Coronado, and the Gaslamp Quarter all of these attractions can be readily accessed by public transit assuming the hotel or place you are staying is close to a bus or trolley stop. My tour guests always comment on how easy it is to use our transit system, how clean it is, and they also appreciate the low cost for a day pass that works on both buses and trolleys. You can also purchase multi-day passes. However, if you are going to visit attractions further away from downtown San Diego such as the Safari Park or Legoland or if you want to visit our local mountains or desert, I’d recommend a car rental or car hire. These attractions have limited or no public transit service.

How to make time for all the things to do: My final tip for now is to plan ahead. Unlike most cities where there may be a few concentrated tourist areas and it’s easy to find things as you go, San Diego offers hundreds of attractions and guests tell me they are overwhelmed and certainly didn’t plan enough time once they find how much there is to do in San Diego. Many guests visit San Diego as part of an extended trip that includes San Francisco and Los Angeles. They often plan fewer days in San Diego because they assume it is the smallest city with the least to offer only to say they wished they had planned more days in San Diego instead because it offers more things to do in a much more relaxing environment. By planning ahead you can also get discounts for various attractions. For example you can save a lot of money at SeaWorld if you buy your tickets in advance online, at a visitor center or through your hotel. Another reason to plan ahead is that some attractions close early or get sold out since San Diego is a big destination for major conventions and big companies hosting special events bringing in employees from around the world for events in beautiful, sunny San Diego.

Let TourGuideTim help you find things to do

So, I invite you to find more travel tips for San Diego as you look around my travel guide on TourGuideTim.com and to join me or one of my fellow guides to get a more in-depth view of San Diego and its rich history. Come find out why this area attracts so many American pioneers, Nobel Laureates, authors, billionaires and Hollywood legends to live, work, and play in San Diego by joining me for a Coastal San Diego Tour to La Jolla and Torrey Pines.

Help others find things to do and see! Share your ideas.

Connect with Facebook

Or, fill in the form below:

  • Make Travel Reservations

    • * You get more stories, more information, and more interaction with your guide.
    • * The driver focuses on getting us where we need to go safely.

    • * We don't have to spend time finding parking spots at photo stops or guided walks and you don't have to wait for the guide to go get the vehicle after the guided walk. The driver takes care of all of that.
    • * Guests who have a hard time walking can stay with the driver and still see the attractions from the comfort of the bus while the rest of the guests see things closer up with the guide.