The 10 Best Views in San Diego, Ranked

This is where San Diego goes to watch the sun go down, and it has earned that by a wider margin than anything else on this list. Sandstone cliffs run for more than a mile along the western edge of Point Loma with nothing between you and open Pacific — surfers working the breaks below, tide pools at the low end, and a sky that puts on a genuinely different show every evening. It costs nothing, the parking costs nothing, and the gate never closes. Come an hour early, walk south along the boulevard, and pick your own spot.

Walk the circle. The memorial sits at the top of a hill in La Jolla and the view turns over as you go — ocean and coastline out west, Mission Bay flat below, downtown off to the southeast, mesas and mountains at your back. The walls here carry veterans' plaques, and reading a few of them is what separates a visit from a photo stop. You can drive almost to the summit, and it is still open long after the light goes.

The skyline is the entire event here, and you do not have to climb anything to get it. Downtown stands straight across the bay, moored boats fill in the foreground, and the path along the water is flat and paved and wide enough for a stroller, a wheelchair, or somebody walking backwards with a camera. Parking is free and right there. Come toward the end of the day, when the towers start turning on across the water.

Guy Fleming is the loop to do here. It is short, it is well maintained, and it opens onto two overlooks where the bluff drops into open ocean and a canyon runs inland behind you. The pines are the rare part, leaning over the trail and ending up in the frame of every photograph anyone takes. There are stairs and uneven ground, so this is a trail rather than a turnout. Come on a clear morning and stand at both overlooks before you decide which one you like.

The road goes almost all the way to the top, which is a strange thing to say about a view this size. From the summit, North County opens in every direction: ridges running inland, the coastline west, and on the clearest days islands sitting out on the water. There is a telescope up there for the far end of that, and enough picnic space to make it a morning rather than a stop. Go early, while the air is still sharp enough to see all of it.

The only way up is through the building itself. A guide walks a group of 6 up 125 stairs, and the door at the top opens onto 360 degrees of San Diego — the park directly underneath, downtown, Point Loma, mountains along the back edge. You are on the deck for maybe 10 minutes of a 40-minute tour, which is short and still the best 10 minutes in Balboa Park. Pick a clear day and book it.

A grass hillside above Pacific Beach with the whole city arranged below it: downtown off to the south, the bay and the water in the middle distance, the Coronado Bridge visible on a clear afternoon. It is a park rather than a lookout, so people bring blankets, picnics, and an enormous number of dogs, and nobody is in a rush to leave before the light goes. Bring something to sit on and something warm — the hill turns damp and cold the moment the sun drops.

A stone amphitheater sits on the summit, and the view arranges itself around it. East County reads clearly from up here — La Mesa and El Cajon below, mountains ranged behind them, the coast out west when the air is clean. It is a quiet hill, and the walk around the rim keeps changing what is in front of you. People come up for sunrise, and that is the version of this place worth setting an alarm for.

This is the one you walk. The path starts beside the Cave Store and runs along the top of the sandstone, and the angle changes every minute or two — down into the sea caves, out along the headlands, then back toward La Jolla Cove with wildlife on the rocks below. It is uneven underfoot and narrow in places, and the edge is genuinely an edge. Short enough to do before dinner, and the best-looking stretch of walking in La Jolla.