San Diego, United States: Self-Guided Walking Tour

San Diego brings together museums, historic buildings, maritime attractions and distinctive cultural landmarks across neighborhoods such as Balboa Park, downtown, Point Loma and La Jolla. If you are deciding what to see in San Diego, the city’s museums and unusual landmarks offer plenty to explore on foot. Neywo also has a free audio guide for San Diego with 105 narrated places.

What to See and Do in San Diego

Balboa Park’s museums and landmarks

Balboa Park is one of the richest areas for things to do in San Diego. The San Diego Museum of Art, the region’s oldest and largest art museum, occupies a Spanish-influenced building designed by William Templeton Johnson. Its collection is especially strong in Spanish art, with works ranging from 5000 BCE to 2001. Outside the entrance, Tony Rosenthal’s abstract sculpture Odyssey III stands out for its bright orange-red aluminum discs.

The Timken Museum of Art offers a quieter art experience nearby. Opened in 1965, it presents European masterpieces, American paintings and Russian icons, including works associated with Flemish, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and French artists.

At the Centro Cultural de la Raza, Chicano, Mexican, Native American and Latino artistic traditions take center stage. The circular building contains studios, offices, a theater and a gallery, while colorful murals mark the main entrance. Its program includes classes and presentations in drama, music, dance and arts and crafts.

The Comic-Con Museum brings comics and popular arts into a year-round museum setting. Its exhibitions and programs draw on the creative legacy of San Diego Comic-Con and change over time.

Balboa Park is also home to the San Diego Zoo. Its origins go back to animals left over from the 1915 Panama–California Exposition. Today, the zoo occupies 100 acres and includes more than 700,000 exotic plants, from bamboo groves to eucalyptus trees.

For a historic house in the park, visit the George W. Marston House. This former home is now a museum and historic landmark, and it has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since December 1974.

San Diego’s waterfront and maritime history

The USS Midway Museum occupies the aircraft carrier USS Midway at Navy Pier. Visitors can explore the flight deck, hangar, command posts and officers’ quarters, as well as aircraft including helicopters and airplanes. Many of the aircraft were built in Southern California, connecting the collection with the region’s industrial history.

The Santa Fe Depot stands in downtown San Diego’s Core district. Built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the union station is distinguished by its Spanish Colonial Revival architecture and twin domes. It opened on March 8, 1915, ahead of the Panama–California Exposition, replacing an earlier station dating from 1887.

The Firehouse Museum adds another small museum stop in San Diego, while The Lot, also known as Building 35, is a movie theater in the city.

Unusual military and aviation attractions

The USS Recruit is one of San Diego’s most unusual landmarks. Built on land at the U.S. Navy Naval Training Center, this “landship” was designed at two-thirds the size of a Dealey-class destroyer escort. It gave recruits the experience of working aboard a ship without going to sea.

Designated TDE-1 and later TFFG-1, USS Recruit was commissioned on July 27, 1949. It remained in commission for eighteen years and was, for much of that period, the only landlocked commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy. After the Naval Training Center closed, the vessel stood empty for nearly two decades before opening to the public as a museum ship in 2023.

The Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum focuses on United States Marine Corps aviation. Its collection includes 31 historic aircraft, military vehicles and equipment, while indoor displays use photographs, artifacts and artwork to trace the development of Marine aviation.

Point Loma and La Jolla

The Old Point Loma Lighthouse sits at the mouth of San Diego Bay within the Cabrillo National Monument grounds. Built in 1855 by the United States government, it was deactivated in 1891 and now operates as a museum. Despite the occasional nickname “Old Spanish Lighthouse,” it was built after California became a state and was not part of the Spanish or Mexican eras.

In La Jolla, the Old Scripps Building is the oldest oceanographic research building still in continuous use in the United States. Designed by Modernist architect Irving J. Gill and completed in 1909–1910, it was the first building erected for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Its early use of reinforced concrete contributed to its architectural importance, and it became a National Historic Landmark in 1982.

A San Diego self-guided walking tour with Neywo

Neywo’s San Diego audio guide lets you explore the city independently. The app has five walking tours, one bus route and one bike route, covering 105 narrated places in total. Narration is available in 11 languages.

The walks include:

• Balboa Park’s Museum Mile: 2.12 km, 93 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
• Balboa Park East: 2.82 km, 88 minutes and 9 stops.
• The Embarcadero: 4.36 km, 108 minutes and 8 stops.
• Downtown Showtime: 3.69 km, 103 minutes and 10 stops.
• The Stuart Collection at UC San Diego: 3.01 km, 103 minutes and 12 stops.

There is also a 8.1 km, 35-minute bus route with 4 stops, plus a 3.4 km, 17-minute bike route with 9 stops. Stories play as you reach each place, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule.

Download Neywo and explore San Diego at your pace

Download Neywo to turn your visit into a free walking tour of San Diego with stories that start when you arrive at each landmark. Choose a walk through Balboa Park, follow the waterfront, explore downtown, ride the bus or take the bike route—without having to keep up with a group or follow a fixed schedule.

San Diego is part of California in the United States. If you are continuing through the state, you can also explore Poway, San Juan Capistrano or Palm Springs.