By now, you’ve probably heard about GayTravel.com’s gay California road trip this past summer, a special weeklong journey made by our friend Adam of popular gay travel blog Travels of Adam, with support from our partners Advantage Rent A Car and Greystone Hotels. What better way to highlight the transformative nature of travel and the love and support we feel for the LGBTQ community than with a jaunt down one of the country’s most renowned coasts? See a recap of Adam’s trip here.
During Adam’s weekend stay in San Diego, the last town on his itinerary, he scouted out the best Pride events and activities, plus the best places to eat, drink, and stay in America’s Finest City. See highlights from his trip below!
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By Travels of Adam
Pulling up to the hotel in my very gay car rental, the Bristol Hotel’s bold colors immediately caught my attention. Thanks to a massive lobby with lots of pop art and comfy couches, I immediately felt like I was home.
The Bristol Hotel is located in San Diego’s popular Gaslamp District, a part of the city center that’s convenient to a lot of San Diego’s best things to do. From the hotel to the Hillcrest gayborhood, it’s a straight shot—under 10 minutes!
Having driven to San Diego for Pride weekend, I spent my days exploring the city for the first time and my evenings enjoying the Pride activities in the Hillcrest area.
Bristol Hotel
Part of the Greystone Hotels collection of boutique properties, the Bristol Hotel was my favorite of the collection I visited during my #GayRoadTrip. The lobby was the most spacious and brightly lit, with tall ceilings and a comfortable lounge. With my corner guestroom on the upper floor, I had a spectacular view of the downtown district.
Seemingly designed for Instagram, the Bristol Hotel has a lot of flair and personality. Everything was bright and colorful with plenty of pop art thrown in, including a funky bathroom mirror vanity and unique design furniture. Just the kind of design touches you want in a hotel so that it’s not overbearing, but chic enough to make it feel like a home for the weekend.
Sightseeing in San Diego
Just a short drive from the border with Mexico, San Diego has all the appeal of a Southern California city with plenty of diversity. Famous for its warm climate, America’s Finest City has a lot of great outdoor activities—especially considering it’s right on the Pacific coast!
In the center of San Diego is massive Balboa Park—a large green outdoor space and the center of city life. The park is home to many of the city’s museums, and the unique topography of the region makes it a great space for city hiking and exploration as well.
But perhaps the most famous attraction in Balboa Park is the San Diego Zoo. People travel from all over the world to visit this zoo because of its huge diversity of animals. Over 3,500 animals of more than 650 species and subspecies have their home at the San Diego Zoo, and up until recently, the zoo was even an important spot for the preservation and breeding of panda bears.
Aside from the many restaurants and bars in San Diego, the other main attraction is the coast with its beautiful beaches. A short drive from downtown, Coronado Island is a funky beach suburb of the city, with lots of cute cafes, restaurants, and bars lining the streets in the downtown district, which you can easily reach from the beach. The public beaches are large and spacious, with plenty of amenities, making them a great place to get some sun for a few hours.
Exploring the Hillcrest neighborhood
San Diego has a number of cool neighborhoods, including the Gaslamp District where the Bristol Hotel is located, but most of the LGBTQ nightlife and bars are located in the Hillcrest neighborhood. Just north of Balboa Park, Hillcrest is also home to some of the city’s most trendy restaurants and brunch hotspots.
The most obvious sign that Hillcrest is the epicenter of San Diego’s LGBTQ community is the 65-foot monument flying a 12-foot-by-18-foot rainbow Pride flag! At the base of the flagpole are four plaques with information about San Diego’s LGBTQ rights movement through the years. It’s a very visible monument for Pride, and it marks the spot where the annual San Diego Pride Parade starts each year.
Along University Avenue, Hillcrest’s main drag, there are a number of other great LGBTQ hotspots. There’s the city’s iconic Hillcrest street sign (popular on Instagram), and big gay nightclubs like Flicks and Rich’s, as well as the popular lesbian bar Gossip Grill. There’s even an LGBTQ-owned craft brewery called Hillcrest Brewing Company (or HBC for short) which sells local craft beers with NSFW names.
Because of the diversity of the Hillcrest neighborhood, there are a number of great restaurants in the area as well—making it a popular spot for dining out. The LGBTQ-owned insideOUT restaurant serves hybrid California-Mediterranean fare in a hip location (and even screens LGBTQ movies once a month during their queer movie night). TRUST restaurant in Hillcrest offers a delicious brunch menu on a nearby corner with great Southern California classic dishes (don’t miss the chilaquiles!).
San Diego Pride
While San Diego is a gay-friendly destination year-round, the annual San Diego Pride festival in July attracts thousands of visitors from the region. The Pride festival includes a week’s worth of activities and parties.
Highlights from San Diego Pride include the happy hour deals at the various Hillcrest gay bars and restaurants. The Patio on Goldfinch hosted a happy hour starring local drag queens at the beginning of Pride weekend. And on the Thursday before the Pride parade, the festival was launched with an important service at the site of the Hillcrest Pride Flag Monument with a moment of silence for those in the community who were killed or murdered recently, especially queer trans people of color.
San Diego’s biggest event of Pride weekend, though, is of course the Pride parade, when thousands of people join in a march down University Avenue to cheer on the LGBTQ community. The parade ends in Balboa Park with a huge festival featuring three stages of performers and nearly 100 different shops, food vendors, and community groups in the marketplace. Pro tip: Get a VIP ticket for the Pride festival for special access to avoid lines (and free drinks and foods each day of the weekend!).
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San Diego is a fun and funky city with a large LGBTQ scene, and plenty of gay hotspots for everyone in the community. There’s a very lively and energetic community in Hillcrest. Just visit any weekend night and you’ll see crowds of LGBTQ locals bar-hopping up and down University Ave! And that special Southern California flair for cool comfort is a large part of San Diego’s vibe.
Adam Groffman is a freelance writer, marketer, and gay travel blogger based in NYC, where he covers city trips around the world, expat life, LGBT issues, festivals, and nightlife on his blog, Travels of Adam. His writing has been featured in Thrillist, The Guardian, AFAR, Fodor’s Travel Guides, Condé Nast Traveler, and countless online publications. Additional travel tips (and embarrassing stories!) are shared in real-time through his fun and engaging social media @travelsofadam.
