16 Pros and Cons of Living in San Diego, California

Last Updated on March 12, 2021 by Filip Poutintsev

San Diego, CA, lies along Southern California’s Pacific Ocean coast. It is directly adjacent to the Mexico border and is located about 120 miles south of the metro area of Los Angeles. Approximately 1.5 million people consider this city their home, making it the eighth largest in the World. This location is also called California’s birthplace since it was the first spot to be explored along the west coast by European explorers.

If you’re contemplating moving to Southern California, then here are the pros and cons of living in San Diego that you’re going to want to know today.

Pros of Living in San Diego

1. Weather

One of San Diego ‘s best pros is a straightforward one, the weather! The weather is usually a healthy 75 degrees in San Diego, just about everywhere in San Diego County. We have about 10 days of rain a year, and during the winter it gets cold in the evenings, but usually, we stay in the low 70s.

2. Fun Road Trips

Even if the traffic is heavier than usual, you’ll find there’s plenty of things you can do during the day you stay in San Diego. Disneyland is a 90-minute drive away. After a two-hour drive and a 60-minute ferry ride, you can reach Catalina Island.

Big Bear is only 2.5 hours away from a beautiful lake. Over the weekend you can still take the 4-hour road trip down to Las Vegas. With 5.5 hours, Phoenix is a little farther away, while only Yosemite is within reach at less than 8 hours travel time.

3. Beaches

When you start living in San Diego, going down into the Pacific Ocean would be a new way of life for you. You can go for a stroll in the early morning, surf or swim at almost any time you like when you live in town.

The close proximity to the sand and sunlight makes it easy to do some tanning or play your favourite sports at the beach. Because of this advantage, you’ll discover that this city has a slower vibe compared to some of the chaos that tends to take place in LA to the north.

4. Friendly Environment

San Diego is a family-friendly neighbourhood. Across San Diego County, there are countless things to do with your family, free and otherwise. Besides their amazing city parks, there’s also SeaWorld San Diego, the world-famous San Diego Zoo, LEGOLAND California, Balboa Park Children’s Museums, and so much more.

5. Outdoors

San Diegans enjoy spending plenty of time outside because of the amazing weather. If you have ever been to San Diego, you will soon note how involved their community is. There are excellent hiking and biking trails along the beaches, mountains and even in the desert areas surrounding it.

The Torrey Pines Hiking Trail is a scenic trail renowned for its breathtaking views of the pacific. There’s also the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve with 22 sq. miles of explorable tracks.

6. Schools

San Diego County has some of California ‘s finest public schools. There are five San Diego school districts in all of California rated in the top 30.

7. Culture

In San Diego, lies the largest urban cultural park in the United States. Balboa Park is home to more than a dozen museums, several more art galleries, the Globe Theaters and the regional zoological park. There are plenty of lovely gardens to explore when you are in this area too. Opera, live symphonies and more than 7,000 restaurants awaits your arrival. If you’ve always wanted to discover the culture of California, living in this city would be a perfect experience for you.

8. Plenty of Events to Enjoy

Once you start living in San Diego you can find that almost every weekend there seems to be something going on in the area. There are plenty of live bands passing through here, watching sporting events, horse races and enjoying beer gardens.

If you can’t find enough to do with all those options, then you can enjoy a day on one of the city’s 80 golf courses. Unless you’re planning to relax all the time at home, you’ll find that living here almost mandates you’ll spend a lot of time enjoying the great outdoors.

9. Amazing Food Choices

If you figured the location of the city right on the Mexico border would mean you ‘d have some amazing Mexican dining choices to enjoy while living in San Diego, then you’d be right. When you consider this community home nothing beats this culinary alternative. You can find deals on almost every corner, with a lot of the locations available for convenience around the clock. Instead of being Taco Tuesday, when you stay here, you can find it is more like Taco Every Day.

10. Excellent Craft Beer

There are over 100 licensed craft beer producers presently operating in the area. This culture has led to several unique beer bars and individual brands being created which make the perfect evening away from home. The culture does much more than pulling visitors into the region. This also acts as the basis for the International Beer Cup, Beer Week and more. Several of the San Diego home calling breweries are regularly ranked as the best in the world.

Cons of Living in San Diego

1. Expensive

Since the notion of living in Southern California has had a revived attraction, the average home prices have skyrocketed in recent years. And if you happen to find an old property in a less than desirable part of town, you can expect to pay at least $500,000 to be able to own it.

Many of the newer houses sell for over a million dollars. If you want to rent a studio apartment in town, then you can expect to pay about $1,500. Two-bedroom apartments are in excess of $2,200 a month, not including utilities. Such rates have risen over 3 per cent.

It’s important to remember that given these prices, San Diego remains a cheaper place to stay than northern cities such as San Francisco or Los Angeles.

2. Parking

Since most households own at least one car while they live in San Diego, you can find that it may feel like a difficult job to try to find a good parking spot. If you live properly in the city this issue can be particularly important as you may also be asked to pay for space.

If you want to ride the bus, it will take you a few hours to prepare to make sure you get to your destination. It may take you only 20 minutes to drive, but you’ll need another 10 to find a safe place to park in. To make this process easier you may want to consider renting or buying a motorcycle or a scooter.

3. Sports

If you’re a big fan of sports, perhaps San Diego isn’t the right city for you. They officially have only one professional sports team, the San Diego Padres. The Padres’ home is located at Petco Park, in downtown San Diego. This magnificent stadium is surrounded by great bars and restaurants and is used during the year for many different activities.

4. Airport

The advantages to consider when moving to California are numerous. The clouds are almost always warm, the rains occur only occasionally in San Diego and you usually don’t have to think about the cold weather. What you’ll also note about the city if you’re fond of flying is that the San Diego International Airport isn’t nearly as helpful as you ‘d expect to find in such a city. There is only one runway to sustain air traffic coming across the city.

Airlines are pricing a flight to San Diego as if it were just something of a regional hub, which means flying out of there would cost you something than if you were heading north via an airport. Most town residents find themselves driving up to LAX to fly somewhere because the savings can be substantial.

5. Traffic

While San Diego communities are walkable, the County is relatively widespread. Which means most of San Diegans own vehicles, that is traffic. San Diego ranks 40 for country traffic, and if you live in a small town now, it’s tolerable but also something to remember.
This should also be remembered that the public transit network is not as well built up as other major metropolitan cities. They have a bus system and the Coaster Commuter Rail that runs from downtown to Oceanside, up and down the coast.

6. Struggle with Precipitation

The San Diego people are very much focused on their routines. You will find that when the days are warm it feels good, and the ocean water remains cool all year round. The traffic snarls can get bad very fast, during the unusual periods when the weather chooses not to cooperate. It doesn’t take much urban precipitation to start causing the number of injuries to increase.

During these days, you may want to take care of the roads to ensure that you will arrive safely at your destination.