San Diego is just awful — there’s too much sunshine, hipsters drinking freshly brewed craft beer, and we put fries INSIDE our burritos? Seriously?
In case you didn’t cotton on to my blatant snark….I’m kidding. In 2016, I wrote a totally facetious article about the reasons you’ll “hate” San Diego for a (now-defunct) travel booking website, and the thing went viral. I must admit, I was pretty stoked to see so many people sharing and loving it, and had a good laugh at the uppity uppersons who either a) didn’t understand my tongue-in-cheek, or b) felt that San Diego really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and wanted to let me know why.
In any case, behold, my reasons San Diego is hell on Earth:
You need sunscreen like, every day
San Diego weather sucks. There’s just so. much. sunshine.
There are a zillion craft breweries (actually 100+)
Bud Light is far superior to our hipster coffee-infused beer. That you can drink on an outdoor patio. In the sunshine. In January.
You can get a tan at the beach 350 days of the year
It’s probably drizzling on the other 15 days.
Vegas is a weekend trip for us
It’s just a 5-hour drive or a 50-minute plane ride from San Diego Airport. Go ahead, hate us.
The streets are lined with palm trees
What is this, a movie set? (I mean, it might also be!)
We have our own mini-island called Coronado
As if we need MORE reasons to qualify as paradise.
The Mexican food is real
Fresh tortillas, margaritas, and locally-sourced guacamole are so overrated.
We put carne asada on fries
And fries in our BURRITOS. Blasphemy.
You can actually visit the beach, mountains, and desert in the same day
You’re never more than 2 hours away from any of these regions in San Diego. Over-achievers.
Kayaking, standup paddleboarding, and surfing are considered daily exercise
Why get fresh air when you can breathe in your treadmill neighbor’s farts at the gym?
The plethora of ocean-view hiking trails can be so steep
If we wanted a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, we’d just download a 4k screensaver.
San Diego is home to Comic-Con
Because there weren’t enough things to do in San Diego!
Flip-flops (or bare feet) are the preferred form of footwear
Ugh, feet. Feet everywhere!
A sunset hot air balloon ride is a perfectly acceptable first date
Thanks a lot for setting the bar three miles too high, San Diego men.
You can get close to wild whales
But why not just watch that on the Discovery Channel?
There are so many restaurants, you can hardly choose what to eat or where to go
Life was so much simpler when the choice was Denny’s or McDonald’s.
The original Legoland is here
And it’s near the beach, and everything about those things is terrible. (Also, Disneyland is only 50-90 minutes away.)
There’s a place called Sunset Cliffs, which is literally a front row seat to the sun setting over the freaking ocean
Final proof that San Diego is the worst place on Earth and everyone who lives there is the devil.
Sun 362 days of the year…ever hear of May Gray/June he Gloom?…do you go to the beach and lie out when it is 62 or 64 in December – Mid March?
Mexican food and craft beer is good, but SD butchers most other cuisines. Underwhelming food for a city of its size. Brian Malarkey is a joke.
Poor roads, mediocre nightlife, cannot go into the ocean without a wetsuit 9 months of the year, hipsters who bathe once a month, less career advancement opportunities than LA and SF, brownish landscape and 1960’s Koll architecture, and the wonderful homeless population.
Yes, San Diego is the envy of the world—not.
Lol wow! Thank you for taking the time to leave your opinion. I’m sorry you seem to have such a distaste/unfortunate experience with San Diego. I’ve lived here my entire life and can say: 1) Yes, I am quite familiar with May and June gloom, and I do in fact go to the beach year-round. You can lie out, surf, bodyboard, or get together with friends around a bonfire, even when the sun isn’t shining at a perfect 80 degrees. 2) I disagree that “SD butchers most other cuisines,” but that’s your opinion. 3) I’m not sure where you live/have visited in SD where there are “hipsters who bathe once a month,” (except perhaps PB), but that’s both not San Diego personified, and a phenomenon that could exist anywhere in the world. (Same with the homeless population.) This was a good-natured, somewhat exaggerated post, but thanks for taking the time to leave your opinion, and I hope you find more joy in other places in the world than you do in this one. Cheers!
I’m a realist, not a carnival barker.
Has some good features but not as great as residents make it out to be. Small town vibe with big city problems minus big city amenities.