- A travel guide for visiting the seaside neighborhood
of La Jolla in San Diego California.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions,
I do travel guides that are fun,
informative and entertaining.
This video's part of my series on San Diego,
if you wanna see more on San Diego you'll find more videos
at the end, or links in the description below.
But in this video I'm gonna be telling you all about
this neighborhood La Jolla, that many people refer to as
the gem of San Diego, why is it the gem?
Because it's one of the most beautiful areas.
Because it occupies seven miles of
San Diego's coastline, pretty amazing,
I'm starting here in La Jolla Cove,
we're gonna visit the other neighborhoods which include
La Jolla Shores, Black's Beach, Windansea,
Mount Soledad and The Village which is where,
all the shops are.
Speaking of shops there are 12 hundred shops in La Jolla,
two hundred restaurants, but it's also famous for the
240 seals and sea lions, if you just see down there,
there's about 20 of them, and I don't have smell-O-vision,
but I can smell them from here.
So this is La Jolla Cove, it's a really small,
tiny portion of beach, super popular for sunbathing,
super popular for snorkeling, scuba diving,
they do an annual rough water swim from here,
where they'll swim people from here to La Jolla Shores.
It's just a neat little beach you can explore the caves,
you can do tide pooling, there are lifeguards here,
so start your tour here,
and then we're gonna go check out the park.
The Cove also has a neat viewing area with benches,
where you can just sit and admire the beauty from above.
So if you're curious what that water temperature is,
well the lifeguards post it everyday.
Today the water temperature in March is 58 degrees,
(shivers) chilly, that's why most people that'll be in the
water would be in wetsuits.
If you're coming and you wanna go in the water,
June, July, August, September, those are the best months,
May and June we get a little bit of May Gray
here in La Jolla, actually it's one of the foggiest
and gloomiest places in May and June,
in San Diego here in La Jolla.
If you come here at low tide, and how do you know when
low tide is?
Well you'd look online, you'd find tide charts,
but could also look here, and see when low tide is,
today low tide is at 12:47 p.m.
Lot of great tide pools that are here,
you can go tide pooling, make sure you've got some
good shoes when you go tide pooling because those rocks
can be slippery, and by the way La Jolla is a
Marine Protected Area which means,
don't take anything with you, leave the stuff here,
so that other people can see it.
So just up the hill from La Jolla Cove is this neat park,
which I'm gonna show you this tree in a moment.
Chris why are you showing me a tree?
Well you're just gonna have to wait, neat tree.
But this sidewalk it'll take you all the way to the
children's pool, I recommend this walk, anybody can do it,
it's paved it's easy, great views.
Alright so here is the tree, you'll be saying Chris
what's so special about that tree?
Well I'm gonna tell you to use you imagination,
somebody else used their imagination on this tree,
who was that?
Dr. Seuss, a famous La Jolla resident.
This tree, he put this tree in his book The Lorax,
also in the movie The Lorax, ask anybody in La Jolla
and they'll tell you that's the Lorax tree.
Actually there's a lot of interesting trees in this park
because you'll notice they have this lean to them,
why the lean?
Well that's the direction the wind blows off the ocean,
and so the trees are leaning away from the wind.
If you don't like the crowds of La Jolla Cove,
well there's another cove just on the other side
of that park, this one usually has a lot less people,
but there's only sand when it's low tide.
The second most famous beach in La Jolla is
The Children's Pool, this pool right behind me here,
why is it called the Children's Pool?
Well, see that wall, that's manmade.
It was manmade to make a cove so that the waves don't
break in it, to make calm waters for children.
You know who else likes calm waters?
Seals and sea lions, the number one place to see
seals and sea lions in La Jolla,
is here at The Children's Pool.
They're pretty much here most of the time,
I will point out it is illegal to harass
the seals and sea lions,
so please do view them from a distance.
But you'll find nature all around La Jolla, not just here,
today seals and sea lions are in a whole bunch of
different areas, there's pelicans, there's squirrels,
there's even birds that have like eggs in their nests,
but you know what, view them from a distance,
so you don't bug them,
so they can keep enjoying this day here,
so everybody else can watch them too.
One of the coolest places to take a look at the seals is
from this seawall right out here, the spot right at the end,
that's a great place to take a selfie too,
just make sure the waves aren't to big,
because they can break over that wall,
and you can get really pretty soaked.
If you're looking for public bathrooms, you'll find them
right at The Children's Pool,
underneath the lifeguard tower.
From The Children's Pool you can continue the coastal walk
a couple of miles that way for more beautiful,
spectacular views of the coast, but we are going to head
up the hill into La Jolla Village,
to check out the restaurants and shops,
so I'll see you up there.
Walking up from The Children's Pool,
one block on Jenner to Prospect Street,
Prospect Street right here, this is the home of La Jolla's
business district, this known as the La Jolla Village.
Most of the high end shops and restaurants are here,
along Prospect just one block from the coast.
The other street they're on is Girard,
the street right behind me, Girard it runs that way,
and there's a street on the outside called Pearl
that has some more of the big box stores like
Vaughan's and things like that.
But if you want the highest end restaurants,
they're gonna be here on Prospect because there's these
big hotels and you can eat at these restaurants that have
million dollar views.
Now I will tell you, pretty much nothing here is cheap
in The Village of La Jolla,
because you're paying for those views.
One of La Jolla's most classic hotels is the
La Valencia Hotel, located on Prospect,
it's in this pink building built in 1909,
a classic spot for nice dinners and high end weddings.
In addition to restaurants, cafes and bars
Prospect is also home to a plethora of art galleries,
the highest concentration of art galleries in any
neighborhood in San Diego is here in La Jolla,
so if you want some high end art,
bring your credit card with you.
Maybe you could pack this away in your carry-on.
No this one's my kind of gallery,
selling the art of Dr. Seuss.
In addition to art in art galleries there's also a lot of
public art, this is a really neat fountain right here,
it's a seashell, and it's got this ball in it,
that rolls because of the water.
But what there's also a lot of in La Jolla,
in addition to art galleries, there's a lot of real estate
offices to sell that million dollar real estate,
and there's a lot of banks to give people loans,
to buy those million dollar houses.
And off Prospect you'll find a lot of these, cute little
arcades with little shops and restaurants down them,
be sure to explore all of these too.
And if you explore the arcades
down the ocean side of Prospect,
you can get some neat ocean views and also cool places
to take your selfies from up here,
without a ton of people around you.
When you're done exploring La Jolla Cove and The Village,
if you wanna go down closer and see some of those caves,
you have two options.
One, you could go to La Jolla Shores,
and we'll get there in a little bit,
and take a kayak out to the caves,
but if that sounds like to much work,
and you wanna get down there the lazy way,
there's this place over there called The Cave Store.
It's this store, it's been here since the early 19 hundreds,
and for five bucks you can go down this staircase
that they've built through the cliffs that'll take you
down to that cave, down there.
It's really neat to be inside of a cave,
and dry at the same time.
Definitely for the adventurous though because the staircase
can be a little bit slippery, but that can be one of those
that you put on your bucket list,
hike through an underground tunnel to a sea cave, check.
Just next to The Cave Store, if you like hiking,
and this is a pretty mild hike, make sure to check this out,
it's The Cliff Walk, next to The Cave Store.
From here you get even better views,
and I love it even more than the sidewalk over by The Cove
because there it's super busy and super crowded,
but here it's pretty peaceful, you can basically hike this,
it's maybe a short half mile hike, not that long,
but right along this coast with great views.
If you are a more adventuresome hiker you can check out
Torrey Pines State Reserve,
it's just about three miles, in that direction,
but it's a state park that has the majestic Torrey Pine tree
which only grows in a few places in the world,
one of them is in that state park.
A great thing about parking in La Jolla,
all the street parking is free, F.R.E.E. free.
But I will tell you, pay attention to the regulations,
three hour parking, two hour parking,
no parking in certain places, and also if you're parking
on a hill pay attention to this,
cramp wheels to the curb.
If you're parking on a hill, and you're going down the hill,
you need to turn your wheels towards the hill,
and if you're parking up the hill you need to turn them
away from the hill.
They actually ticket you for those things here,
and I don't want you getting an expensive ticket,
because you didn't remember to turn your wheels.
So once you're done exploring La Jolla Cove
and the La Jolla Village, if you wanna of to a beach that
has a bit more sand than the Cove,
well that's La Jolla Shores.
You saw it from The Cove, it's the big wide sandy beach
that has the Scripps Pier at the end of it.
Probably best to get there by driving, you could walk,
it's a couple of miles so it's a little bit of a walk,
but it's easy to park down there on a weekday
because there's a big parking lot.
La Jolla Shores is well known for a flat sandy beach,
calm waves, really great place to learn how to surf,
I mentioned those kayak expeditions earlier,
they leave from there,
you can learn how to scuba dive over there,
lot of activities around La Jolla Shores,
really good for the kids.
I will point out that La Jolla Shores has a lot of stingrays
so make sure you do the stingray shuffle,
which is you take your feet and you just kinda
rub them on the sand like this, it scares away the stingrays
because you don't wanna get stung.
La Jolla Shores, where you'll wanna take that quintessential
selfie picture is underneath the pier, Scripps Pier.
It's a working pier so you actually can't walk on top of it,
but probably the most photographed place in La Jolla,
is getting a photo right underneath that pier.
Now just to the north of La Jolla Shores is Black's Beach.
Black's Beach is San Diego's de facto nude beach,
and not really gonna talk a lot about Black's Beach
in this video because I have a whole separate video
about Black's Beach.
It's a nude beach because it's like really hard to get to,
and so if you wanna know how to get to Black's Beach,
well you'll find the link in the description below,
or at the end of this video for more on Black's Beach.
If you've got a car take a drive up to Mount Soledad,
it's the highest point in La Jolla.
It has a cross on top of it that was placed there in 1913,
I say if you're driving because,
although it's only two miles from La Jolla Cove,
it's about 800 feet up,
and so it'll be a long walk without many sidewalks.
It's also home to the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial,
with lots of memorial pictures
of veterans from previous wars.
But in addition to the war memorial and the cross,
the other reason to come out to Mount Soledad,
because it's one of the highest points in San Diego,
is for the view,
there are sweeping, 360 degree views from Mount Soledad.
Off in this direction, which is to the north,
you can see The University of California San Diego,
there's also a Dr. Seuss building there,
not by Dr. Seuss but it's got his name on the library.
You can see the distinctive Mormon temple,
the Westfield University Towne Center Shopping Mall's
in that direction, kind of suburbian San Diego this way,
and then looking to the south you can see Mission Bay,
where Sea World is, you can see the high rises of Downtown.
On a clear day you can see Mexico,
and of course looking towards the beach you can see
La Jolla Shores where we were earlier.
At the top of Mount Soledad they've got this neat
grassy area, it's a perfect place for a picnic,
they've also got these benches.
You can sit on these benches and admire the view,
it is quite a nice view.
I should point out though, you should bring a jacket,
it gets pretty windy up here, so it can be pretty cold,
especially if you're just sitting and admiring this view.
One of my favorite beaches in La Jolla is this one,
it's south of La Jolla Cove a couple of miles,
this one is called Windansea Beach.
It's not three words, wind and sea it's one word,
Windansea all together.
This beach is really cool because it's a reef break,
so it's not sand out there, it has some of the best waves,
if you want to watch surfers,
this is one of the best places to watch people surfing
because the waves break in pretty close.
It also has this really neat palm tree shack out there,
it's actually on the Historic Register of places,
for having been there since the 40s.
I mean it's pretty cool, it gets washed over,
but the surfers just rebuild it.
And also this beach is neat because it's kinda got all these
rocks but these sandy places in between the the rocks,
so on a windy day you can find a spot in between the rocks
that doesn't get a lot of wind.
I will point out though Windansea Beach has no
bathrooms or showers,
so make sure you use the bathroom before you come here.
My second favorite beach in all of La Jolla is this beach,
this beach is called Marine Street Beach.
Why is it called Marine Street Beach?
Well because it's main access is at the end of Marine Street
which came down from there.
But this beach, it's kind of an unknown beach,
I mean this is even more of a locals beach
than Windansea is.
But what I like about this beach,
it's some of the widest and finest sand,
it's like super sandy and as you can tell,
there are not that many people here.
Like particularly if you come in the winter,
you'll almost have this whole beach all to yourself.
This is also a really good beach if you like to bodyboard,
it does have a strong shore break so I'll tell you,
if you're not an experienced swimmer,
just be careful because the tides and the currents here
can be pretty strong.
Also no bathrooms at Marine Street either.
Whether or not La Jolla actually means the gem or not,
it is truly a beautiful place,
one of my favorite places in San Diego.
So after seeing all this, you're coming to San Diego,
now you know, you need to visit La Jolla,
and don't call it La Joya, it's La Jolla.
But if you're coming here,
maybe you wanna check out Black's Beach,
that de facto nude beach I talked about.
For more information about Black's Beach click right here,
or you can click right here to watch my playlist on
all of my San Diego videos.
You'll find links in the description below,
and I won't say goodbye,
because I'll see you in one of these videos.