San Diego

San Diego's surf geography runs north-south along one of the most consistent stretches of coastline in California. La Jolla at the southern end — coves, reefs, the kind of underwater topography that makes Black's Beach and Windansea produce hollow, fast waves on any swell — is where the serious surf happens. Encinitas, thirty kilometres north, is where the surf culture matured into something else: Swami's, a right-hand point that the yogis who founded the Self-Realization Fellowship monastery above it have been watching since 1937, is the geographic centre of a town that became the yoga capital of the United States before most of California had heard of yoga. The Leucadia stretch of Encinitas is where the professional surfers live, where the surf shops have been operating for forty years, and where the relationship between surf culture and design culture has produced a hotel scene that finally reflects the quality of the coastline.

The food scene runs the length of the county and doesn't announce itself the way LA does — it just gets better every year. Little Italy has become one of the strongest dining neighbourhoods in California. The craft beer culture is the most developed in the state. A week in San Diego has a natural shape: the breaks in the morning, the city in the afternoon, something serious for dinner. The water is warmer than visitors from the north expect — 18–20°C in summer, cold enough to need a spring suit in winter, but never the shock of NorCal.