{Vacation Destination} Coronado, CA: My FAVORITE escape.

CORONADO, CA

For a while now I have been completely neglecting all form of personal blogging. I have basically given up attempting to capture the memories of my family's adventures. It is a sad fact. There just isn't time in the day to do it all. At the moment I am focusing on my cooking/lifestyle blog and "ain't nobody got time" to do it all. For now Instagram is my personal form of capturing life's little lovely bits. I even upload many of my favorite photos onto it from my "nice camera" not just my iPhone snapshots. What do you do for personal memory capturing? Have you found the answer? I am not a scrapbooker by any means. I have tried several "online scrapbooking" methods and have failed miserably. Long story short, I wish there was a better way... Any tips?

We have done a lot of traveling in the last year. I was reminiscing a few of the fun adventures I had been on and a few firsts I had checked off my life list. The idea came to me to add a travel portion to my blog in the hopes that I could share some of my favorite places with you, and maybe give you a few tips and ideas when your decide to venture out yourself! I love hearing about my friends favorite restaurants and cool hangouts in their cities, so if I find one, I will share the love with you too!

I would love to take you on the grand tour of our adventure in Coronado and San Diego! Come along with me!!

Coronado Island is located across the San Diego Bay, directly across from downtown San Diego. It is a peninsula connected by a 10 mile slice of land called "the strand". 

Let me just tell you, it is my #1 favorite vacation spot so far. It is so family friendly and cozy. Coronado is a resort city which houses The Hotel Del Coronado (very famous luxury hotel) among many other high rise condominiums and hotels. 

The north end of the island is home to the Navel Air Station North Island, and on the southern tip you will find the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado (base which trains Navy Seals and SWCC). What this means is you get a great view of all the Navy Seals running along the beach each morning, and awesome views of crazy cool helicopters, planes and ships at night. You can usually see them running drills or doing long distance swim training. It is really neat.

We rent a condo in Coronado Shores. These are directly south of The Hotel Del Coronado. It is such a sweet spot to vacation. The condo is right off the beach. If you leave our lobby you will walk a very short distance to the various pool areas that are on the beach boardwalk. You can spend your days bopping between beach, pool, hot tub and condo comforts. The Coronado Beach was rated #1 beach in America as of 2012. 

 

I would have to agree that the beach is unreal. It is the softest sand I have ever seen, and if you look at the sand when it is wet, it sparkles with gold flecks! It doesn't even seem like it could be real, but it is! This golden beach is my daughter Elena's favorite spot on earth. She just couldn't believe her eyes when she noticed the sparkling gold sand. (Her favorite color is golden after all.) One of the perks of beaching it here is the loooong depth of the space between boardwalk and water. It's great with kids because there is so much sand before the water that if you have a runaway 2 year old he wont get to the water before you get to him.... I know that might just be a little thing, but it makes a huge difference when you have little ones there playing.

The main center of the island is known to locals as "The Village". It has a long line of fun restaurants and locally owned shops. There is a vintage theatre that I still haven't had the opportunity to visit. I hear great things about it from Coronado locals!

I love that it is such a short walk into The Village.  There are some really cute shops, but my favorite spot is called Seaside Papery! It is so full of interesting and adorable paper goods, gifts, home decor, art and much more. It is such an enchanting shop. Just being inside is heartwarming and fun. There is no way to enter this shop and not have a big fat smile plastered over your face!

Isn't that the most adorable shop ever? I think so... I came home with some really great loot!

Here is the view from the pool (kids fave hangout spot!)

We spent hours on end finding shells, building sand castles and going for walks soaking in all the glorious views. 

The kids love to play in the ocean. It took some convincing to get them to ever come inside for dinner!

  

Taking the short drive into Old Town San Diego is definitely worth the time. You know in the old days you could take a day trip into Tijuana with your family and look for fun treasures? Well you couldn't pay me to do that these days. I have lots of great memories of visiting there as a kid when we were in Cali. Old Town has become the safer, better alternative to Tijuana (without people begging you for money...) Lots of local artists and crafters set up booths in the town among the historical (and not so historical) buildings to show off their wares. My kids and I loved the little jaunt through all the streets of Old Town picking out trinkets here and there. :)

Local musicians set up in the center of these cute shops and play music. I love this! We always grab a treat and take a few minutes to enjoy the artists music.

In Old Town Square there are a bunch of legit shops and restaurants too. There is an adorable toy store called Geppetto's. They have every toy from YOUR childhood as well as all the current trendy toys. I could spend hours in there!! We came home with a Spirograph set this time, but I could have bought much more than that. It is a must visit if you have kids!

We ventured into San Diego's Gas Lamp District for a date night and dined as Nobu. It is a very high end restaurant. All my pictures are horrible quality because it was nighttime and the lighting was dim at most. The food however was fantastic! I would highly recommend eating there if you can. I fully enjoyed every bit of food and drink they served me there. Mmm. 

Here are a few poorly taken shots of the wondrous delights consumed at Nobu.

One afternoon we swung into Tender Greens in downtown San Diego as a family. They are serving super trendy, healthy (and some not so healthy) meals and desserts. It is a bit like eating at Cafe Zupa's or Paradise Bakery, but with more fancy food flair. I wish we had a location here in Utah. I would definitely become a regular there. :) Here are a few pics of Tender Greens:

We also usually make it to Miguel's Mexican restaurant on Coronado. It is super busy, but pretty delicious. I love their chips and salsa. The atmosphere is great, but it is a little pricey for casual Mexican fare. I would still recommend dining there though. :)

One of our favorite activities is to ride bikes all the way around the peninsula with our kids. It is such a beautiful sight. You can ride along the pier and the beach for much of the ride. a.ma.zing. Here is a view from the pier portion of our ride. :)

We miss Coronado already. Now we are into quite crisp fall weather here in Utah! I sure do love fall though. Coronado, we love you! See you soon. :)

My Coronado, CA Vacation Destination top 10:

1-The gorgeous beach. In fact it is the best beach I have ever been to. Period.

2-Mind blowing sunsets almost every night.

3-Perfect weather pretty much any time of the year.

4-Fun city just a bridge ride away waiting for you to explore.

5-You can ride your bike or run all the way around the peninsula along the pier and beach.

6-Restaurants I have come to really love: Hectors on Coronado, Rhino Grill on Coronado, Tender Greens in downtown San Diego, Nobu in downtown San Diego, Casa Guadalahara in Old Town San Diego.

7-Cultural art and experiences in historical Old Town San Diego including: The Mormon Battalion Museum and historical Buildings in Old Town Square.

8-Fun local shops: My favorite is Seaside Papery on Coronado.

9-Other fun beaches like Mission Beach just a short drive away.

10-Relaxing atmosphere and safe family friendly area with lots of fun kid activities nearby.

There is so much more that I love about Coronado, but to share all of that with you would take way too long, and its better to let you do some exploring of your own if you get a chance to visit there too! 

Have you vacationed in Coronado? What are your favorite places to go or things to to there? I would love to hear your point of view! 

Happy Vacation Destinations to you all!

xoxo

~Laura