Things to do in San Diego with kids
Written September 2026
Balboa Park, the tide pools, the bay and the gray mornings, with lunch and a bed near each of them.
Picture it: a toddler who wants trains, a seven-year-old who wants crabs, and a sky that's decided to stay gray until noon. Where do you go in San Diego? Honestly, most of the answer is Balboa Park. The zoo sits at its north end, and around it are a science center with a whole toddler town inside, a natural history museum with a backyard for under-fives, the model railroads, a 1910 carousel and a puppet theater. Then there's the water: the tide pools at Cabrillo, the wide sand at Ocean Beach and the calm, playground-lined edges of Mission Bay.
What trips people up here is the weather and the tides. May and June mornings often come in cool and gray (locals call it June Gloom), so the beach plan can turn into a museum plan by 9. And the tide pools only really show up at a low tide, which lands in daylight mostly in fall and winter. So every entry covers restrooms, changing tables, bookings and ages, and tells you straight who a place doesn't suit.
Each part of town also gets somewhere to eat nearby and somewhere to sleep. A day out ends with dinner, after all, and if you're visiting, with a hotel.
How we picked
Think of these as the places we'd send a friend with a four-year-old and a sand bucket. The yes and no answers under each place come from its own site, its visitor pages and its Play Day listing. If one's missing, we couldn't confirm it either way (not that the answer is no).
Everything here is in the city of San Diego. Coronado, La Jolla and LEGOLAND up in Carlsbad each deserve a day of their own, so we didn't squeeze them in. And we kept the list short on purpose: if something only really works for teenagers, or is mostly a parking lot with a view, it didn't make the cut.
Balboa Park
Park once and walk. The museums line El Prado and the Pan American Plaza, the playground is just south of the Fleet, and the carousel sits by the zoo entrance.
Fleet Science Center
Balboa Park
Head straight for Kid City. It's built for kids five and under: a little street with a fire truck, a car and a grocery store, a conveyor belt that sends plastic food up to the top level in a basket on a winch, and a ball wall full of chutes and tracks. There's a soft corner for babies too, so the youngest sibling isn't just along for the ride.
Older kids get the hands-on galleries and the giant dome theater, and one dome film comes with admission. Kids 2 and under are free.
Pepper Grove playground is right next door, for when the dome film has used up everyone's sitting still.
- Free entry
- No
- Restroom
- Yes
San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat)
Balboa Park
The Backyard is the reason to come with a preschooler. It's a space just for kids five and under, with a garden corner where babies can crawl and a big pretend oak tree for the two-to-fives, who dress up as backyard animals, build with blocks and mix colors on a light table. Oh, and there's a giant ladybug to climb on.
It comes with admission, as do the giant-screen films, so older kids can do the big galleries and a film while the little one digs in the garden.
- Free entry
- No
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
Balboa Park
Downstairs in the Casa de Balboa, across from the lily pond, whole landscapes of tiny towns, canyons and trestles fill a huge basement, with trains running through all of it. For a train kid it's pretty much hypnotic. Pick one train and follow it the whole way round.
Little ones make a beeline for the toy train gallery, where a push-button Thomas runs at exactly toddler height (one push, one loop, so expect a lot of turn-taking). Kids 4 and under are free with a grown-up, and there's an elevator down.
- Free entry
- No
Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater
Balboa Park
A small theater by the Pan American Plaza putting on real live puppet shows, and just about the gentlest first theater a preschooler could have. Under-2s get in free.
Shows run on set days, so check the schedule before you build a morning around one. Tickets are sold online and at the box office.
- Free entry
- No
San Diego Zoo
Balboa Park
The zoo is a full day all by itself, so if it's on your list, give it its own day and don't try to fit the museums around it. It's big and it's hilly. Start with the double-decker guided bus tour, which boards near the entrance and loops most of the grounds with someone narrating, and you'll know which animals are worth the walk before anyone's legs give out.
Then head for Wildlife Explorers Basecamp, the part that's built for kids to play in. There are rocks and caves to scramble through in the desert corner, a waterfall grotto that drenches anyone who steps inside, and an old oak hung with Spanish moss that you climb by rope bridge, spiral stairs or a fallen branch. Over in Northern Frontier, kids can crawl into a polar bear den and pop their heads up through the ice holes.
The Skyfari tram is an airborne shortcut to the other end of the zoo. Ride it one way and save the little legs for the walk back (strollers go on folded).
- Restroom
- Yes
- Changing table
- Yes
- Wheelchair access
- Yes
Balboa Park Carousel
Balboa Park
Built in 1910, and still turning with almost all of its original animals, its hand-painted murals and its military band organ. The best part: it's one of the few carousels left that still has the brass ring game on every turn. Ride on the outside and your kid can reach out for the ring as you pass, and catching a brass one wins a free ride.
It's by the zoo entrance, next to the miniature train, so the two make an easy last stop on the way back to the car.
- Free entry
- No
Pepper Grove Playground
Balboa Park
Named for the shade trees around it, which matter more than you'd think on a sunny San Diego afternoon. There's a play area for younger kids and one for older ones, a sandbox, and 15 picnic tables on the grass for the snack break.
It's on Park Boulevard just south of the Fleet. Street parking here is tight, so leave the car by the museums and walk over.
- Restroom
- Yes
- Shade
- Yes
- Picnic tables
- Yes
- Ages
- Ages 5 and up
Point Loma and Ocean Beach
Point Loma is the long finger of land on the west side of the bay, with the national monument at its tip. You'll want a car for the tide pools. Ocean Beach is on the ocean side, at the neck of the point, and it's where lunch is.
Cabrillo Tidepools
Point Loma
The best tide pooling in the city, down on the rocks below Cabrillo National Monument. Time it to a low tide and get there about two hours before it. The pools fill up with crabs, anemones and snails, and if you're lucky, sea stars and even an octopus down in the lowest zone. Fall and winter are the season, because that's when the really low tides fall in daylight.
Wear grippy shoes, not sandals. The rocks are slick with algae, and it's a short walk and a scramble down from the parking lot, so keep small kids close. Everything stays where you found it: no shells going home, no flipping rocks and no poking the anemones.
On busy low-tide weekends the road down closes for half an hour or so whenever the lot fills, so go early. There's no phone signal at the pools.
Up top, the Old Point Loma Lighthouse comes with park entry. Its rooms are furnished the way a keeper's family had them in the 1880s, and the visitor center has a Junior Ranger booklet that turns the whole visit into a mission.
Ocean Beach
Ocean Beach
About a mile of wide sand with lifeguards all year, and the beach where San Diego actually hangs out. Newport Avenue runs right down to it, so burgers and ice cream are a block from your towel, and there are showers for the sandy feet on the way back to the car.
The north end is Dog Beach, which is off leash and busy, so set up south of it if your kid is nervous around dogs. Sunset Cliffs starts just past the south end, for a look at the waves from the top (keep kids well back from the edge).
- Free entry
- Yes
- Ages
- Ages 5 and up
Mission Bay
Mission Bay is the calm side of the coast. The bay beaches have flat water, and the best new playgrounds in the city sit right on the shore. Belmont Park and the ocean are on the west side, across the thin strip of Mission Beach.
Belmont Park
Mission Beach
The old seaside amusement park on Mission Beach, with the wooden Giant Dipper as its landmark. The Dipper wants kids to be 50 inches, but the little ones get a vintage-style carousel, the Wave Jumper and two-seater race cars (anyone under 36 inches rides with a grown-up).
You pay ride by ride, or get a park pass that covers the lot. Tiki Town mini golf and an arcade with 70-plus games are right there for the kid who's done with sand. The ocean is on one side, and the calm water at Bonita Cove is a few minutes' walk the other way.
- Free entry
- No
Mission Beach
Mission Beach
The ocean side of the strip: just over a mile of sand, with permanent lifeguard towers the whole way along. Belmont Park is right behind it, so a morning of digging can end on the carousel without moving the car.
The boardwalk between the sand and the houses is busy with bikes and skates on a sunny day, so hold small hands when you cross it. Keep walking north and it turns into Pacific Beach, which is even busier, with Crystal Pier and its little cottages out over the water.
- Restroom
- Yes
Maruta Gardner Playground at Bonita Cove
Mission Beach
The playground at Bonita Cove was rebuilt in 2020, and the big rope climbing structure in the middle is a nod to the Giant Dipper next door. Around it are swings, hammocks, see-saws, spinners and slides, plus a tot lot for the small ones. It's named for Maruta Gardner, the Mission Beach community leader who started the campaign to rebuild it.
The cove beside it is bay water with lifeguards, which makes it the easy swim after a morning of rides. There are fire rings, grills and rinse-off showers, and the shade structure by the playground is first come, first served.
- Picnic tables
- Yes
- Ages
- Ages 5 and up
Tecolote Shores South Playground
Mission Bay
The city's first all-inclusive playground, on the east shore of the bay. The play structures sit on a raised mound with ramps all the way up, so a kid in a wheelchair gets to the top too. There's a zipline (plus an accessible one), a wheelchair-accessible carousel, inclusive swings, chimes and other musical pieces.
Its twin, Tecolote Shores North, is a short walk up the shore, with a big lawn between the two. Do both and you've got a whole morning.
- Restroom
- Yes
- Shade
- Yes
- Swings
- Yes
- Picnic tables
- Yes
- Accessible play
- Yes
- Ages
- Ages 5 and up
SeaWorld San Diego
Mission Bay
SeaWorld sits on the south shore of the bay, and with small kids, Rescue Jr. is where your day goes. It's a whole area sized for them: their own jet-ski and rescue-boat rides, a spinning tide pool ride, a soft play zone with a boat, a plane and a sandcastle to climb, and a real rescue pickup truck and dinghy to poke around.
The Rescue Bay Splash Zone is in there too, with fountains that copy the wake from a busy harbor, so pack a swimsuit or a dry change of clothes. Ocean Explorer has a few more rides for the too-short-for-coasters crowd, like mini subs that bounce and bump around and a pint-sized drop tower.
Strollers get parked outside most of the shows and exhibits, so bring a carrier if your youngest won't walk far.
- Restroom
- Yes
- Wheelchair access
- Yes
For a June Gloom day
May and June mornings often arrive gray and cool, and some days the sun never really shows. These don't care. The Midway and the Maritime Museum are a flat walk apart along the Embarcadero, and Old Town is a short trolley ride away.
The New Children's Museum
Downtown
Less a museum than three floors of art you're allowed to climb into. The installations are hands-on from top to bottom, and the park outside belongs to the museum too, for when someone needs air.
Kids under 1 are free. There's a nursing room, stroller parking and a café for the snack break, and Toddler Time sessions for the smallest ones. The museum garage charges for parking.
- Free entry
- No
- Restroom
- Yes
- Changing table
- Yes
- Wheelchair access
- Yes
USS Midway Museum
Embarcadero
A whole aircraft carrier parked on the Embarcadero, and it's bigger than your kids will expect. Pick up the Junior Pilot audio tour. It's made for kids, runs through more than 30 stops across the ship, and finishing the activity sheet earns a set of Junior Pilot wings.
Up on the flight deck are the planes, and the catapult and trap talks explain how anyone ever took off or landed on a runway that short. The flight simulators cost extra and need kids to be at least 42 inches (with a grown-up). Skip the guided island tour with little ones, since it goes up tight ladders.
- Free entry
- No
- Wheelchair access
- Yes
Maritime Museum of San Diego
Embarcadero
Real historic ships moored along the bay, and one ticket gets you aboard all of them for the day. Every deck is a new place to poke around, and every one comes with another steep ladder, so hold hands.
Kids 5 and under are free. Bay cruises on the water are extra.
- Free entry
- No
Old Town San Diego State Historic Park
Old Town
Where San Diego started. Restored adobes and small museums sit around a wide plaza, and the blacksmith shop does working demonstrations. It's an easy morning with a mixed-age crew, because everyone can wander at their own pace.
The vehicle kid gets the stagecoaches in the Seeley Stable, and the one who asks what school used to be like gets the one-room schoolhouse on Mason Street. The trolley stops at the Old Town station.
- Free entry
- Yes
- Restroom
- Yes
Toby's Candle & Soap Shop
Old Town
The easy win in Old Town for a kid who needs to make something. Pick a candle, get a quick lesson, then dip it in wax one layer at a time, working from the light colors to the dark. Each dip needs about 20 seconds to set before the next, which turns out to be a pretty good lesson in patience.
It's walk-in, so you only need to call ahead for a group of ten or more.
- Free entry
- No
Where to eat nearby
One near each part of town. Liberty Station, between Point Loma and the airport, has the most food a short walk from a lawn.
Panama 66
Balboa Park
The lunch in the middle of the museum day. You order at the counter, take a number and sit out in the San Diego Museum of Art's sculpture garden, among pieces by Henry Moore and Alexander Calder.
They don't take reservations, so come before the lunch rush. It's an art garden, so keep an eye on the climbers.
- Kids' menu
- Yes
Hodad's Ocean Beach
Ocean Beach
The Ocean Beach burger place, on Newport Avenue a block from the sand, with a kids' menu and shakes. It's the obvious lunch after a beach morning, so it gets busy on sunny weekends.
Liberty Public Market
Liberty Station
More than 30 counters in the old Naval Training Center commissary, built in 1921, so everybody orders their own thing and you still eat together. The outdoor seating has room to wander.
NTC Park's lawns and two tot lots are a short walk away, for after.
Old Town Mexican Café
Old Town
Tortilla makers work in the front window, patting and pressing the dough by hand, and there's usually a little crowd of kids watching. It's across the street from the Whaley House and opens early for breakfast, which makes it the natural start to an Old Town morning.
An's Dry Cleaning
Normal Heights
Yes, it's a gelato shop. It moved into a 1930s storefront that used to be a dry cleaner and kept the name (and the sign). Everything is made from scratch in small batches, and the menu changes every few weeks, with some pretty odd flavors, so let your kid taste a couple before committing.
It's on Adams Avenue, a short drive from Balboa Park, and open late enough for an after-dinner cone.
Where to stay
With little kids, Mission Bay is the pick: flat water, resort pools and a beach at the door. Shelter Island is quieter and close to the tide pools, and downtown puts you on the trolley and the waterfront. Our San Diego family hotels guide goes deeper, with the room to book at each.
Bahia Resort Hotel
Mission Beach
The easy one with kids: a peninsula on Mission Bay with its own calm beach, a playground and a junior Olympic pool, and Belmont Park a short walk away. Book the Bay Family Suite, a studio with two queens, a sofa bed and a kitchenette, plus a connecting room with its own bed and a second bathroom.
- Suites
- Yes
- Kitchenette
- Yes
- Pool
- Yes
San Diego Mission Bay Resort
Mission Bay
The one with a shallow wading pool just for small kids, next to the main pool and the resort's own bay beach. Tecolote Shores, the inclusive playground, is a short walk down the shore. Bikes are included, and there's a nightly resort fee and paid parking on top of the rate.
- Pool
- Yes
Kona Kai San Diego Resort
Shelter Island
A private beach on the bay with sandcastles and nightly bonfires, and a family pool (the other one is adults only, so nobody's glaring at your cannonballs). Ask about the kids' tent, which gets set up in the room before you arrive. It's the closest of these to the Cabrillo tide pools.
- Pool
- Yes
Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina
Downtown
The downtown pool deck: two outdoor pools, one of them a heated kids' pool, plus a splash zone. Seaport Village, the Children's Park and the New Children's Museum are all a short walk. It's next to the convention center, so check that a big show isn't in town on your dates.
- Pool
- Yes, heated
Put a day together
Balboa Park day: Kid City at the Fleet when it opens, lunch at Panama 66, Pepper Grove for the wiggles, and the carousel on the way out. Point Loma day, at a low tide: the Cabrillo tide pools and the lighthouse, then Ocean Beach and burgers at Hodad's. Mission Bay day: Belmont Park's little rides in the morning, Bonita Cove's playground and calm water after lunch. Gray morning: the Midway or the New Children's Museum, then Old Town for tortillas and candle dipping.
If it's gray
Kid City at the Fleet, The Backyard at The Nat, the model railroads, the New Children's Museum and the Midway are all indoors. Save the tide pools, the beach and Mission Bay for when the gloom burns off (it often does by lunch).
Questions
When is the best time to see the tide pools at Cabrillo?
At a low tide, arriving about two hours before it. Fall and winter are best, because that's when the lowest tides fall in daylight. Wear shoes with grip, keep small kids close, and go early on weekends, since the road down closes for a while whenever the lot fills.
What can you do in San Diego with kids on a gray June day?
Head indoors in Balboa Park: Kid City at the Fleet Science Center, The Backyard at the Natural History Museum and the Model Railroad Museum. Downtown, there's the New Children's Museum, the USS Midway and the ships at the Maritime Museum. June Gloom often burns off by lunch, so keep the beach for the afternoon.
Where can toddlers play in Balboa Park?
Kid City at the Fleet Science Center and The Backyard at the Natural History Museum are both built for kids five and under. Pepper Grove playground has a separate area for younger kids and a sandbox, and the toy train gallery at the Model Railroad Museum has a push-button train at toddler height.
Which Mission Bay beach is best for little kids?
Bonita Cove, by Belmont Park. The water is calm bay water with lifeguards, and the Maruta Gardner playground is right on the sand. On the east shore, Tecolote Shores has two big playgrounds, including the city's first all-inclusive one.
What is free to do in San Diego with kids?
Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, Ocean Beach, and the playgrounds at Pepper Grove, Bonita Cove and Tecolote Shores. At Cabrillo National Monument, kids under 16 get in free, though there's an entry fee per car.
Where is the best place to stay in San Diego with kids?
Mission Bay, for calm water and resort pools: the Bahia has a family suite with a connecting room, and San Diego Mission Bay Resort has a wading pool for toddlers. Shelter Island's Kona Kai has a private beach and a family pool, and downtown, the Marriott Marquis has a heated kids' pool and a splash zone.
Photos
San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat): Rhododendrites (CC BY-SA 4.0) · San Diego Model Railroad Museum: Joseph Bylund (CC BY 3.0) · San Diego Zoo: Andrewjames954 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Balboa Park Carousel: balboapark.org (Business website) · Ocean Beach: Alen Ištoković (CC BY 3.0) · Belmont Park: belmontpark.com (Business website) · Mission Beach: Vlastula (Public domain) · SeaWorld San Diego: Rockclaw1030 (CC0) · The New Children’s Museum: Alan Islas (CC BY-SA 4.0) · USS Midway Museum: FASTILY (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Old Town San Diego State Historic Park: Johnwayne Stroud (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Old Town Mexican Café: Roman Eugeniusz (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Bahia Resort Hotel: bahiahotel.com (Business website)
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