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Moving to San Diego temporarily, advice?
mcdermott
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I'm looking at a rotation of up to six month down in sunny San Diego, and looking for a few bits of advice.
What neighborhood should I be looking at? I'll be working out on Coronado, I was looking either at Downtown/Gaslamp area or over in Mission Beach. I'm over 30, but do like to get out and meet people, not sure what neighborhood will best suit me. Downtown area appealed just because I could have a ton of options without driving. On the other hand, beach. Budget is flexible.
Anybody have any experience renting furniture? I'm looking for apartments that advertised "furnished," but that's pretty limiting, just didn't know if there's anywhere renting home furniture that isn't a total scam and/or terrible. I do have two cats (that I'm bringing), is that usually an issue? I understand deposits and such will be involved if nothing else.
Can anybody point me to a good "short list" of things to hit while I'm down there. Weeknights will probably be pretty chill, but I want to try to get out and do something every weekend, so a head start on ideas would be a good thing.
What neighborhood should I be looking at? I'll be working out on Coronado, I was looking either at Downtown/Gaslamp area or over in Mission Beach. I'm over 30, but do like to get out and meet people, not sure what neighborhood will best suit me. Downtown area appealed just because I could have a ton of options without driving. On the other hand, beach. Budget is flexible.
Anybody have any experience renting furniture? I'm looking for apartments that advertised "furnished," but that's pretty limiting, just didn't know if there's anywhere renting home furniture that isn't a total scam and/or terrible. I do have two cats (that I'm bringing), is that usually an issue? I understand deposits and such will be involved if nothing else.
Can anybody point me to a good "short list" of things to hit while I'm down there. Weeknights will probably be pretty chill, but I want to try to get out and do something every weekend, so a head start on ideas would be a good thing.
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I have never rented furniture. It shouldn't be too tough to find cheap shit on Craigslist but whatever, I'm not the person to ask.
Cool things: hiking in Torrey Pines, checking out the seals in La Jolla, all the stuff in Balboa Park (there's a lot of stuff), the zoo, not Sea World (fuck Sea World), the Hotel del Coronado (you'll be right there!), walk along Harbor Drive and check out the aircraft carrier and so on although I guess maybe you work in the military so that's just a typical Monday, there's a bunch of museums not in Balboa Park including a Marine air museum up north in Mira Mesa if you like checking out the aircraft that Marines have flown around, there are lots of breweries around, the beaches obviously (Pacific Beach and La Jolla Shores are nice, Black's Beach is a nude beach if you're into that), eat some tacos... that's pretty much it I think. You could see a Padres game.
Thanks for all that. Pacific Beach does look fun...the guy that recommended Mission Beach lived in San Diego when he was younger though, so I'm worried that "living in a frat" may just mean sticking out like a sore thumb. I assume there must be some bars there for folks my age, though. Ocean Beach looks....interesting too? Just based on a little looking, I think Pacific Beach/Mission Beach looks a little more happening. I should have remembered downtown would be dead after dark, I'm just used to Seattle where a lot of the nightlife actually happens downtown.
Definitely looking forward to some time at the zoo (been there once, but only for like an hour), and I'll probably check out everything else you mentioned (including not Sea World). I'll definitely be going to at least one Chargers game (GO CHIEFS!), probably two (GO SEAHAWKS!). If I run out of shit to do in San Diego I can always run up to LA for a weekend or two too, I suppose. It's not like it's much farther than Seattle is for me right now.
EDIT: And the furniture rental issue is mostly about how I get reimbursed...I suspect it's going to be easier to get furniture paid for as a rental cost, even more so if I can get it somehow rolled into housing rent, than buying cheap used stuff locally. Silly, but it is what it is.
GIS is evil
Which is a lot, even after accounting for getting gouged a bit (which I expect) on short notice and short lease rentals. I don't see myself maxing that amount out. I'm trying to keep it closer to $3K if possible. But I figure at that rate I should be able to find and furnish an apartment in pretty much any part of town I choose.
EDIT: Poking around it sounds like a full apartment worth of funishings (for a one bedroom) runs somewhere around $350-$450 per month? This sounded crazy to me for a moment, until I remembered how much my couch (alone) costs.
Mission Beach and Pacific Beach are next door neighbors, so if you live in Mission Beach you should be able to get to and from PB pretty easily for whatever you want there. They're both pretty cool areas. I live in North Park, and it's nice here, but I'm not a night life sort of guy so I couldn't tell you literally anything about that other than Pacific Beach on Friday night is essentially Greek row- and even that is just particularly pervasive secondhand information.
Ocean Beach is incredibly funky, as Tycho mentioned- in almost every way you can think of. This is a place where you can often smell the marijuana in the air. There's a good mix of rugged looking street artists and random beach vagrants walking around, lots of good places to eat, the pier is there which is awesome, and newport not only has a bunch of the best shops around, but has a weekly farmer's market on wednesdays.
There's also the sunset cliffs which are super pretty.
Point Loma is a bit more expensive but should put you in a slightly better spot to get to work in Coronado. It's also pretty, but significantly less to do there without leaving the neighborhood. The only things of note in Point Loma that aren't churches are the Sports Arena and Soma (Soma is a common venue for live music). That being said, between one of the two locations of Miguel's Cocina and also the Point Loma Fish Market, point loma has some of the best food in the city.
Leaning back towards downtown now, just because it seems like there are some options there that, while pricey, seem like slightly safer bets. Seems there's at least a halfway decent selection of restaurants and bars in the area (looking between Little Italy, East Village, and Gaslamp at the moment), some grocery shopping not too far, etc.
You aren't going to have a problem with eating or nightlife if you're anywhere in the downtown area. On the budget you've quoted, you can get a two-bedroom furnished place (if that was your thing) just about anywhere in town, so you might as well focus on convenience for your work (easy access to the bridge).
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
Not to put too fine a point on it, but any suggestions as to what part of downtown I'm most likely to be able to find a decent apartment in, and also be least likely to get hobo-stabbed? I've been looking at some places on the east end of Market (like 5th/6th over to the freeway) and in some cases the Google Street View is giving me...a negative impression. I'll admit I'm not entirely accustomed to urban living. I go to downtown Seattle often enough, including at night, including some shittier parts, but...then I go home. On the other hand, I'm probably being an idiot and my neighborhood here is probably shittier than the ones I'm looking at.
The thing about the commute will be that if you're going on base, you will also have a bunch of people trying to hit the bridge at the same time, so proximity is a nice thing.
What you need to understand about our downtown area is that it's in the middle of a gigantic modernization that started with the development of Petco Park and the surrounding areas. New construction of high-end complexes and renovation radiates out, more or less, from the 10th St. area westward. If you go too far east of that, it'll look like crap. A lot of that area is commercial-zoned and old, so that won't be very surprising. The 'good stuff' is generally happening between 1st and 6th as far as nightlife, but there are fairly new high-rise apartments studded all through that area. If you want a personal recommendation, one of my friends lived in the complex that's on 1st and Front, and it was a very nice place. The complex next door to it to the west has many units available to rent. You pay for the location, of course, but there's not a whole lot of shanking in that part of downtown.
EDIT: This general area.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/San-Diego-CA/house,condo,apartment,duplex,townhouse_type/54296_rid/days_sort/32.722736,-117.163865,32.720046,-117.167143_rect/17_zm/
I have no experience with looking up furnished properties, but we troll the real estate pages quite a bit. If you didn't have such a honking big per diem for living expenses, I'd suggest being farther away and lowering your rent. Please do note that if hobo-shanking is on your concern list, PB and OB are *not* where you want to be. O_O
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
The Mission Valley area can be nice, it's close to old town, right on the Trolly line if you want to go downtown, a 10 minutes drive from all the great bars in north park, and an even shorter drive to either Ocean Beach or Mission Beach if traffic is forgiving. Also you'd be able to hit the 8w and pop right on to the 5s to get to Coronado without much effort.
No desire to live south of the bridge, never heard much good about that direction, and I'm gonna operate on the assumption that greater proximity to TJ is no bueno.
I just have to say that yelp reviews of apartments are adorable. I swear a good 70% of one-star reviews prominently feature "omg they said they had security but my bike was stolen!" I get it, that sucks, just something about that being an instant trigger for a one-star review for many is just amusing to me.
Here's a map that's harder to understand if you don't live here but it does sum some stuff up:
Though admittedly I had been underestimating the douchiness of downtown.
Still, I feel like I'm gonna be stuck with either Hot Douches or Craft Beer Hipsters. Fixies and Handlebars I cannot abide.
There are a lot of nice, fairly new developments along Mission Valley that are either luxury apartment complexes for rent or condos for lease. The point about there being nothing to do there is valid, but if you want to get *to* anywhere, Mission Valley is a great place to live. Unfortunately, the way the city is laid out necessitates freeway travel in a lot of instances.
Possibly important question: Do you get to keep the remainder, or is it reimbursement only?
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
And I get the whole idea of mission valley being close to everything by car, I'm just kinda hoping for a walkable neighborhood if possible.
Also just saw the "Pie ->" part and realized that's the way to Julien
Depending on time, you might be able to hit that up on a weekend towards the end of your stay. (but it's a bit of a drive)
There's also Comic-con, but that's probably sold out by now.
Balboa is great because you could probably take it over a month of weekends or so. There's several museums (some small, some large, my favorites are the Air & Space Museum, Science center, and model train museum) the IMAX theater, and all the buskers. You might even catch an art show event happening.
Seaport Village is a small little place that's right next to the convention center.
There's also Old Town with it's haunted Whaley House.
Legoland is also like in Ocean Beach so there's that too.
That's roughly all I remember from my 17 years living there.
Whoa whoa there, though. Legoland is in Carlsbad, that's nowhere near OB.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
I'd say hit up Chula Vista (my home town) but it's gotten pretty, well, shitty over the years (it's the second line of defense behind Imperial Beach against TJ).
Craft Beer Hipsters, aka North Park, is a pretty nice place. That's where I'm at, it's comfortably urban with more than enough elbow room in my estimation, and a LOT of crap to do around here. Also lots within walking distance.
Well, the one nice thing about Mission Valley is that the trolley, one of the only real options for public transportation in SD, runs right through Mission Valley, meaning you're never far from a trolley stop if you live there. And it's relatively quiet. Otherwise it's just a bunch of hotels and a giant clusterfuck of a mall.
Walkable communities have already been pointed out, though I will note that OB tends to be a little more lenient towards pets than most other areas around SD, it's the reason I've lived in OB for so long. And frankly..OB is the fucking best. I really like Mission Beach, but it's a very small and cluttered place, and boy oh boy does it get the beach traffic on weekends, so parking can be ridiculous. If you're out of your mid to late 20's I would just stay far away from PB. Downtown bars can be cool, but not near as cool as bars in other parts of SD, like the Starlite for example.