San Diego Sunset Tour

About This Experience

This coastal area combines dramatic ocean cliffs, sweeping sea views, rocky shorelines, hidden coves, and natural arches. It is also known for peaceful sunset walks, whale watching, panoramic views of the city skyline, and beautiful night photography across the harbour. Our half-day sunset tour of San Diego began in the early afternoon, when the California light was still bright and almost white, and the idea was simple: follow the coastline, visit the historic lighthouses of Point Loma, wander through some of the city’s most beautiful waterfront areas and somehow arrive at the cliffs just as the sun disappeared into the Pacific. As usual, what looked like a straightforward plan on the map quickly turned into several hours of stopping, photographing, exploring and changing our minds every time another interesting road appeared. We started by driving toward Point Loma, leaving the busier parts of the city behind as the road climbed gradually above the harbor. The higher we went, the more San Diego opened beneath us. Downtown appeared across the water as a compact wall of glass towers, while Naval vessels, marinas and tiny sailing boats filled the enormous natural harbor below. Beyond them we could see Coronado, its long strip of land almost closing the bay from the ocean, and farther south the coastline seemed to disappear into the haze toward Mexico. It was one of those views where you suddenly understand the geography of a city much better than you ever could by looking at a map. Our first real destination was the old Point Loma Lighthouse, standing high above the Pacific inside Cabrillo National Monument. The little white lighthouse looked almost too small for the enormous landscape surrounding it. Built on one of the highest points of the peninsula, it once seemed like the perfect place for a beacon, visible far out at sea. Standing there, however, we learned why height was not always an advantage. Fog and low clouds could hide the light completely from ships below, and eventually a new lighthouse had to be constructed much closer to sea level. That immediately gave us another destination. Before heading down, though, we explored the area around the old lighthouse and walked toward several viewpoints overlooking the ocean. From the western side of Point Loma, the Pacific appeared completely different from the protected waters of San Diego Bay. There were no calm marinas or city towers here, only open ocean, wind, rugged cliffs and long lines of waves arriving from somewhere far beyond the horizon. Pelicans passed almost at eye level, gliding effortlessly along the cliffs without seeming to move their wings, while far below us white foam exploded against the rocks. The contrast between the two sides of the peninsula was remarkable. Turn east and there was a large modern city, its skyline reflecting the afternoon sun. Turn west and there seemed to be almost nothing between us and Hawaii. We spent far longer than expected around the old lighthouse, looking through the small rooms and imagining the isolation of the lighthouse keepers who once lived there. Today San Diego surrounded us in every direction, but in the nineteenth century this must have felt like an extraordinarily remote outpost. Every night the keeper had to climb the tower, maintain the lamp and make sure the light continued shining over a coastline that was far darker and wilder than the one we were seeing. Eventually we drove down toward the newer Point Loma Lighthouse near the water. The change in perspective was dramatic. Instead of looking down on the ocean from high above, we were now much closer to the waves, with steep cliffs rising behind us. The modern lighthouse was less romantic than its predecessor but somehow seemed more connected to the sea it was meant to protect ships from. We could clearly understand why moving the light lower had solved the problem of fog. Looking back up toward the ridge, the old lighthouse was almost impossible to see. It felt as if we had visited two different eras of navigation within the space of an hour. Nearby we stopped again to explore the rocky coast and tide-pool area. The tide was low enough to reveal broad shelves of dark rock interrupted by shallow pools filled with tiny marine life. Small crabs disappeared beneath stones as we approached, anemones remained closed against the afternoon sun and every depression in the rock reflected a miniature version of the sky. The ocean looked calm from a distance, but every few minutes a larger set of waves arrived and sent spray high over the rocks, reminding us not to become too distracted by the camera. We had already learned on other coastal adventures that the Pacific had a remarkable ability to appear peaceful immediately before soaking you. By now the afternoon was moving quickly, and we realized that if we wanted to see downtown before sunset we needed to leave Point Loma. We descended toward the harbor and followed the waterfront back toward the center of San Diego. The city gradually returned around us: marinas filled with white yachts, palm trees lining the streets and military ships appearing beyond fences and piers. We stopped briefly at Shelter Island, where the view across the bay gave us another completely different perspective of the skyline. From there downtown seemed almost unreal, its glass buildings rising directly behind the blue water while sailboats crossed in front of them. We continued toward Harbor Island, stopping again because the skyline had become even better. The afternoon light was beginning to soften now, and the hard white glare of midday had changed into warmer tones. The towers of downtown reflected patches of gold while the water turned increasingly blue beneath them. Airliners descended surprisingly low toward the airport, appearing almost to skim across the tops of buildings before disappearing behind the waterfront. San Diego has that unusual combination of city, harbor and aviation that constantly gives the skyline movement. Boats crossed in one direction, aircraft passed overhead in another and cars streamed along the waterfront, yet everything still somehow felt relaxed. Eventually we reached the Embarcadero and continued on foot for a while. The harbor here was much busier than the quiet cliffs of Point Loma. Tour boats moved in and out of the piers, people walked beneath the palms and enormous naval vessels dominated parts of the waterfront. The historic ships of the Maritime Museum added tall masts and rigging to the modern skyline, while farther along the USS Midway seemed almost absurdly large when seen from street level. We walked past the waterfront, stopping repeatedly for photographs as reflections moved across the glass towers behind us. A few hours earlier we had been standing inside a tiny lighthouse built to guide nineteenth-century ships. Now we were beside an aircraft carrier with downtown skyscrapers rising behind it. San Diego seemed to compress an extraordinary amount of maritime history into just a few kilometers of coastline. From the harbor we wandered toward Seaport Village. It was more touristy than some of the places we normally preferred, but the location was difficult to resist. Small shops and restaurants faced the bay, trees provided welcome shade and the waterfront path offered beautiful views toward Coronado. Across the water, the red roofs of the Hotel del Coronado were faintly visible in the distance, while the enormous curve of the Coronado Bridge rose behind the harbor. For a while we considered driving across to Coronado, but the position of the sun immediately settled the question. Sunset was approaching, and crossing the bridge would almost certainly mean missing the cliffs in the best light. So we resisted the temptation and stayed on the San Diego side. We returned to the car and began heading west again, this time toward Sunset Cliffs. The name was hardly subtle, and apparently half of San Diego had reached the same conclusion we had. As we approached the coast, traffic increased and every roadside parking space seemed occupied. Cars moved slowly along the cliff road while people carrying cameras, blankets and picnic baskets walked toward the ocean. The calm afternoon tour suddenly became a small race against the sun. Every few minutes we looked west and watched it dropping lower. We eventually found a place to leave the car and continued on foot, following the path toward the cliffs. The landscape changed instantly. Downtown disappeared behind us, houses gave way to open sandstone and the Pacific once again filled the entire horizon. The cliffs glowed warm orange in the late light, their layered surfaces becoming more dramatic as shadows deepened inside cracks and caves. Far below, surfers waited beyond the breaking waves, reduced to tiny dark shapes floating in the enormous blue ocean. We followed the cliff path south, searching for the perfect viewpoint. Of course, every viewpoint looked perfect until we walked another hundred meters and found one that seemed even better. We climbed onto one rocky promontory, decided it was too crowded, continued farther and discovered a quieter section where the cliffs curved toward the sea. From there we could look both north along the coastline and directly west toward the sun. The timing was almost perfect. The bright afternoon light had softened into gold, and everything around us seemed to change color minute by minute. The sandstone cliffs became deeper orange, the vegetation turned almost luminous around its edges and the Pacific reflected a broad path of light stretching from the horizon toward the rocks below us. The city that had seemed so dominant when we were walking downtown only an hour earlier had completely disappeared. There were no skyscrapers in front of us now, only ocean. We sat near the edge—but not too near—and watched the final part of the day unfold. Pelicans flew past in formation, sometimes so close to the cliff that we could hear the movement of their wings. Below us, waves entered narrow openings in the rocks and exploded into white foam. Every few seconds another group of people arrived, looked at the horizon and became suddenly quiet. Sunset has a strange effect on a crowd. People may spend the entire afternoon talking, photographing and checking their phones, but when the sun approaches the horizon everyone seems to understand instinctively that the next few minutes deserve attention. The sun became increasingly orange as it descended through the thin haze above the Pacific. At first it seemed to move almost imperceptibly, but once its lower edge touched the horizon everything happened quickly. Half of the disk disappeared, then only a narrow orange semicircle remained, and a few seconds later the sun was gone. For a moment the crowd reacted as if something had actually happened—people applauded, laughed and began taking pictures of one another. But we stayed where we were because we knew the best part of many sunsets comes after the sun itself has disappeared. Slowly the sky began to change. Orange near the horizon softened into pink, then violet and deep blue higher above us. The cliffs lost their golden glow and became dark silhouettes against the remaining light. The ocean, which only minutes earlier had reflected the sun like liquid metal, turned almost slate-colored except for a few pale streaks where the waves continued breaking below. Far to the east, lights began appearing across San Diego. That was when we decided the tour was not quite finished. Instead of heading directly back, we drove once more toward the harbor to see downtown after dark. The city we returned to seemed completely different from the one we had left before sunset. The glass towers that had reflected the afternoon sun were now illuminated from within, their windows forming thousands of tiny squares of light. The Coronado Bridge stretched across the black water like a glowing ribbon, and…