San Diego - Backgroud - Overview

Both trains and buses leave you in the heart of downtown San Diego: Greyhound at Broadway and First Avenue is more central than Amtrak's Santa Fe Depot, at the west end of Broadway. Lindbergh Field Airport is only two miles out, on bus #2 ($1.50).

Getting around without a car, by day at least, is comparatively easy. Seven companies operate the integrated Metropolitan Transit System (bus tickets $1.252.50; www.sdcommute.com ); the Transit Store, 102 Broadway (MonSat 8.30am5.30pm; tel 619/234-1060), has detailed timetables and sells a Day Tripper Transit Pass for one- to four-day visits ($5, $8, $10 and $12, accordingly). The passes apply also to the tram-like San Diego Trolley , which runs throughout the area (tickets $12.50) and covers the sixteen miles from the Santa Fe Depot to the Mexican border crossing at San Ysidro. It's a 45-minute journey ($4 round-trip; every 15min from 5ammidnight), and the last trolley back leaves at 1am on Saturday night. Bicycle rental shops include Rent-a-Bike, 523 Island St (tel 619/232-4700), and Hamel's Action Sport Center, 704 Ventura Place, Mission Beach (tel 619/488-5050).

The International Visitors Information Center is downtown at 11 Horton Plaza, F Street at First Avenue (MonSat 8.30am5pm; tel 619/236-1212, www.sandiego.org ). The poste restante, or general delivery, post office is at 2535 Midway Drive, between downtown and Mission Beach (Mon 7am5pm, TuesFri 8am5pm, Sat 8am4pm; tel 1-800/275-8777; zip code 92138).

Relatively free from smog and byzantine freeways, SAN DIEGO , set around a gracefully curving bay, represents the acceptable face of southern California. The second biggest city in California may be affluent and conservative, but it's also easygoing and far from smug. Although it was the site of the first mission in California, the city only really took off with the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880s, and in terms of trade and significance it has long been in the shadow of Los Angeles. However, during World War II the US Navy made San Diego its Pacific Command Center, and the military continues to dominate the local economy, along with tourism.