San Diego Gaslamp Tour

On our San Diego Gaslamp Tour, you’ll hear the history behind the Gaslamp District and how it grew from a struggling settlement to the city’s red light district and finally, to the epicenter of downtown San Diego.

You’ll have the chance to marvel at the early architecture of the Gaslamp, and imagine what San Diego looked like in its infancy.

You’ll also shoot some whiskey at one of the oldest bars in San Diego– Old West lawman Wyatt Earp's old watering hole– that still has the original hand carved wooden bar where he once enjoyed libations. 

Our tour wouldn’t be complete without uncovering the seedier stories of the Gaslamp, and the tales of eerie ghosts that reportedly plague some of the historic buildings, from ghosts dressed in period clothing in the Gaslamp’s oldest building to a room in the Horton Hotel that has enthralled ghosthunters from all over the world.

Balboa Park Tour

Our Balboa Park Tour will take you through the park’s unmissable highlights, from its most-photographed spots to some of the historic plants and buildings that have been here since the garden’s inception like original Mexican palms and the giant fig tree that is one of the biggest in California.

Balboa Park is overwhelmingly large and you can take advantage of having an expert guide to show you the most iconic spots in the park, like the Bea Evenson Fountain and the California Tower, as well as hidden gems along the way. 

San Diego earned its name as the “Birthplace of California” as it was the first site visited and settled by Europeans on the West Coast of today’s United States. Initially home to the Kumeyaay people, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the San Diego Bay for Spain in 1542, planting the roots of what would become the settlement of Alta California 200 years later.

Following the Mexican-American War in 1848, California became part of the United States and was admitted to the union as a state in 1850. Both soldiers and Mexican settlers established a pueblo in 1835 that would become Old Town San Diego– and this area still maintains its Mexican flavor to this day.

Developer Alonzo Horton saw potential in San Diego’s waterfront area and constructed his New Town, which would surpass the Old Town in both popularity and population. 

To celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal in 1915, the city proposed the Panama-California Exposition. The Exposition built the Spanish Colonial Revival buildings that are still a fixture of Balboa Park today and was so successful that Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Navy Headquarters to San Diego Bay. To this day, San Diego continues to be a military and industrial hub.