San Diego souvenirs

Souvenirs to Bring Back from San Diego

Take home a piece of your trip with our guide to the best mementos.

One of our favorite things about coming back from a vacation is sorting through all of the new treasures you’ve brought back from your adventures. Souvenirs are one of the most important ways we recall our travels, with each item evoking important and beloved memories about the trip.

With that in mind, it’s probably a good idea to make smart choices when buying souvenirs and to choose things that you’ll value for years to come. For those traveling to San Diego and looking for top places to buy souvenirs, we’ve put together this guide. They can be found all across the city, of course, but here are some suggestions for the best places to acquire those all-important mementos.

San Diego Zoo souvenirs

San Diego zoo

Zoos are among our favorite places to buy souvenirs in any destination, and the San Diego Zoo offers an especially promising series of gift shops – ten of them! If you’re traveling with the kids, then you’re going to want to set aside a bit of time to scope out the San Diego Zoo Kids Store. This shop features a wide selection of apparel, toys, books, miscellaneous odds and ends, and of course, the beloved plush animals. It’s so well regarded that it’s been Zagat-rated.

Other intriguing options for places to buy San Diego souvenirs at the Zoo include the Zootique, which offers a more high-end selection of fashion, jewelry, gourmet foods, and handcrafted gifts. There are also a few animal-specific shops, including Sydney’s Shoppe (koala-themed items), Arctic Trader (polar bear-focused), and the self-explanatory Panda Shop.

Their sister attraction, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, also sells top-notch souvenirs.

SeaWorld San Diego souvenirs

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A similarly exciting option for souvenirs is SeaWorld San Diego. Boasting dozens of engaging exhibits with a conservational focus, SeaWorld is more than its exhilarating rides and attractions. As a result, their souvenirs have a significant educational bent, with plenty of toys, games, and books available for visitors of all ages.

The SeaWorld Store boasts the widest selection of gifts, toys, collectibles, and other souvenirs. There are also stores with a specific focus on turtles, whales, penguins, sharks, and more. Some stores are only open in the summer, so be aware of this when planning your souvenir shopping.

USS Midway Museum souvenirs

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For fans of military history or those with an avid interest in the American past, the USS Midway Museum is one of the top places to buy souvenirs in the entire city. The museum boasts the eclectic Jet Shop, a gift shop filled with U.S. Navy and USS Midway apparel, educational books and toys, special memorabilia, and plenty of San Diego-specific souvenirs.

If you enjoyed your tour of the ship, you can also purchase a souvenir photo taken as you enter the ship. Choose from a variety of backgrounds!

LEGOLAND® California

legoland-california

While it might seem like you can get LEGOs at any regular toy shop, there’s something special about the LEGO set or character that you get straight from the source. Our favorite toy-themed amusement park, LEGOLAND® California offers the best in LEGO entertainment for your little ones.

As far as souvenir shopping goes, you can find uniquely themed venues that focus on different areas of the park, including stores specific to Heartlake City and the LEGO Movie. In addition to their regular gift and souvenir shops, you can trade LEGO minifigures at various locations throughout the park. During special seasonal events, you can get minifigures here that you can’t find elsewhere!

The San Diego Natural History Museum

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This museum is a smart choice for educational San Diego souvenirs. The Alex and Elizabeth Wise Museum Store at the San Diego Natural History Museum features a wide selection of gifts, books, toys, and stationery. Among many other eclectic offerings, the store also includes items specific to popular exhibitions (like dinosaur-themed items correlating to Fossil Mysteries).

Souvenir-hunters will also appreciate distinctive items like original botanical artwork and a line of sustainable products. A similar institution that offers the same kind of souvenirs, albeit with a different selection, is the Fleet Science Center.

San Diego Air and Space Museum souvenirs

Air and Space museum

Museums are pretty reliably good places to souvenir shop, especially because their offerings are usually distinctive and often unique to their location. The San Diego Air and Space Museum is no exception to this rule. This museum is a perfect destination for those shopping for space enthusiasts or anything with a love of all things aviation.

A brief survey of their products includes apparel, toys, books, collectibles, puzzles, stickers, and more. If you’re searching for something a little more outside the box or unique, you can also find plaques autographed by astronauts, airplane models, and space food (including everyone’s favorite, astronaut ice cream).

San Diego Museum of Art souvenirs

For culture lovers, the San Diego Museum of Art offers plenty of artistic souvenirs that can’t be found in other places around the city. These unique products are often crafted specifically for this museum and/or the special exhibition they accompany, too. For example, you can find art prints of paintings that the San Diego Museum of Art holds—paintings that exist nowhere else in the world. You’ll also find exhibition guides and coffee table books, distinctive apparel like silk-printed scarves, and hand-made puzzles and toys.

San Diego museum of art

The museum offers two stores: the regular Museum Store where you can find the prints and sundries, and the Bibliotheque, which sells gifts with a focus on San Diego’s prominent cultural interests: art, sports, and beer. Both of these shops are a sure bet for unique San Diego souvenirs. For more artsy souvenirs, check out the Museum of Contemporary Art (Downtown).

South Coast Plaza souvenirs

For the shopaholics out there, South Coast Plaza boasts over 250 different retail venues. This is the place to come if you’d like to indulge in some serious marathon shopping. Popular stores include high-end luxury brands like Gucci, Hermes, Harry Winston, Alexander McQueen, and more.

Of course, you can also find more affordable brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Free People, Gap, and H&M. In addition to a wide range of men’s and women’s fashion, you can also shop for jewelry, eyewear, athletic wear, handbags and accessories, and plenty of other products.

Can't choose? No need, see it all with Go City® 

We’re sure you’ll enjoy one or more of these places to buy San Diego souvenirs and hope that they offer top ideas for that perfect memento of your trip. While you’re budgeting for some shopping, keep in mind that products like Go City® San Diego passes can help you save on admission to the museums and attractions that sell those lovely souvenirs.

With an All-Inclusive Pass, you can visit both attractions for a fraction of the cost. Plus, you could save up to 50% on all your San Diego must-sees. Or pick an Explorer Pass, if you've chosen your fave and have a specific bucket list you're dreaming of ticking off.  

☀️ Compare San Diego passes ☀️– 🌏 Explore other destinations 🌏 –  ✈️ Buy a pass ✈

Katie Sagal
Go City Travel Expert

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Best Museums in San Diego

San Diego’s exhilarating cocktail of Spanish, Mexican and American influences make for some eye-poppingly wonderful cultural experiences across the city. Not least in Balboa Park, a vast green space just north of Downtown, where the heady mix of architecturally surprising buildings house several of the region's finest museums and art galleries. There’s more than enough here and around town to keep everyone – from excitable toddlers to the most jaded culture seeker – entertained for days. Maybe even weeks! Here’s our countdown of the 10 best museums in San Diego. San Diego Museum of Art The cathedral-like facade of the region’s largest art museum cuts a striking dash even on Balboa Park’s El Prado boulevard, where nearly every building is an architectural masterclass. A grandly ornamented door leads you beneath imposing statues of Velázquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán and into this huge, well-lit space, where works by these Spanish masters and others including Goya and El Greco dominate. The collection is supported by pieces from America, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Browse Japanese woodblock art, Buddhist sculpture and an impressive collection of German Expressionist works as well as big names including Canaletto, Monet, O’Keeffe and Tamayo. And be sure not to miss Bosch’s typically disturbing The Arrest of Christ and Renoir’s beguiling Woman Combing Her Hair while you’re here. USS Midway Museum The United States' longest-serving 20th-century aircraft carrier is honored at the USS Midway Museum. You can’t miss this vast vessel: now permanently docked downtown at Navy Pier, it was once the largest ship in the world. The museum is a thrill-a-minute for Top Gun fans, with oodles of flying machines to ogle, including an F9F-P Cougar from the Korean War and a WWII SDB Dauntless dive bomber. You can even play captain up on the bridge and do your best Tom Cruise impression inside an airplane cockpit. But if it’s boats that, um, float your boat then there’s no reason you can’t fit the USS Midway Museum and the nearby Maritime Museum of San Diego on the same day, with a bit of military precision. Grab lunch at nearby Seaport Village or Little Italy to keep your sightseeing strength up. Fleet Science Center All terracotta roof tiles, ornate balconies and arches running the length of its sand-colored facade, the Fleet Science Center looks like for all the world like a royal Spanish villa has been air-dropped into Balboa Park, extravagant water fountain and all. Inside, there are stacks of interactive exhibits designed to entertain both kids and grown-ups. Find out why toast always seems to land butter-side down, become a human battery, experience a thrilling virtual reality spacewalk at the International Space Station and take an immersive journey through the natural world in the IMAX cinema. Little ones will love Kid City, where cranes, carts and conveyor belts make for hours of hands-on fun. Gaslamp Museum Built in the traditional ‘saltbox’ style – traditional, that is, to Portland, Maine – downtown San Diego’s oldest surviving structure was actually built hundreds of miles away before being dismantled and shipped here way back in the mid 18th Century. Step inside the (reassembled) timber-framed building to enter a frozen-in-time snapshot of the Victorian era. Wander rooms filled with period furniture and other ephemera of the time and learn about former inhabitants including ‘father of San Diego’ Alonzo Horton. You may even, if you’re lucky, run into the Gaslamp Museum’s resident ghost. Boo! Air and Space Museum The supersonic Lockheed A-12 and Convair YF2Y-1 Sea Dart airplanes that flank the entrance to Balboa Park’s Air and Space Museum will give you some idea of what to expect inside. Aircraft enthusiasts will once again be in seventh heaven: here’s where to see exhibits from the great and good of air and space exploration, including artifacts from the Wright Brothers, Amelia Earhart and Buzz Aldrin. Check out the faithful replica of Charles Lindbergh’s tiny Spirit of St. Louis plane, which he flew solo from Long Island to Paris in 1927. And see Gumdrop, one of only 13 Apollo command modules on display anywhere in the world. The museum also boasts interactive exhibits galore, including an immersive 4D cinema, flight simulators and a Kids’ Aviation Action Hangar with cute little pedal planes. New Children’s Museum Kids will have their tiny minds blown by this excellent downtown museum that’s chock-full of entertaining activities and interactive exhibits. Each little room here is themed, with ever-changing installations keeping things fresh year-round. Expect colorful murals, mind-bending puzzles and a mini theater with dress-up materials for budding young thespians. There’s even a giant woven hammock that kids can climb into and explore, as well as workshops where little hands are kept busy with clay, paints, stencils and other artistic bits and bobs. Museum of Us As if Balboa Park’s highly decorative California Quadrangle buildings aren’t testament enough to humanity’s skills, ingenuity and artistry alone, inside is where you’ll find the Museum of Us. Exhibits in this fascinating anthropological journey through human evolution explore everything from cannibalism to the ancient (and somewhat more palatable) art of beer-making, a nod to San Diego’s status as the capital of US craft brewing. Learn about what makes people unique as well as the ties that bind us all together. And, while you’re here, be sure to climb the iconic California Tower for sweeping views across the park and beyond. Birch Aquarium at Scripps Perched on a hilltop in the delightful La Jolla district around 12 miles north of downtown, the Birch Aquarium is an excellent low-key alternative to SeaWorld San Diego in Mission Bay; we recommend visiting on a day trip to La Jolla’s fine sandy beaches. See if you can spot the elusive giant Pacific octopus and rescued loggerhead turtle in the Hall of Fishes, and come face to face with spotted leopard sharks at Shark Shores. Kids will love exploring Tidepool Plaza and getting hands-on with the sea anemones, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, lobsters and various other critters in the living tidepools here. San Diego Natural History Museum This fab family attraction in Balboa Park features all manner of prehistoric monsters and other wild beasts across four floors. Meet the museum’s giant replica mastodon, examine dozens of dinosaur fossils and check out the bizarre collection of animal skulls – many from the San Diego region – from tiny reptiles to towering pachyderms. Kids can study fossils up close using real archaeological equipment and get answers to their most burning questions about the natural world from scientists in the Demonstration Lab. Museum of Photographic Arts This collection of fascinating images spans the entire history of photography. Its thousands of photographic and filmed images allow for a wide range of rotating exhibitions, and are supplemented by touring shows by photographers from around the world. There's also a range of events and workshops available to help bring out the best in your selfie skills and really make your Instagram sparkle. Why not start by snapping the museum building, another visually stunning Spanish Colonial Revival confection in (where else) Balboa Park? Save on the best museums in San Diego Save on admission to San Diego attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram and Facebook for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak

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