Weekend in Downtown San Diego

I love to travel and pick around here and there. You could say that I have wanderlust.

But when I planned our 2nd year anniversary trip, I chose downtown San Diego. A little staycation, if you will.

We’re only 30 minutes (without traffic) to downtown, but we don’t go down there all that often. So I thought it would be fun to stay in the Gaslamp district and poke around.

We stayed at Hotel Solamar hotel on 6th and J. It’s a Kimpton hotel and we love their boutique hotels. We first learned about Kimpton when we stayed at  The Canary in Santa Barbara.

Part of the reason that we love the Kimpton hotels is that dogs are not only tolerated, they’re welcomed! They have doggy beds and doggy bowls. At The Canary, the Lolas got their names on a welcome chalkboard, but they never made their way onto the one at Hotel Solamar. I could tell the dogs were really bummed out at that.

Hotel Solamar was more of a young, disco scene than we bargained for. We had to move rooms right away because we were 1 floor above the pool which turns into quite a nightclub at night. These 40-somethings don’t like to hear the bass  and um-cha um-cha beats in the wee hours.

That night there was a crazy party going on in multiple rooms on our floor, too. When we asked at the front desk, the manager said, “yeah, that floor is really going to party this weekend. Do you want to move?” Uh – yeah. We moved to our 3rd room. That one was quiet. Yeah!

Here’s a tip for Solamar – go into Jsix (the hotel restaurant) and take the elevator up to the pool. You can hang out by the pool, eat and drink all day without being a hotel guest. The pool scene is just that – a scene. But it’s fun.

The weekend really turned into an extended happy hour with us not having one sit-down meal, but instead bopping from one place to another for a drink and some appetizers.

One of our stops was Bang Bang – which is creating quite a buzz. More on that in a sec.

The sushi we had was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. Our cocktails were tiny and expensive. The service was snooty at best. The server thought we were the dorkiest people on the planet.

The  shining star of Bang Bang is the interior design. The sushi bar room and the main room were decorated differently, but both incredibly cool. The lighting was sheer perfection!

Back to this buzz – the big buzz about Bang Bang is their bathrooms. Yes, the bathrooms. Each stall has it’s own bold design – including this one that’s adorned with Hello Kitty.

But the most loved bathroom is the one featuring Ryan Gosling. No kidding. There are pictures of him all over the bathroom.

My favorite stop of our weekend was right in our hotel restaurant: Jsix. The food was sublime, cocktails even better and our waiter was a dreadlocked awesome dude.

Downtown San Diego is such a great place for walking to bars and restaurants and having some fun. The next time we’re taking a weekend trip, I’d consider staying the Gaslamp again.

When’s the last time you did a staycation? How was it?

Sara Christensen is a private weight loss coach coach based in San Diego. She works with women to create bodies and lives that they love.