Explore San Diego’s Historic District

Most visitors head straight for San Diego‘s beaches, but if you love history and places that feel frozen in time, you might enjoy seeing where San Diego began.

Between one of America’s most famous haunted houses, preserved Victorian homes, and colorful plazas filled with music and local shops, we spent more than half the day exploring historic San Diego.

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If you enjoy history more than amusement parks, Old Town easily deserves half a day. Let’s see the original city site.

Historic San Diego: The Whaley House

For my first stop, I had Uber drop me off in front of the Whaley House because it was easily identifiable spot and where I was ending the evening. The Whaley house is said to be the most haunted house in the US, according to the Travel Channel. Historically the Whaley house is important to San Diego.

It was the County Court house, San Diego’s first commercial theater, a general store, a ballroom, a billiard hall, school, and polling place, as well as the Whaley’s personal residence.

The original home site was built on San Diego’s public hanging grounds. The house is said to be haunted because of this.

In addition, Mr. Whaley’s daughter committed suicide and died in the house. I booked the evening tour hoping the darker atmosphere would make the Whaley House more intriguing. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, walking through the quiet Victorian rooms after sunset definitely adds to the experience.

We found the docents on this self-guided tour to be friendly and if you ask for more information they are more than happy to give you some background information-less reading for me. Haunted or not, I enjoy visiting old houses.

One thing that surprised me was how easy it was to spend hours here. Once you start walking around you find more interesting pieces of history. After visiting the Whaley House I simply wandered downhill towards Heritage Park and Old Town, stopping whenever something looked interesting.

Heritage Park is adjacent to Old Town San Diego

Heritage Park

From the Whaley House we walked down Harney Street to where it intersects with Juan Street. From here you’ll see the Victorian village at Heritage County Park ahead on your right.

Victorian Village at Heritage County Park

San Diego’s Heritage County Park has preserved the Victorian architecture found in San Diego in the 1890’s. To create this neighborhood, six houses and one temple were relocated. The first small house, Senlis Cottage, is a museum and you can go inside this house.

You can stroll around this recreated neighborhood and view the different Victorian styles. Great place to take a walk and enjoy the beautiful San Diego weather.

From Heritage Park Row walk down Juan Street towards the Mormon Battolion Historic Site.

Old Town Historic Park

Continue down Juan Street towards Old Town. If you’re walking just walk past the parking lot and turn left on Twiggs street. Old Town is on your right.

Once you turn into Old Town you will see the Old Town Market Square will be on your left. This is a great place to grab a drink or to browse at the little shops. The Cygnet Theatre is on your right and next to the theatre is Seely Stable.

Choose from over 60 different kinds of root beer and over 100 kinds of jerky at this cute little store in Old Town. I didn’t even know there were that many choices in root beer.

See a Wells Fargo stagecoach

Parking

Parking wasn’t difficult, but if you don’t want to deal with it, taking an Uber like we did made exploring much easier since everything is walkable once you’re there. I saw parking lots of of Congress, Juan and Taylor Streets.

Hotels

Just west of Congress Street you’ll find several hotels to choose from .

San Diego Tours