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    San Diego from A to Z: Alphabet City Guide Books, #2
    San Diego from A to Z: Alphabet City Guide Books, #2
    San Diego from A to Z: Alphabet City Guide Books, #2
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    San Diego from A to Z: Alphabet City Guide Books, #2

    By Laura Roberts

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    About this ebook

    Tired of the same old guidebooks? Learn where to go and what to do from a local!

    This alphabetical city guide looks at San Diego - and tourism - from a whole new angle, letting readers browse the city at their own pace.

    Learn about...
    * Local favorites
    * Tourist attractions
    * Cultural oddities
    * And enjoy unique trivia you just won't get from the other guys!

    ˃˃˃ For visitors AND residents

    Whether you're a first-time visitor or a life-long resident, San Diego from A to Z will surprise and delight you with plenty of facts, figures and personal experiences from author Laura Roberts.

    Explore alphabetically as you tour America's Finest City, starting at the Birch Aquarium and ending with Spanish phrases that begin with the letter Z.

    ˃˃˃ Jam-packed with commentary

    Learn more about San Diego landmarks, eateries, bars, museums, bookstores, neighborhoods, cultural oddities and much more.

    A must-have for the discerning traveler or seasoned flâneur.

    Find out what you've been missing in San Diego and order your copy today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherButtontapper Press
    Release dateSep 26, 2015
    ISBN9781516394456
    San Diego from A to Z: Alphabet City Guide Books, #2
    Author

    Laura Roberts

    Laura Roberts can leg-press an average-sized sumo wrestler, has nearly been drowned off the coast of Hawaii, and tells lies for a living. She is the founding editor of Black Heart Magazine, the San Diego Chapter Leader for the Nonfiction Authors Association, and publishes whatever strikes her fancy at Buttontapper Press. She currently lives in an Apocalypse-proof bunker in sunny SoCal with her artist husband and their literary kitties, and can be found on Twitter @originaloflaura. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Laura has penned the alphabetical travel guides Montreal from A to Z and San Diego from A to Z, offbeat writing guides A Cheater’s Guide to NaNoWriMo and Confessions of a 3-Day Novelist, and the satirical adventure tale, Ninjas of the 512. She is also the editor of the collection Haiku for Lovers, and the forthcoming anthology Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned from Pop Songs (February 2016).

    Read more from Laura Roberts

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      Book preview

      San Diego from A to Z - Laura Roberts

      San Diego from A to Z

      By Laura Roberts

      © 2015 Laura Roberts

      Published by Buttontapper Press

      http://buttontapper.com

      Cover design by Buttontapper Press

      ––––––––

      NOTE: Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this book is as up-to-date as possible at press time. However, many details are subject to change. Buttontapper Press cannot accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of this book.

      Buttontapper Press does not solicit individuals, organizations, or businesses for listings inclusions in our guides, nor do we accept payment for inclusion in our books.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction (Or: Why Would I Want to Tour a City Alphabetically?)

      Aquarium Antics

      Awesome Annual Events

      Beat Around the Bushes at Balboa Park

      Beautiful Beaches

      Cool, Calm Coronado

      Dr. Seuss Does (San) Diego

      Exploring the Botanic Garden in Encinitas

      Fire Up the Ferris Wheel for the Fair!

      Fantastic Freebies

      The Gaslamp Quarter – Then and Now

      Horton Hears a What?

      Illin' & Chillin' at Imperial Beach

      Joy in La Jolla

      Kooky in Cardiff

      Koi Club

      Everything is Awesome in Legoland

      Martians, Murder, Magic, Mayhem & More

      Name That Neighborhood

      Outstanding Ocean Beach

      Pontificating on Point Loma

      Questions About Quasars? Quick – To the Observatory!

      Romantic Restaurants – And More!

      Save the Whales

      Turn Up the Tropics: Tiki Rooms

      Unsatisfied With SeaWorld? Try the Underwater Park Instead!

      Vicarious Voyeurism in the Village

      What’s Windy, Wet and Wild?

      X-Rated: A Brief Guide to San Diego's Sexy Side

      Your Yearning for Yoga Fulfilled: Free Classes

      Z Words in Spanish More Useful Than Zapatista

      About the Author

      More Books by Laura Roberts

      INTRODUCTION

      (Or: Why Would I Want to Tour a City Alphabetically?)

      I never set out to write a typical guidebook.

      In fact, I find typical guidebooks to be a little dull. Sure, they might have a lot of useful information in them, like the address and phone number of a must-see hotspot, but in the modern world most people have cell phones that can easily access the Internet for info like that.

      So what, exactly, is the use of having a guidebook?

      I guess the thing that first inspired me to write a travel book was one very off-the-beaten-path guidebook I read in my youth. It was called Mad Monks on the Road: A 47,00-Hour Dashboard Adventure from Paradise, California to Royal, Arkansas and Up the New Jersey Turnpike. Sort of an early-90s’ version of On the Road, the Mad Monks were two men from San Francisco who decided to chuck the rat race workaday world, load all their worldly possessions into an RV, and head east. Not only did their book talk about their travels – which were interesting enough, for an ambiguously gay duo like the Monks – but they also introduced me to my generation’s countercultural heroes, like Dan Savage, Annie Sprinkle, Quentin Crisp and Gus Van Sant before they became household names, thanks to that wonderful invention, the Internet.

      Once the Monks settled into the east coast, they wrote another book: The Mad Monks’ Guide to New York City. I remember checking this one out of the New York Public Library and bookmarking all the peculiar sites they managed to dig up – including a former tenement building filled from top to bottom with dirt.

      It was, ultimately, the freewheeling Mad Monks that made me want to travel, to explore, to dig deep into the cultures that surrounded me. And it’s the Mad Monks that I thought about when I thought of the type of guidebook I’d like to write. They didn’t just give you the dry details of where a well-known landmark was and how to get there. Instead, they ferreted out the weird, the wacky, the wonderful, and the stuff that no tourist would ever see.

      To me, books like those written by the Monks’ are the gems of the guidebook world. They describe the oddball sights, and equally unusual characters you might find when visiting them, in a humorous and entertaining way. In fact, they might even inspire you to visit a place that’s so ridiculous and bizarre that no self-respecting tourist would ever waste their time or money to explore, just to say that you’ve been there and done that, too!

      In short: the Monks were the most charismatic tour guides I’d ever read (at that point in my life), and I hoped to one day join their ranks.

      Having written for some of the top travel outlets in the U.S., including Travel + Leisure and Not For Tourists, as well as online guides like Expedia and Mapquest, I’ve been able to share a few of my experiences with the world. And I’ve certainly enjoyed being paid to write about places I know and love. However, my point of view has typically had to skew to an individual outlet’s tone, never being confrontational or negative, never expressing any personal opinion.

      By contrast, my A to Z guides take my own tone – positive or negative – and allow me to riff on everything from cultural oddities to my favorite restaurants to the hidden, sexy sides of a city.

      So, while I can’t say that San Diego from A to Z will give you comprehensive coverage of the ocean-side city I currently inhabit, I do hope it can impart just a bit of my insider knowledge and show you some of the most interesting – and occasionally kooky – tidbits that make the city of San Diego worth visiting.

      It’s a big city, and you’ve just got to jump in and explore. Care to join me?

      AQUARIUM ANTICS

      Though it may not be quite as epic as the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago (the city where I grew up), San Diego’s Birch Aquarium is home to lots of entertaining and educational aquatic exhibits. It’s the perfect place to start off your San Diego A to Z adventure!

      Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the aquarium is part of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

      Open daily from 9 AM to 5 PM, the aquarium is home to more than 3,000 fish in over 60 habitats, as well as a museum devoted to ocean and earth science.

      Whether you’re curious about fish, whales, seahorses, Loggerhead sea turtles, sharks and rays, or tide pools,

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