San Diego is home to over seventy miles of coastline and has an annual average temperature of 64 degrees making it a perfect destination year round for your choir or band trip to San Diego. Numerous student music festivals are produced in this oceanfront city. Student fun and adventure is easy to find, most popular sites include the world famous San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, the California Surf Museum, Sea World, Coronado Island and Seaport Village.
1. Beautiful Beaches
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Torrey Pines State Reserve
Untamed, rugged and serene, the Reserve is a wilderness oasis just fifteen minutes from downtown San Diego. Let your students take a break on their band trip to San Diego and explore the beautiful scenery.
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Encinitas
One of San Diego County’s prime surf spots made famous by the Beach Boys song “Surfin’ USA”. A staircase from the cliffs to the beach offers great views of daredevil surfers below.
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Oceanside
Forty-five minutes from San Diego is where your group will find the longest wooden municipal pier in the US West Coast. It is also home of the California Surf Museum where the legacy of the pioneering legends of the surfing world are preserved.
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Cardiff By The Sea
Surfers, kayakers and body surfers throng to Cardiff and Elijo State Beach. A day at the seashore here can include bird watching or a nature walk at nearby San Elijo Lagoon ecological reserve.
2. Music and Theatre
Multiple student music festival producers host events in San Diego. Most feature an adventure and awards ceremony in the Sea World Park after each group’s performance. Expert adjudication and an awards ceremony with trophies for each group are also often provided. Local schools and universities welcome shared public performance opportunities in San Diego at locations such as the USS Midway or Seaport Village. All of these performance opportunities give your San Diego band trip students experience in a large performance venue!
The La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe Theater call San Diego home as well as the San Diego Opera and the San Diego Symphony. Most years at least one World Premiere production makes it to the Great White Way. Examples include Jesus Christ Superstar, Bonnie and Clyde and Jersey Boys.
3. Must-See Attractions
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San Diego Zoo
The San Diego Zoo is a zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, houses over 12,000 animals of more than 680 species and subspecies. Your group can take a behind the scenes “how we take care of our animals” tour and learn what goes into caring and feeding the many animals this zoo houses. You’ll also see the animals up close during your band trip to San Diego. For direct access to the latest animal data, take a look at this article from the World Animal Foundation.
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Balboa Park
This park encompasses 1200 acres and is often referred to as the “Smithsonian of the West”.
Highlights include an amusement park, fifteen museums, art galleries, the Old Globe Theater and sixteen beautiful gardens. Arcade style fun can be had at Escapology, zip-lines, climbing the rock wall, playing mini-golf and conquering the ropes courses. Built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival-style buildings house many museums along the Park’s El Prado Walkway including the San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Art Institute’s Museum of Living Artist and the Timken Museum of Art displaying European and American Masterworks. -
Sea World
Exploring Sea World with thrilling rides, amazing animals and special events while visiting San Diego is a top thing for school groups to do on their high school band trip. Dine with the Orcas or Beluga whales or experience a dolphin interaction while you touch and feed them in their own environment. Coronado Island Modern-day Coronado began in 1885 with the purchase of a one-time Spanish rancho that spanned Coronado, North Island and the Silver Strand. Their vision was to establish “the grandest hotel on the Pacific coast” set within a master-planned community. Coronado’s history flourished in multiple dimensions, early in the 1900s, Coronado’s weather and remote location placed it at the forefront of aviation breakthroughs earning it the title of “aviation’s birthplace”. Students can tour the Hotel Del and take a guided walking tour of the island.
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Seaport Village
Seaport Village is a waterfront shopping and dining complex adjacent to San Diego Bay in downtown San Diego.
Take a High School Band Trip to San Diego with EDT
Educational Discovery Tours is a leading provider of educational and enriching student tours! Our expert guides will ensure that your students get the most out of their band trip to San Diego with musical attractions and performances, as well as time to explore the great city area. Learn more about EDT’s performance tours to San Diego or check out the sample itineraries.
Sources
Sandiego.org, Seaworld.com Coronadovisitorscenter.com, Wikipedia, Sandiegozoo.com, World Animal Foundation
