After lunch, I made my way down to University of California San Diego. I love visiting college campuses when I travel, but in all honesty, UCSD was a little less picturesque than I was expecting. The one thing that was impressive was the Geisel Library. This intriguing structure with a relatively narrow base is somewhat reminiscent of a flying saucer. It is open to the public if you’d like to check out the interior.

Here are a couple of tips for Sunset Cliffs Natural Park. There are steep drop-offs here with minimal barriers, and I noticed lots of people getting precariously close to the edge. Be aware of that and keep some distance! In addition, there’s only one residential street that provides access in and out of the park. Traffic will almost surely be bad directly after sunset, and there’s probably not much you can do about it.

I stayed in Hillcrest and found it to be pretty central. It was nice to be relatively close to Balboa Park and technically within walking distance. In retrospect, I feel like maybe I should’ve stayed somewhere near a trolley station, but the system unfortunately doesn’t go to Hillcrest or North Park. Overall, Hillcrest is a nice place to stay as long as you’re willing to Uber or Lyft at least some of the time.