San Diego Travel Forum

When we visit San Diego next month where is the best place to park from the morning - being there all day and to include going to the Padres match in evening?

Ummm...San Diego is a big place. Can you be a bit more specific?

We are looking at parking in the petco park area but being able to walk about the downtown area, shops, sightseeing etc during the day. We just want to park up once - is this possible?

Yes parking near Petco Park should be convenient if you want to spend the day downtown. I might add here that if you parked at the SD (Old Town) Trolley Station parking lot--which offers free parking--you could take the SD Trolley downtown and back without having to pay for a full days parking and you will avoid the clogged-up streets when the game is over.

The area around Petco Park has been newly named "The East Village," and is located at the southeast cornor of the Gaslamp Quarter. It is near enough to Seaport Village, the Harbor area and the most charming section of downtown. The only public transportation in this area is the SD Trolley and a systems of pedicabs. However, walking from one part of this area to the other should not pose too much hardship for the average person.

If you still want to park specifically in this area I'd say that west of Harbor drive--just across from Petco Park--you find parking lots designed for baseball watching patrons.

Do you think we would find using the SD Trolley easy enough to get around, its allways a bit scary when you have never done it before, in England we can never really rely on public transport.

Cheers

Andy

I'd definately recommend parking at the OLD TOWN trolley station and taking the trolley into downtown (it is really easy to use) and you can get a day pass for like 5 dollars. Also, there is no college right now so you shouldn't have to worry about the lot being full.. especially if you get there early anyway. The blue line will get you to downtown and the orange to Petco (they overlap at certain stations).... you can even walk to Petco from the downtown area.... I've done it many times..... and generally after games they have the trolley running more often to accomodate people from the game.

>>>Do you think we would find using the SD Trolley easy enough to get around, its allways a bit scary when you have never done it before,

Of course, I wouldn't really know what you would or would not find easy, but I'd mention that the SD Trolley is much like the "Metro" except it runs above ground. There are only three lines, Blue, Orange and Green. The Blue Line goes north and south, from Old Town to San Ysidro. The Orange Line goes east from the Convention Center downtown to Gillespie Field. The Green Line goes from Old Town San Diego to Santee and it runs right through San Diego State University.

Check out the Transit site for the routes to get a better idea.

http://www.sdcommute.com/

Many Thanks to the people who have replied - will I have any problems getting back to the car after the game in the evening and do you recommend to buy the tickets online before?

Thanks for your help

Andypat