I lovveee California. After many years of wanting to go to California together, Jerome and I finally went in December. We spent a few days in San Diego, a couple days in Anaheim, and a day in Joshua Tree. The vibe in the surf towns around San Diego are right up my alley, and I could totally see myself living there some day.
My cousin lives close to San Diego, so she and her husband picked Jerome and I up a couple hours after we landed to explore. Our first stop was to grab some dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Tocaya Organica in the Gaslamp Quarter. It was really tasty! Jerome and I got vegan tacos and the vegan picadillo was my fave protein option. The chips and salsa were delicious, but the salsa was hecken spicy.
We walked around Gaslamp for a couple hours, and then headed back to our airbnb for some needed sleep. My cousins picked us up again the next morning and we had a mini road trip from downtown San Diego up to Oceanside. We made some stops on the way, and the first stop was La Jolla. When I was in California a few years ago, I went paragliding off these exact cliffs in the photos below!
We drove up to Encinitas for some lunch at a vegan restaurant called Eve. It had delicious beyond meat burgers, yummy pancakes, and not good flatbread. Don’t get the pumpkin spice pancakes, and don’t get the flatbread. Stick to the burgers! Their smoothies are good too. Their World Nativ smoothie is super good.
I was so into the Encinitas vibe! So chill, so beachy, so hippy. There were some ace shops that we popped into, but man they were expensive! We then drove off to Oceanside where we walked the pier.
There were lotsa surfers out, so I deffo had to sneak some snaps of them out there.
We ended the night with a fire on the beach. It was v nippy out, but it was so fun. I’ve never had a bonfire on a beach before.
We actually ended up driving back up to Oceanside a few days later to show Jerome’s family the beach and pier. We stopped for lunch at Eve again lol. We got the pizza burger and it was oh so good. We also grabbed coffee across the from from Eve at a place called Better Buzz Coffee. The coffee was pretty good. Nothing memorable though. Other than the tiles on the floor.
One of my favourite photos of Jerome and I was taken under the pier in Oceanside (thanks Abby!!). It was the perfect temperature during the day, but it did get pretty cold at night. Light jacket weather is my fave. My denim jacket is from Target!
We ended up going back to Tocaya for dinner as per Jerome’s request, and it was just as yummy as the first time. So, it’s a thing in California to have Bird and Lime electric scooters lying around for people to use. I really really wanted to try it, and we actually did it. I wish I had photos, but it was scary lemme tell you. There were so many people and cars everywhere, that it made it really hard to ride them.
California is seriously a vibe - I can totally understand why so many people wanna live there. Jerome and I will definitely coming back in the future! There’s so much more to California that we wanna see. Although I wouldn’t mind going back to sunny San Diego haha.
What are some places in California that we should check out?!
x Melissa