San Diego’s most prolific architectural photographer turns his lens on Sea Ranch Lodge
“I took a ‘selfie’ looking out at the ocean, from the first housing built there, called Condo One. Note the steeply raked rooflines to deflect the wind. My camera here is in the courtyard of the building, which was also designed to provide outdoor space sheltered from the wind and weather.”
Darren Bradley
Darren Bradley’s camera can turn concrete and cedar shingles into symbols of romance. If a structure has charisma, he lures it out. With light. Through angles.
“Architects are always telling stories and making statements through their work,” he says. “I generally try to zero in on that story or statement, and find the best possible way to photograph the building to ensure that the message is conveyed properly.”
“Weather can be unpredictable at Sea Ranch. The development occupies 5,000 acres of rocky coastline. The architecture was meant to blend in with the surroundings, while also deflecting the wind and protecting its inhabitants from the often- unpredictable weather. Sea Ranch is about 100 miles north of San Francisco but feels a world away.”
Darren Bradley
Architectural photography has developed into its own art form, and it might be as important as the built work itself. A good image can give the viewer a feeling of the atmosphere and design intention without actually being in the place. Bradley does this.
Sea Ranch, 4
Darren Bradley
His Instagram profile, @modarchitecture, which has 117,000 followers, is packed with eye-catching buildings from around the world and those closer to home, including the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Geisel Library at UC San Diego. Born in Hawai‘i, raised in San Diego, and having studied history at the Sorbonne in Paris, he mostly focuses on modernist architecture from the 1950s through today. On his profile, he shares history, humorous field notes, and insight on his editing methodology.
For the Sea Ranch, he captured the discreet beauty of this secluded, forward-thinking residential enclave set on 53 rugged acres of Northern California coastline about halfway between Bodega Bay and Mendocino. At the time it was built in the 1960s, the vernacular architecture and ecological sensitivity were radical.
“My wife walking down the path towards the cliffs, under the lodge. The ram’s horns are the logo of Sea Ranch, and evoke a time when the area was a sheep ranch. They were designed by local artist Barbara Stauffacher.”
Darren Bradley
A dream team of Bay Area architects—including Charles W. Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, Joseph Esherick, William Turnbull, and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin—evolved a concept of dynamic conservation of “living lightly on the land.” They created a tapestry of 2,200 private homes, clustered by cypress hedgerows, undeveloped lots, undulating meadows, rolling hills, redwood and Douglas fir forests, nature trails, and ocean views. All this on a former sheep ranch.
Last year, The Sea Ranch Lodge reopened after a detailed remodel; it includes a refreshed restaurant, The Bar + Lounge, a new café, and a general store, as well as a roster of cultural events.
“There’s even a San Diego connection to Sea Ranch! Local artist and architect James Hubbell designed this chapel.”
Darren Bradley
“This is the Ohlson Recreation Center. The structure on the right is meant to also serve as a screen to deflect the often-high winds coming in off the cliffs.”
Darren Bradley
Usually, Bradley’s photo assignments are commissions from architects and publishers the likes of Phaidon, for whom he has photographed two midcentury- modern travel books. But Sea Ranch was a family affair, framing his wife, Elise, and daughter, Ava, amid the organic architecture. “I am often alone when I travel to photograph architecture,” says Bradley. “Being able to share that experience with my family was a rare treat and a memorable one. Sea Ranch is an iconic modernist architectural vision that has remained unspoiled by time.”
“Sea Ranch has always been a haven for creative types. Graphic designer and artist Barbara Stauffacher created the ‘Supergraphics’ that are used throughout the development, including in this changing room at one of the site’s several public swimming pools. This pool is known as the Moonraker Pool… yes, like James Bond!”
Darren Bradley
“A view of the Sea Ranch Lodge perched on the steep cliffs overlooking the ocean.”
Darren Bradley
“My daughter enjoying the view at our condo. Okay, I may have asked her to pose there! This complex includes several condos and was the first structure to be built at Sea Ranch. Designed by architects Richard Whitaker, Donlyn Lyndon, Charles Moore, and William Turnbull in the early 1960s.”
Darren Bradley
“View of the lounge area of the Sea Ranch Lodge. I enjoyed sitting here with a cup of coffee with a book while watching the weather and the waves.”
Darren Bradley
“The steep, slanted rooflines are meant to deflect the wind. There are no windows high up on the structures because of the difficulty of keeping them clean.”
Darren Bradley
“On our way up to Sea Ranch, we stopped at the former Russian colony at Fort Ross. In the early 1800s, this fort housed soldiers and fur traders. This Russian Orthodox chapel at the fort also served as inspiration for the architects who designed Sea Ranch.”
Darren Bradley
“Here’s the interior of the chapel designed by San Diego artist and architect James Hubbell.”
Darren Bradley
“The Sea Ranch Lodge also serves 9. as the area’s only restaurant and community post office. It was designed by Joseph Esherick in 1964 and modeled after an old-fashioned country store. The sculpture is by artist Robert Holmes.”
Darren Bradley
A feast for your eyes and inspiration for your next remote vacation
The world is a stunning place full of culture, nature, and really great food. To celebrate our annual travel and adventure issue, we tapped some of our favorite globetrotting photographers to help us experience life through their lenses. To tickle your travel bug we’re heading around the world to buy cheese in a Puglian market, stroll the streets of Osaka, and admire wild donkeys in the Oaxacan mountains. You’re guaranteed to come away longing for your own far-flung adventure. These photos are even sexier and more enticing on the page, so be sure to subscribe to San Diego Magazine for more gorgeous travel photos.
Amelia Rodriguez is a writer and journalist and winner of the San Diego Press Club's 2023 Rising Star Award and 2024 Best of Show Award, she’s also covered music, food, arts and culture, fashion, and design for Rolling Stone, Palm Springs Life, and other national and regional publications. After work, you can find her hunting down San Diego’s best pastries and maintaining her five-year Duolingo streak.
The California-based nonprofit provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and legal aid to those displaced along the United States-Mexico border
A Border Kindness group heads out just after sunrise. An average group is “usually around 8 to 12 people with an average hike length of 5 to 10 miles,” Cordero says.
James Cordero
Every week a group of volunteers heads to the eastern reaches of San Diego County, somewhere in the mountains, past the end of the big fence. They’re with Border Kindness, a California-based nonprofit that provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and legal aid to asylum-seekers, migrants, refugees, and the displaced along the United States-Mexico border. The San Diego chapter, run by James Cordero and his fiancé Jacqueline Arellano, handles the area’s water drops, which require arduous hikes into the deserts where migrants cross by foot, regardless of whether there’s searing summer temperatures or snow.
Border Kindness volunteers leave water, food, and clothing in canyons, mountains, and desert flats known to be frequented both by migrants and Customs and Border Protection (CBP, border patrol). They also remove trash from through-hikers and migrants who leave their personal effects along the rocks. The team has come across just about every likely scenario from border patrol apprehensions to encountering the remains of people who lost their lives in the final stretch of what was almost surely a long journey throughout the Americas.
A keychain left behind with the image of la Virgen de Guadalupe—patron saint of both the Americas and vulnerable people. It’s a common image seen on items belonging to migrants.
James Cordero
Aside from witnessing and experiencing trauma in real-time, there are other risks: in 2019 a volunteer with an organization doing similar water drops in Arizona was charged with two counts of felony harboring and one count of conspiracy. In the end, he went free with a hung jury, but the legal risks of unsanctioned humanitarian aid are real.
“We provide humanitarian aid for many reasons,” Cordero says. “We have family that has immigrated to the United States. We want to help minimize the suffering and death that occurs all too frequently along the US-Mexico border. When you have a serious issue presented in front of you, it becomes a moral responsibility to do what you can to help. That is what we do.”
A view from the top of a mountain ridge shows the canyons where migrants have to travel to try to evade border patrol. “Some caches are deposited over 5,000ft of elevation in the mountains, but most drop sites are less than 1,000ft, some below sea level,” Cordero says.
James Cordero
A sombrero lays on top of a bush in a very windy area. “We presume the hat blew off the head of someone traveling through,” Cordero says.
James Cordero
Border Kindness Water Drop co-director James Cordero poses with a consumed gallon of water he left behind on a previous drop. The volunteers pick up trash, including discarded water bottles, as they deposit supply caches along their hiking routes.
James Cordero
Border Kindness volunteers leave a supply cache consisting of gallons of water, canned food, and sun-protective clothing.
James Cordero
A juvenile rattlesnake, coiled up, camouflages into the decomposed granite and sandy wash believed to be transited by migrants.
James Cordero
Cordero scribbled a bible verse from Romans 12:13: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” It is assumed that the vast majority of migrants are culturally familiar with Catholicism.
James Cordero
A camouflaged CBP motion detection surveillance camera was recently installed in a highly migrant-traveled corridor to track human movement.
James Cordero
A border patrol truck races toward the Border Kindness Water Drop team. After realizing who they were, they let them be.
James Cordero
Children’s clothes strewn about a hillside, at the site of a border patrol apprehension, shows the reality of who’s actually crossing the desert.
James Cordero
A Border Kindness group scales a rocky mountainside, scouting for traces of recent migrant travel.
James Cordero
Jackie is a long-time freelance journalist covering cannabis, food/restaurants, travel, labor, wine, spirits, arts & culture, design, and other topics. Her work has been selected twice for Best American Travel Writing, and she has won a variety of national and local awards for her writing and reporting.
Photographer Maha Bazzari navigates San Diego’s cultural landscape to uncover the dialogue between art and space
“The $105-million overhaul of MCASD, including the new Jacobs Hall, feels more connected to the topography. “It’s a delicate balance in capturing the art and architecture for each space,” says Bazzari of her approach. “Do I highlight the architecture and emphasize the artwork? Will the ocean views be the focal point, or how does the architecture connect with the landscape?”
Maha Bazzari
“I experience art within the space, sit with it, and then digest it.” That’s not the technical part, but it’s absolutely the starting point for Maha Bazzari, an architectural photographer who splits her time between San Diego and Palm Springs. The trained architectural designer and fine artist is an accidental photographer. She started by shooting her own work, then friends, and then global architecture firm Gensler came knocking.
Most recently, she was tapped by MCASD La Jolla to chronicle the quiet minimalism of the $105-million overhaul by Selldorf Architects. The photographer came often: mid-morning as the marine layer lifted. Golden hour. During a rainstorm. “I know every nook, in every light,” she says, perched on a concrete bench in the museum shop.
When she’s not traveling (Berlin, most recently) she frequents local architectural gems from the Salk Institute to Bell Pavilion. Her work has been featured in Dwell, WSJ Magazine and National Geographic. “Expressive images require an understanding of the artist’s concepts. And being selective.” Bazzari often collaborates with local artist Yomar Augusto, and there’s a fluency that develops between them. “To capture Yomar’s work is to follow the flow of lines and strong colors.”
“Bazzari maximized the rare stormy day to capture this dramatic image of architect Annabelle Selldorf and MCASD director Kathryn Kanjo. “With the use of strobe lighting and image bracketing I was able to uncover the rainy views, bring them to the foreground, and show the expansive lines of the architecture.”
Maha Bazzari
“Bazzari maximized the rare stormy day to capture this dramatic image of architect Annabelle Selldorf and MCASD director Kathryn Kanjo. “With the use of strobe lighting and image bracketing I was able to uncover the rainy views, bring them to the foreground, and show the expansive lines of the architecture.”
Maha Bazzari
“The size of the exhibit space dictates the photography style. For the smaller exhibitions, the art must be at the right scale to the architecture so they complement each other. For larger gallery spaces, I don’t want the art to get lost or capture too much information.”
Maha Bazzari
“My love for the visual arts goes beyond a still image. I dabble in painting and explore different materials. This is a detail of Gravitational Attraction. I used acrylic paint, graphite, spray paint, and iron filings that were manipulated by the use of magnets to create this shape. Concept: The force of attraction is inescapable, especially the connections between people and their souls through interaction, sharing of ideas, stories, and experiences.”
Maha Bazzari
Macro-micro is a common theme throughout Bazzari’s photos, as shown with these two shots of a piece by San Diego artist Melissa Walters. Of All Things was a site-specific installation made of 2,600 paper tetrahedrons. “The amount of detail that went into this piece is mind-boggling,” Bazzari says. “I had to consider the physical space in relation to the theoretical Omniverse that contains it.”
Maha Bazzari
“I photographed this beautifully dramatic artwork for Yomar’s solo show at Point Loma Nazarene University. Although the mural was the main piece in the exhibition, the pieces came together through the narration of graphics throughout the gallery space.”
Maha Bazzari
For this mural, commissioned by San Diego Made Factory, Bazzari added scale with pedestrians and trolley tracks. “I wanted to underscore the urban setting of the East Village.”
Maha Bazzari
This abstract and colorful geometric calligraphy painting was commissioned for a residence in Mission Hills. “We wanted to highlight the colorful streaks and textures by enhancing the contrast, especially on the dark canvas.”
Maha Bazzari
This light fabrication is by Tecture in collaboration with Gensler San Diego. “I captured the curvilinear sculptural elements made from independent layers of milled extruded PVC with suspended lighting in between.”
Maha Bazzari
“This historic preservation of a mid-century modern house in San Diego [by architect Kristi Byers] is one of those projects that I photograph and admire all the work and consideration that went into it.”
Maha Bazzari
“We arrived before sunrise to make sure we captured the best light on the small chapel at Point Loma Nazarene University. It took us five hours to photograph the saturated colors, clean lines, and thoughtful materials.” The Lyle and Grace Prescott Memorial Prayer Chapel is a collaboration between architects Carrier Johnson and Tecture.
Maha Bazzari
On The Salk Institute by Louis Kahn: “I can spend all day capturing this monumental architecture with its details, observing the light moving across all the surfaces.”
Maha Bazzari
There are many approaches to shooting a door, especially this one designed and built by Tecture for a San Diego beachfront home. “It is a large pivot door with four operable windows, and a wheel operated gear system. So, we played around. Opening, closing and passing through it.”
Maha Bazzari
A symphony of concrete was required to show off the muscularity of this chair designed and fabricated by Tecture. “We connected this piece to its surroundings—the concrete chair to the concrete floor and walls. Aligning textures and materials was the goal.”
Maha Bazzari
This month, the 2026 San Diego Business Impact Awards recognized local businesses making an impact in clean energy, biotech, hospitality, and beyond
Renewable energy companies building hundreds of power plants. Biotech startups using artificial intelligence to create personalized medicine for children with rare diseases. Hospitality companies quietly powering thousands of local events. Consumer brands growing from beach-town startups into national businesses. These are the kinds of companies driving San Diego’s economy today, and the businesses recognized at this year’s San Diego Business Impact Awards offer a snapshot of where the region is headed.
Hosted July 23 by San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and JPMorganChase, the second annual awards event honored four local companies for innovation, growth, and economic impact. More than 100 nominations from San Diego’s middle-market businesses were reviewed by a 10-person judging committee, with winners selected across four categories: startup, early-stage innovator, rising star, and established heavyweight.
Two-time honoree Jimbo Someck, founder of Jimbo’s organic grocery stores, also joined the event for a fireside chat on buying local, supporting emerging brands, and giving back to the community.
“San Diego’s strength comes from its makers and builders—the resilient people who endure great risks and overcome obstacles to build and scale a company,” says Aaron Ryan, San Diego Region Manager and Middle Market Banking at JPMorganChase & Co. “These awards aren’t just recognition; they spotlight the talent, grit, and innovation shaping our region’s future. By celebrating those who create and build, we foster connections and fuel the growth that keeps San Diego thriving.”
Heavyweight honoree SOLV Energy has grown alongside the country’s rapid investment in renewable power. “It’s an exciting time for SOLV Energy as we are experiencing significant growth,” says CEO George Hershman. “The business has doubled over the last year and has almost double-digit growth since its inception.”
The Rancho Bernardo-based company designs, builds, operates, and maintains utility-scale solar and energy storage facilities. Since its founding in 2008, SOLV Energy has built more than 500 power plants.
Growth has translated directly into hiring. About 200 employees work from the company’s local headquarters, including roughly 20 interns. “Our intern program is a big part of the way that we grow our workforce,” Hershman says. “Last year, 43 percent of our interns became full-time employees. We believe San Diego is a great community to build and grow a high-tech infrastructure and technology company because of the incredible workforce—the ability to attract top talent and draw from world-class universities.”
Startup honoree La Jolla Labs is tackling one of medicine’s biggest challenges by developing personalized RNA therapeutics for patients with rare diseases—many of them children with neurological disorders like ALS. Using proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, the biotech company develops treatments tailored to each patient’s specific genetic mutation.
CEO Tamar Grossman says the recognition reflects how far the company has come despite limited resources. “We’re honored to be recognized for our ability to change and save patients’ lives and turn our lean startup into a clinical company with very minimal resources,” she says.
Grossman credits San Diego’s concentration of research institutions—including UC San Diego, the Salk Institute, and Scripps Research—with creating a pipeline of talent and collaboration. “San Diego is one of the world-leading centers for technology, genomics, and RNA therapeutics,” she says. “We have over 30 RNA therapeutics companies here, and we support each other and help with anything related to drug discovery.”
She says that collaborative spirit extends beyond formal partnerships. “You can walk around Torrey Pines, go into a café, and find colleagues from the industry and have an ad hoc conversation,” Grossman says. “That’s something very unique to San Diego.”
While Snake Oil Venue Company may not be a household name, chances are many San Diegans have attended one of its events. The early-stage innovator honoree has expanded from beverage catering and mixology consulting into venue management, operating Julep Venue in Mission Hills, Bramble Bay Venue in Imperial Beach, Vesper Venue, the Chapel at Liberty Station, and five outdoor venues throughout Liberty Station—more than 500,000 square feet of event space altogether.
“We do a lot of launch parties for corporations and new products,” says CEO Mike Esposito. “I really like working on the entrepreneur side of things, where new businesses are entering the San Diego market and looking to make a splash.”
Snake Oil has executed more than 16,000 events, employed more than 1,000 people, and partnered with more than 900 local vendors, including caterers, florists, photographers, entertainers, and other hospitality businesses. The company also works with many of San Diego’s nonprofits, museums, and cultural institutions. “We get to celebrate people’s most important moments,” Esposito says. “Whether that’s a wedding, celebration of life, or quinceañera, we’re fortunate to be involved in the community in so many different ways.”
Rising star honoree ALOHA Collection is proof that a simple idea can grow into a thriving company. Founded by two roommates who wanted a better way to carry wet swimsuits after a day at the beach, the lifestyle brand has grown into a business while maintaining strong year-over-year growth.
Now headquartered in Carlsbad, ALOHA Collection employs more than 100 people and operates its California flagship store in Encinitas, which is slated for a remodel. With roots in Hawaii, the company is known for its lightweight, splash-proof travel bags that have become a familiar sight on beaches in San Diego and beyond.
“‘Aloha’ is part of our name, but it’s also how we move through the world,” says CEO Lynna Barnard. “It’s how we show up for people, the way we travel, the way we give back.” Since day one, the company has maintained a 5 percent giveback to Hawaii conservation efforts, contributing millions of dollars over the years.
“I think what’s so inspiring about ALOHA Collection, and the founders in particular, is when you dream big, those dreams can come true when you work hard and trust in the universe,” Barnard says. “It’s inspiring to be a role model for other people wanting to start businesses from humble beginnings. Start small and watch it grow.”
Together, businesses like these form a cornerstone of San Diego’s economy—not only through the jobs and revenue they generate—but through the local workers they hire, vendors they support, and investments they make in the region. Their growth doesn’t happen in isolation; it ripples outward, strengthening the broader business community and the people who call San Diego home.
From handmade goods to one-of-a-kind finds, these local shops prove the best souvenirs are the ones with a story
Almost everything in this Oceanside shop is made by local artists and independent weirdos, and almost none of it requires a gallerist’s budget. Goblin Shark Emporium rotates a new featured artist every month between the vinyl crates, blacklight posters, and hilariously specific stickers, so you can walk out with original work and a tarot reading to contemplate as you sip your Banana Dang Coffee from a couple storefronts down.
Tucked within the potting tables and ferns of Mission Hills Nursery, the oldest nursery in Southern California and a Kate Sessions original, sits Through the Fold, the sweet indie bookstore that mother-daughter team Gail Levine and Jennifer Medeiros hand-built and opened in late April. Two retired educators and lifelong bibliophiles run it like a neighborhood living room: three book clubs, toddler story time, and a summer camp for the 7-to-12 set. It’s the rare retail run that smells like soil and new paperbacks, which is to say, like a very specific kind of heaven.
Open since 1993 under the unbeatable tagline “Books of Martians, Murder, Magic, and Mayhem,” this Rosecrans Street institution is the city’s portal for anyone who would rather be on a different planet. Load up on sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, then stick around for the weekly Dungeons & Dragons campaign, because the only thing better than reading about another universe is rolling a d20 inside one.
On the ground floor of the downtown Central Library, tucked into the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Common, sits the Library Shop, a tightly curated gift store stocked with presents and trinkets you didn’t know you needed: wind-up kitchen timers, specialty pencils, felt coasters in colors cheerful enough to overcome the first half of the Padres’ season—you get it. Every dollar funds the San Diego Public Library system, which makes the shop’s official “Guilt-Free Shopping” motto the rare slogan that holds up. Come for a paperback, leave having formed a genuine emotional attachment to a $4 pencil.
The window at this North Park shop is alive: a front-of-house catio where adoptable rescue cats audition for your heart while you pretend to be just browsing. From there, a literal catwalk runs along the ceiling to a back resting room (because existing around inferior beings is exhausting for cats). Owner Vera Blatchley of Purrgatory stocks the full cat-lover arsenal, plus a wall of gifts for the feline who already has nine of everything. Fan favorite: a retro-style, bubblegum-pink Kit-Cat Clock.
Surf art’s everywhere, but it’s somehow always a little kooky. Painter Andy Davis’ style captured that elemental soul, making him one of the most successful surf artists of the last few decades (check his giant mural at Town and Country Resort). His tiny Encinitas storefront, Club Paradise, is a gallery-slash-gift shop that stocks his paintings and prints—and he’s using the space as a culture club for local and touring creatives.
Tulux is the Pacific Beach swimwear label out of Cass Street, where designer Yamhed Torres turns the whole Tulum fantasy into bold, limited-run bikinis. This year, Vogue México y Latinoamérica named her one of just 10 emerging designers to watch, so each suit comes with the kind of credentials that practically books its own sunset getaway. Everything is one and done: When a piece sells, it’s gone for good, which is either smart scarcity or the universe telling you to commit.
Free lotto tickets at crystal shops? Yes, please. Pacific Beads owner Shlomo Gruer greets you at the door of this Clairemont Mesa warehouse of crystals, geodes, and beads by the bin. He presses a lotto ticket into your hand, sometimes with the stipulation that if you hit it big, you can throw his staff a party. You come for cheap amethyst and sterling findings; you leave holding a fistful of healing stones and a statistically remote shot at early retirement.
El Cajon’s Parkway Plaza could look radically different in the near future, as city officials are hatching plans to reinvent the one-time community and commercial center. Inflection points of iconic structures are always compelling times to visit and tabulate your own urban-planning daydreams. As you do, hit the first NAMA-certified automatic cotton candy vending machine in the country. Push a button, and 123 Sweetsss spins you a fresh cloud of childhood in under a minute. No carnival, no county fair admission, no sweaty teenager in a paper hat required.
From getting your sweat on at hip-hop class to celebrating with a zero-proof cocktail, here are San Diego's top fitness and wellness spots
For thousands of years, the Kumeyaay who lived in this area called a mountain south of Julian Cush-pii, meaning “sharp peak.” Then, after the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers saw that same mountain and decided to rename it Stonewall Peak—after General Stonewall Jackson. The name stuck for nearly a century and a half, until Cuyamaca Rancho State Park announced earlier this year that the name will return to its original, Cush-pii. Hike to the summit for expansive views of the Coronado Islands to the west and Mexico to the south.
In 1993, Angie Bunch gathered a group of hip-hop dancers—called Culture Shock Dance Troupe—and gave them a space to practice and perform. As hip hop grew through the ’90s, so did Culture Shock. It has since become a nonprofit, a space for young and old, beginner and expert dancers. Culture Shock has also expanded to Los Angeles, Oakland, Las Vegas, Chicago, Atlanta, New York City, and Washington, D.C., as well as Ottawa and Toronto, Canada.
In 2019, Amanda Leach created the Yoga Box method, which takes high-energy flows and adds strength-building poses in heated, vibey, lava-lamp-lit studios. What started on Grand Avenue in Pacific Beach has spread to 15 locations across the county, with even more trickling into Denver, Chicago, and Brooklyn. The best part? Mindfulness newbies who can’t touch their toes and six-packed contortionists can hang in the same class. You can customize each session based on your ability and fitness level.
A gym taking over a historic beachfront pool sounds like the setup for a new season of Love Island, but Fit Mission Beach operating the nearly 100-year-old Plunge at Belmont Park is real. The independent fitness brand has spent the past several years building a loyal following through group fitness classes, community events, and a members’ social club overlooking the ocean. Upstairs, members can work remotely, meet friends, or hang out long after their workout ends. Between the Plunge, the coworking-style lounge, and a packed calendar of events, Fit has evolved into something bigger than a gym. It’s a clubhouse for San Diego’s fitness crowd.
The wellness world is finally transitioning away from HIIT workouts and cult-like spin classes, where your heart rate hits Zone 5 within minutes and stays there until cooldown. Good. At Breathe Degrees, wellness takes the form of zenned-out communal breathing sessions or vagus nerve–activating cold plunges. Breathwork is said to boost your mood in the short term and improve your heart health in the long term, and maybe that’s why everyone’s coming back for more. You can’t run into someone in Carlsbad who hasn’t dropped into at least one breathwork session, and now the studio has opened a second location in Liberty Station.
Pilates wasn’t just popular this year; it was practically a requirement for maintaining your San Diego residency. New studios seemed to appear weekly across San Diego, each promising stronger cores and better posture, but Soul Pilates and Care found a way to stand out by addressing a challenge many parents know well: finding time to exercise at all. Fitness doesn’t have to compete with parenting responsibilities. Parents can drop their kids off with trained caregivers while they head into reformer classes, eliminating one of the biggest barriers to working out. The studio has earned strong reviews for both its instruction and family-friendly approach.
The Hotel del Coronado’s sweeping $550 million restoration touched nearly every corner of the historic resort, but one of the most anticipated unveilils was the debut of its redesigned spa. The oceanfront wellness destination now features 21 treatment rooms, a relaxation lounge, a sauna, steam room, and a treatment menu inspired by the coastal environment just steps away. The redesign blends the Del’s Victorian legacy with a cleaner, more contemporary aesthetic, creating a space that feels distinctly SoCal rather than generic luxury hotel. For locals who don’t have time for a vacation, it’s the next best thing.
As non-alcoholic beverages continue their meteoric rise, Good News Bar has become one of San Diego’s most compelling arguments for a booze-free evening. The University Heights hotspot serves a menu of carefully crafted zero-proof cocktails that borrow techniques and ingredients from traditional cocktail programs (it’s not just fancy juices and soda water), minus the hangover. The space also hosts regular community events and has quickly become a gathering place for everyone from sober San Diegans to the merely sober-curious. In a nightlife industry built around alcohol sales, Good News proved there’s plenty of demand for connection without the buzz.
Hypertension is the leading cause of cardiovascular disease and premature death in women
It’s estimated that 44% of women in the U.S. have high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, but many don’t know it. The disease often has no symptoms, and when symptoms do present, they can appear similar to many other conditions. High blood pressure increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, so it’s critical that it’s detected and treated early. And for women at risk of developing high blood pressure, prevention is key. Click here for the basics of high blood pressure and how Scripps physicians at Scripps use screenings not just as a diagnostic tool, but as part of routine preventive care.
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