San Diego Murals! Sure, San Diego is filled with nature’s beauty.  But that’s not all. Did you know that all around town our streets are filled with amazing murals and street art?  We decided to take a day last weekend and do a scavenger hunt of these incredible works of art in the La Jolla, Normal Heights and North Park areas.  With our 2 kids in tow, we all had a blast checking out all these murals!  Not to mention great exercise as well.  We’ll show you some of our favorites in this blog (there were SO many more) and give you the guidance you need to do this scavenger hunt as well!

La Jolla

Favorite Color Mural

Start your adventure mid-morning in La Jolla to catch two awesome murals worthy of a visit to this area.  Two of our favorite San Diego murals.  If you’d like to explore this area more, pop over here earlier in the morning, aiming to get to North Park area for lunch.  Alternatively, if just a couple of murals are enough for you, you can spend the rest of the day enjoying the amazing La Jolla Cove area.

This stunning mural by Roy McMakin is part of the Murals of La Jolla project.  It’s on the side of a wall in a small parking lot and super easy to miss if you didn’t know what to look for.  We loved the vibrant colors, and the kids were on a mission to count how many spots had 3 of the same color in a row.

Fun fact from the artist, “I began the process by asking people their favorite color, and then I presented them with a selection of 4 to 6 colors, of which they choose the one that was closest to the color they liked best. For example, if someone said “blue”, then I showed them blue swatches and they chose one. One square was painted that color. I like the idea that this takes place at a certain time, and that the ultimate form of the mural was dictated by the number of folks that showed up.”

Address: 7596 Eads Avenue

If you have little ones, it’s a 6 minute walk from here to the La Jolla Recreation Center that has basketball courts and a nice playground.

From there, we hopped in our car for the very short drive to the other side of downtown La Jolla.

One Pointed Attention Mural

Again, this one is easy to miss if you aren’t looking in that direction.  It’s also in a parking lot.  It’s a paid parking lot, but we just pulled up for a few minutes and kept an eye on our car while taking photos.

This mural, by artist Kelsey Brookes, is also part of the Murals of La Jolla project.  We loved how huge this was and that it actually was on canvas.  This artist also designed album covers, including for the Red Hot Chili Peppers!  Isn’t this such a cool San Diego Mural?

Location: 7835 Ivanhoe Ave

From here, we headed to Normal Heights which is about a 20 – 25 minute drive.

Normal Heights

Normal Heights is pretty close to North Park, where we will spend the majority of our scavenger hunt.  However, don’t bypass Normal Heights as one of our absolute favorite San Diego murals was a critical find there!

Now might be a good time for lunch. We ate at a super kid friendly brewery Blind Lady Alehouse for some craft beer and pizza.  San Diego is one of the top craft beer destinations in our country, so it’s a must do.  There are also plenty of craft breweries you’ll discover along the way during the scavenger hunt, but we did like this one with kids in tow.

Discoveries close to Blind Lady Alehouse

After having lunch, if you just walk a few block radius you’ll discover some hidden gems.  Keep your eyes peeled in alleyways, as that’s where many murals are hiding.  Here are a few of the favorites we discovered!

And our favorite, not to miss…tribute to Prince!  The kids had no idea who he was, but they still enjoyed the mural.  This one can be found near the corner of Adam’s Avenue and 32nd street.  See if you can find it!

Directly facing this fabulous Prince mural, is another interesting piece of art.

From here, we hopped back in our car for the short drive to North Park, where we’ll spend the rest of our scavenger hunt.

North Park

North Park is a vibrant community that is becoming the “hot spot” more and more each day as it develops.  Known as the spot for the late 20s and 30s crowd to enjoy the great nightlife, it’s now also becoming an area that attracts families.  Filled with breweries, restaurants, funky shops, art galleries, and yes, lots and lots of street art and San Diego murals.  It’s a destination worthy of a visit even though you won’t see any San Diego coastline.

Begin your day by parking your car near our first mural, and plan to spend the rest of the time walking and exploring.  Your walk around to see the murals will be about 2 – 2.5 miles or so round-trip.  It’s easy to do pushing a stroller if you have a little one who might not be up for the long haul.  We’ll show you some of our highlights here, but know if you explore around the little offshoots around 30th street (our main drag) you’ll find so many more interesting murals and street art than we cover here!

Greetings from San Diego Mural and More

The picture perfect mural for both locals and visitors alike, this was definitely one of our favorites with the bright colors, the grand size, and San Diego icons interwoven into the design.

Location: 4223 30th Street.  Park you car anywhere you can, as you’ll explore the rest of the murals on foot.

Now, don’t miss the really cool murals right near this one.  If you head back towards the alley, you’ll find some that our kids just loved.

And right across the street on 30th you’ll see a thrift store with a lot of cool street art.  Tons of different photo opportunities right there, including the garage door pictured below.

Now, this one is easy to miss, and the opposite direction that you’ll go for the rest of them.  But it’s very cool, don’t miss it.

Head North towards El Cajon Blvd, crossing it.  Turn right and you’ll see the SuperCuts with a large mural on the side of the building.  You could take several photos here as each portion of the mural is completely different.   This is just one small area of this giant mural.

Now, head back down 30th street, away from El Cajon Blvd.

30th and University Avenue Area Murals

Once you get close to University Avenue, it’s like a mural explosion!  There are SO many.  Here are the highlights for us.

As you cross University, turn left (slight detour, you’ll get back on 30th eventually) and you’ll see this funky dinosaur mural.  We loved how the shadow was painted on there as well!

Everyone took turns being a butterfly!  You’ll find this on the opposite side of University.

This one felt very much like street art, as if perhaps it wasn’t even sanctioned but someone put it up and they said, hey, that’s pretty cool.  I wish I knew the stories behind it!

To see this mural below, head down Ray Street which is right off University Avenue (near the Dinosaur mural).  Walk down Ray Street (admire the galleries as you go) until you hit N.Park Way.  Turn left on N. Park Way and there you’ll see this amazing piece of art that was Sydney’s favorite.  Gotta love the message there!  This piece of art is by Channin Fulton and you can see the process of creating it right here.

Location: Corner of Ray Street and North Park Way

This mural is actually on the side of a very cool store, with vibrant products in this same Mexican theme.  It’s worth popping in to discover other murals and Instrgram-worthy photo opportunities, like this mural right inside.

Now, head down N. Park Way back towards 30th street, and you’ll come across the pink ombre wall on the side of another incredible store!  This wall is extremely popular with fashion bloggers, so if you see someone dressed unusually fancy around this area, chances are they are going to this wall.

Location: 3801 30th Street

While you are there, you have to check out Pigment, one of those stores that if you need a gift for someone, it’s the place to go!  So much fun browsing around.  Also right outside of Pigment is a living wall, and you can buy super fun things like unicorn sunglasses.  Who doesn’t need a pair of those?

Further Down 30th Street

Now you are back on 30th, and turn left on 30th to keep going the direction you were going.  Keep your eyes peeled for murals, some are more exciting than others.  You will arrive at this destination, a very popular Instagram photo spot!  As you can see, this mural provides multiple photo opportunities.  This mural is known as Kreashun.

Location: 3750 30th Street

Sydney even spotted a “mural” on their pole right there, with emojis.  10 year old day made!

From Kreashun, continue heading down 30th street until you arrive at Upas Street.  At Upas go left and you’ll see this incredible mural, called CO2 Kills Mermaids by Lauren LOLO YS . Designed to help address the impact that CO2 has on the surface of the oceans, killing sea life and animals.  You’ve done your part by walking to this mural and reducing carbon emissions.  Notice how even the telephone pole was incorporated into the mural!

With tired legs, we then head back up 30th to go back to the car.  Keep your eyes peeled as you are looking from a new vantage point, and you may spot murals you didn’t see on the way down like we did!

Good To Know

It was such a great family day.  Here are a few tips for you!

• Wear walking shoes and sunscreen.
• Plan to enjoy the area – tons of craft breweries, stores, and fun things to see along the way.  Be in the  mindset of exploration, and get your kids in that mindset as well.  We framed it as a “scavenger hunt” and they really loved being the first to spot a mural.  We also stopped for a coffee/snack along the way to fuel up the kids who were getting tired.
• Pick a good weather day – not rainy, and not too hot, as this is more inland than the coastal areas so it can get warm and it’s not too shady.

We hope you enjoy this as much as we did!  Do you have questions or comments?  Share in the comments section and we’ll be sure to get back to you!

FREE family travel tips!

It's taken us years, but we finally figured out the formula for family travel success! You can too (and without taking years!), by learning our travel tips (planning and executing!) for having amazing, fun, and stress-free family vacations! We'll send you occasional tips and tricks, right to your e-mail, that are the "secrets" behind the blog posts we share!

We care about your privacy and will not share your information with anyone.