Cayuca Happy Trails
Cayuca is located at the North end of Balboa Park, a beautiful treasure of San Diego that spans over 1200 acres. There are so many fun little walking trails for a quick morning jog to clear your head, or for a weekend excursion with friends, so we created a trail map of some of our favorite paths.
The Historical neighborhood known as Marston Hills is next door to Cayuca. A two block walk into Marston Hills gets you to a trail head for Cypress Canyon. From here, you can wander Southwest in the canyon for a little over 1/2 mile and cross the Upas Street bridge to enter the North end of Balboa Park.
If you’d like to continue your journey, the Cabrillo bridge is just down the way on the Sixth and Upas Trails Gateway. Once you reach Laurel, you can go left or right. A left onto the Bridge opens the door to so many beautiful places, including the Botanical Gardens, The Mingei Museum & Cafe for a coffee or pasrty, the Japanese Friendship Garden or Panama 66 for food, live music and modern art. If your body is craving the sea, you turn right at the Cabrillo bridge and head West down Laurel to the Bay. The views of Point Loma and San Diego Bay are lovely as you walk down from the hills to the edge of the water. Balboa Park Events: Here
Once you reach the Bay, the boardwalk to the south will take you on a journey through Waterfront Park, Seaport Village and all the way to The Rady Shell. If you time things right, you can sit on a bench outside the concert gates and watch a free music show under the moon light. Rady Shell Concerts: Here
Looking for a nautical adventure? Find a Flagship Ferry at Broadway Pier or San Diego Convention Center to calmly enjoy the city skyline as you approach the Coronado Ferry Landing. Ferry Times: Here
If you wake up roaring for wildlife, take a 1.5 mile walk to the San Diego Zoo. Year round early mornings and seasonal Summer evening hours make for unique interactions with the international, nonprofit conservation’s animals. Botanists from around the world come to study the lush vegetation within each unique habitat. Make sure to catch a Skyfari bucket to admire San Diego’s best arial views. Zoo Membership: Here
If you’re in the mood for an active park environment where you can visit the Velodrome, exercise your Frisbee Golf skills, watch heated Tennis matches or take a dip in the Community Pool, head East for 1.5 miles to Morley Field. Learn more: HERE
Finally, if you’re looking for a fun City + Canyon walk, the 7 bridges walk takes you on a loop through the City with multiple canyon views. The Spruce Street Suspension Bridge is a standout on this walk. The bridge is made of steel cables that span 375 feet long, supporting a narrow footpath that gets more exciting with each occupant adding more motion to the swaying cables. 7 Bridges Hike: Here
Happy Trails!
The Climate Diet
As much as one may despise the word diet, consider reading The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways to Trim Your Carbon Footprint by Paul Greenburg.
As much as one may despise the word diet, consider reading The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways to Trim Your Carbon Footprint by Paul Greenburg. This book offers a series of simple and concise tips that help you reduce your Carbon Footprint. These days, individual impact is difficult to appreciate in a growing culture of instant delivery and gratification.
Take a closer look at clothing. It’s easy to minimize the impact one new cotton t-shirt has on our world, but when putting it in terms of the number of gallons of water required to produce that basic t-shirt, 713 gallons to be exact, its easier to quantify the cost on our environment. Did you know it takes 2.5 years for someone to drink 713 gallons of water?
As an en ever-evolving society, our declining environment is in dire need for us to change our habits at a quicker pace than years past. Greenburg’s concise and practical steps for individual impact empowers us to shift from helplessness to stepping into action for the good of our planet.
Find a copy at South Park’s The Book Catapult
Move to the City! Ride your Bike!
If we’re going to elevate happiness in San Diego, the experts suggest we start with bikes! The happiest cities in the world support a culture of cyclists.
"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transport. It is where the rich walk and where they use bikes". - Meik Wiking, Author of The Little Book of Hygge
If we’re going to elevate happiness in San Diego, the experts suggest we start with bikes! The happiest cities in the world support a culture of cyclists. Create new habits by biking to work, to the market, to run errands or even to get a haircut. Channel your inner child and find that simple joy of movement and balance again.
Locally, organizations like BikeSD and SD Bike Coalition are advocating to make a more bikeable city. It’s great to see the continued push for more bicycle paths and road safety in San Diego. Cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam have paved the way when it comes to promoting bike friendly culture. They’ve proven that a healthy bike lifestyle is good for the individual and community too!
Compost, it’s easy and cleaner.
San Diego’s compost green bins were a welcomed addition this past year. It’s definitely a great step in the right direction.
San Diego’s compost green bins were a welcomed addition this past year. It’s definitely a great step in the right direction. Now we need follow up. In 2016, California Senate Bill 1383 required all residents and businesses to reduce organic waste (food scraps, food-soiled paper and yard trimmings) sent to the landfill. Now with green bins at every household, one would think daily composting would be habitual by individuals and businesses, but many are reluctant to make the change.
Instead of waiting on authority to demand change, can we as individuals step into action?
We get it, organic waste can become a stinky situation. To solve the funk, we found this solution: keep your compost bin in the freezer! The freezer preserves food scraps, so you are stench and insect free. When your bin is full, transfer your frozen heap into a grocery paper bag to enclose and contain your green waste in the compost bin.
Writer Chuck Palahniuk infamously said, “You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
Remember, we’re all in this together. Just compost.
Environmental Services