California · beach

What a trip to San Diego costs

A week in San Diego for eight people works out around $15,000 before flights — $554 a night for a place sleeping four, scaled for the group, plus $81 per adult per day for food. From Los Angeles and Phoenix it is cheaper for a family of four to drive than to fly.

A southern California coastal city known for Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, for its beaches, and for a mild coastal climate year-round.

with children goodadults-only trip okstroller / limited mobility good

What a week costs

Lodging and food only. Seven nights, whole-property rental, all fees in.

Group	Lodging	Food	Total	Per person
4 people	$3,880	$2,270	$6,150	$1,540
8 people	$10,400	$4,540	$15,000	$1,870
12 people	$14,300	$6,800	$21,100	$1,760

Note the per-person column does not simply fall. A place sleeping four is the efficient unit; going to eight means changing property class, which costs more than double. Past eight it improves again — each additional person adds roughly half what they did over the first jump. The expensive step is condo to house, not the people you put in it.

How San Diego compares

San DiegoCalifornia median of 3Beaches median of 14All destinations median of 40

Nightly lodging for a property sleeping four, month by month. Medians are taken across the seeded destinations in each group, so they are the middle of that group rather than any one place.

Averaged across the year, San Diego runs $480 a night for a property that sleeps four. That is 63% above the median for all 40 destinations in the library ($295), making it the 8th most expensive of 40 destinations. Against its own kind it is 73% above the typical beach ($277), the most expensive of 14 beaches.

Its season swings 19% between its cheapest and most expensive months, against 73% for the typical beach. Dates move the bill less here than they do for most beaches.
The same week costs $622 more in June than in January on lodging alone, before anyone has bought a flight.
Within California (3 destinations here), it is 29% above the regional median of $372 a night.
Driving beats four seats from Los Angeles and Phoenix. The longest of those is Phoenix — 363 road miles and 6.5h each way, saving $529 against four seats.
The cheapest seven nights of the year fall in January, at $3,256 for the whole property — $3,878 for the same week in June.
The sharpest single step is between July and August: moving the same week across that line changes the lodging bill by $622.
The closest thing to it on price is Park City, UT, a mountain town: $14,838 for a week for eight against $14,973 here, $135 apart — the same money for a completely different trip.

When to go

San Diego is at its most expensive in June and cheapest in January — a 19% swing on the same property.

Month	Per night, sleeps 4
January	$465
February	$465
March	$465
April	$465
May	$465
June	$554
July	$554
August	$465
September	$465
October	$465
November	$465
December	$465

Getting there

The two halves are not priced the same way, which is the whole point: a seat costs per person, a car costs the same whatever the headcount.

	Flying		Driving
From	Round tripper person	Each wayhours	Round tripper car	Each wayhours	Cheaperfor four
Atlanta	$511	8.6h	$3,161	33.5h4 days	flying
Chicago	$348*	8.2h	$2,884	30.6h4 days	flying
Dallas	$280*	5.3h	$1,973	21.0h3 days	flying
Denver	$222*	4.6h	$1,456	15.6h2 days	flying
Los Angeles	$350	3.0h	$208	2.9h	driving
New York	$606*	9.7h	$4,083	43.3h5 days	flying
Seattle	$440*	5.0h	$1,782	19.0h2 days	flying
Phoenix	$270*	3.4h	$551	6.5h	driving

Drives over ten hours are shown in days as well: nobody drives that in one go. The nights on the road are not counted here, so a long drive is cheaper on this page than it would be in life. * published DOT average for that airport pair. Others are modeled from distance. Driving uses the IRS standard mileage rate, which includes running costs, not just fuel.

See all 14 beaches in the library →

Compare San Diego against other destinations →

Where these numbers come from

Lodging is indexed from the US federal per-diem schedule (GSA) for this county, calibrated against real rental listings. Food uses this location's own federal meal tier. Fares come from the DOT Consumer Airfare Report where that airport pair is published, and from a model fitted to 2,089 real DOT fares otherwise. Everything here is an estimate for planning, not a quote — check real prices before booking.