14 Best San Diego Local Tours

Altitude Helicopters is a family owned business in San Diego featuring a team of "extremely experienced helicopter pilots and technicians." The company was founded in 1994 in Italy and has since expanded to the US. A selection of city tours is available, including deluxe, prestige, and VIP tours ranging in price per person. The company also features a flight school for pilots-in-training and international students.

Bite San Diego is a company offering walking food tours that also feature history, insights, and stories about the city of San Diego. Regularly scheduled, public tours and private tours for groups and corporate teams are available. Private tours can accommodate between 10 and 100 guests and are fully customizable, from the date, starting time, and participating restaurants and shops.

Brew Hop was founded in 2007 in San Diego to offer customers "premier regional brewery" tours. All packages are customized according to individual groups' tastes and desires, including desired pick up and drop off locations. "The Tasters" is a two-and-a-half brewery tour including luxury transportation, a VIP tour host, gratuities for bar staff, and beer samples at each brewery. "The Connoisseur" is a five-hour tour featuring three to four local breweries plus all the components of the Tasters tour.

Brewery Tours is owned and operated by Breanna Frazier, who holds a degree in business administration and marketing from Loyola Marymount University. The company offers brewery tours in the San Diego area, featuring a fleet of Mercedes-Benz passenger vans and a team of talented drivers. Both private and public tours are available, with private tours priced at different points per hour depending on the tour, and four-hour public tours priced at a flat rate per person.

Brewery Tours of San Diego was founded in 2007 by a husband and wife team and offers public and private brewery tours. Public tours are available seven days per week in the afternoons and evenings. Private tours are also available and priced according to number of guests and number of desired stops. Private tour pricing includes round-trip transportation, a guided tour of one brewery, beer tasting at each brewery, bottled water, one meal, a souvenir glass, plus taxes and gratuities.

Compass Balloons is a hot air balloon company offering tours in San Diego and Temecula. The company's pilots are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and have decades of flight experience. Public and private tours are available to watch the sunrise and sunset and for special occasions such as birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries. Customers can also purchase gift cards for individual and group tours.

Icon Helicopters is owned by professional pilot David Vernick, who has over 10 years of experience and is a US Air Force test pilot school instructor and a San Diego police and sheriff instructor. The company provides tours of San Diego in luxurious helicopters featuring leather seats, air conditioning, digital stereo music, and smooth and comfortable rides. Tours range between 30 and 120 minutes, including the two-hour Winery Tour and the half-hour Sunset Tour. The company can also be chartered for private tours and transportation.

San Diego Wine & Vineyard Tours is a San Diego company providing local tours in and around Southern California's wine country. Customers typically visit three to four wineries and enjoy a gourmet meal along the way. Other tour components include round-trip transportation, access to a wine expert throughout the tour, behind the scenes look at local wineries, vineyard walking tours, and over 24 tastings of red and white wines. The company offers both private and public tours, and gift certificates are available.

Scavengers is a San Diego company combining the city's "infamous" craft beer scene and world-renowned coastline into a "beer and barbecue adventure" tour. The company features a fleet of open-air vintage Swiss Safari vehicles where customers can sip on ice-cold beers as they travel from brewery to brewery. All tours can be customized based on clients' desired locations. Groups of over six people are subject to a 25% deposit at the time of booking.

Segway of Pacific Beach was founded in 2004 in San Diego and features a large fleet of Segway personal transporters. Customers can ride Segways in Mission Bay, Pacific Beach, and downtown San Diego. Prices typically average $85 per person for a two-and-a-half-hour tour, excluding gratuities.

Segway Outdoor Media is a San Diego advertising and tour company. Advertising services focus on providing outdoor marketing solutions to exhibitors and sponsors of the San Diego Convention Center. The company's creative promotion teams interact directly with customers to maximize the effect of mobile billboards. Past clients include United Healthcare, Acuvue Oasys, Elster, and Syneron.

So Diego Tours is a San Diego company made up of a "professional, creative, entertaining, and hospitable" team who work with local companies to offer customers an "authentic San Diego experience." Tours include the "Brothels, Bites, and Booze" which takes customers to visit the infamous San Diego red light district as well as restaurants and bars, and the "Tequila, Tacos, and Tombstones" tour. Both options cost a flat fee per person. Custom food, beer and wine, and scavenger tours are also available.

TourGuideTim offers bus and walking tours in the city of San Diego. The company is made up of a team of passionate tour guides with an in-depth knowledge of the area. Both public and private tours are available. Public bus tours accommodate up to 20 guests and typically take customers to coastal communities where "the locals live, work, and play." The company also offers specialty tours, including geology, bird, garden, military, and adventure tours.

Where You Want To Be Tours is a San Diego company founded in 2003 to offer "unique and out-of-the-box outdoor adventures" for corporate team-building events and the general public. Most requested tours include the team-bonding urban challenge scavenger hunts, biking tours to hidden San Diego locations, culinary food tours, and interactive bus adventures. The typical tour takes approximately three hours, but private tours can also be customized to fit individual customers' needs.