I always think of LAX airport as a rather brutal introduction to the charms of California. Los Angeles itself is also something of a shock for the first-timer – as sprawling and strung out along gridlocked freeways as you imagined. Still, for those who want to get all the pluses of southern California (sun, sand, surf and so on) with none of the minuses, help is at hand.

It’s called San Diego, and now, thanks to Zoom, you can fly direct to it from Gatwick, for the first time since British Airways dropped the route some years back.

Why is this good news? Well, for one thing, San Diego’s airport is as close to downtown as an airport can safely be. In fact, the approach recalls flying into the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong, in that you get a really good view into people’s flats. Oh, you’ll think, that’s what happens in the next series of Heroes. This means getting into the city is relatively pain-free, in a fast (10 minute), cheap (£7-£8) cab.

Second, if you’re staying in central San Diego, you won’t need a car, at least not for the first few days, because the core of the city is walkable and there’s a trolley system joining up the main attractions. Fares on the San Diego Trolley range from 70p in the downtown area to £3.20 for a visit to Tijuana, Mexico.

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It’s lively, too: a lot of LA comes down to SD at the weekend, to party on the beaches (Pacific and Mission, primarily) and in the club, bar and restaurant nexus that is the booming Gaslamp Quarter.

On any given weekend, there’s a good chance that the lines outside lounges such as Stingaree (454 6th Avenue; 00 1-619 544 9500, www.stingsandiego.com), Confidential (901 4th Avenue; 619 696 8888, www.confidentialsd.com) and Envy (600 F Street; 619 814 2055, www.envysandiego.com) will be heaving with Angelenos.

Apart from weekend hedonism, San Diego has a raft of world-class attractions, many of them in the vast Balboa Park – there’s everything from old masters at the Timken Museum to young turks at the Museum of the Living Artist. It also has trains (San Diego Model Railroad Museum), planes (Air and Space Museum) and automobiles (Automotive Museum).

There are 19 attractions in all, including the zoo, which features a gondola ride over most of the enclosures, and has 8,000 animals in 100 acres. You can get a multi-entry ticket to the park that grants admission to 13 of the park’s museums and costs £20 (under-13s £11). This passport can be upgraded to include zoo admission for £33/£18.

San Diego is home to the original SeaWorld (www.seaworld.com; £30, £25 3-9s), which has not only flipping Flippers and a splashing Shamu the Killer Whale, but water rides, rollercoasters and shows. There is also a good Legoland (www.legoland.com/california; £30, children aged 3-12 £25), with more grown-up and elaborate rides than the UK version, just to the north of the city, at Carlsbad. A Sea Life aquarium (www.sealife.co.uk) will open next door on August 11. Two-day hopper tickets to both parks for £28/£26 are available at hotels.sandiego.org; book by July 31.

Out in the desert, Wild Animal Park (www.sandiegozoo.org; £17, under-12s £12) is well worth seeing for its large enclosures: imagine Whipsnade without the rain. A good-value £54/£43 three-for-one ticket covering SeaWorld and both zoos is available on the attractions’ websites. Finally, to the south of SD, Knott’s Berry Farm (www.knotts.com; £14, children aged 3-11 £9) has a water park called Soak City, should you need to cool off.

If theme parks leave you cold, the city has a lively and growing arts scene, with plenty of shows and events. Check out the Museum of Contemporary Art’s popular TNT (Thursday Night Thing), which happens on the first Thursday of every month. It might be a bunch of art-rockers or jazzers, poetry readings, a fashion show with original music or inventive installations. It takes place in part of the magnificent Spanish-American-style Santa Fe Depot railroad station, which dates from 1915 (£1.50; www.mcasd.org). The MCA mothership is up in ritzy La Jolla (700 Prospect Street; 858 454 3541), in an amazing clifftop setting, and houses works by the likes of Robert Thierren and Robert Irwin.

The Mainly Mozart Festival (www.mainlymozart.org) runs mostly in June, but there are events and recitals year-round; and the San Diego Symphony (www.sandiegosymphony.com) puts on more than 100 concerts each year, including an outdoor Summer Pops season with the likes of Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick and Frank Sinatra (Jr). Anthology (619 595 0300, www.anthologysd.com) is an excellent jazz club with good food. The best source for pop/rock gigs is the website www.91X.com, from the local radio station 91X.

San Diego became a navy town in the second world war, and you can sometimes see muscle-bound Navy Seals training on the beach in front of “the Del”: the Hotel del Coronado (619 435 6611, www.hoteldel.com; doubles from £150), an eye-popping 19th-century confection across the bay. The sand outside was where they filmed Some Like It Hot, and the hotel won’t let you forget it. You can reach the Del by trolley or on the San Diego-Coronado ferry (www.sdhe.com/san-diego-bay-ferry.html; £3 return), which runs from the downtown Broadway Pier to the Coronado ferry landing.

You can also tour an aircraft carrier, the USS Midway (619 544 9600, www.midway.org; £8), ex-Vietnam and Desert Storm, which has been turned into a museum. Nearby is the Maritime Museum (619 234 9153, www.sdmaritime.com; £7, children £4), where you’ll find HMS Surprise, the replica British frigate skippered by Russell Crowe in the film Master and Commander, as well as B-39, a cold-war-era Soviet submarine.

Just in case you still miss Los Angeles, you can take a scenic coastal ride from San Diego to downtown LA’s ace streamline-moderne Union station on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner (www.amtrak.com). It takes two hours and 45 blissful, traffic-free minutes and starts at £15 each way.

Where to stay: the Sofia Hotel (150 West Broadway; 00 1-800 826 0009, www.thesofiahotel.com) is a successfully revamped former flophouse on the edge of the Gaslamp. Rooms aren’t huge, but they’re comfy, with lots of extras. Doubles start at £75. The Hotel Solamar (435 6th Avenue; 877 230 0300, www.hotelsolamar.com) is good value, with doubles from £110 a night, and has a lively pool and bar scene. The Ivy Hotel (600 F Street; 619 814 1000, www.ivyhotel.com), home to the excellent Quarter Kitchen restaurant and Envy nightclub, is the Gaslamp hot spot. Doubles start at £130.

Getting there: Zoom (0870 240 0055, www.flyzoom.com) flies to San Diego twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) from Gatwick; from £449. Options involving a change of plane include Delta Air Lines (0845 600 0950, www.delta.com), Continental (0845 607 6760, www.continental.com) and American Airlines (020 7365 0777, www.americanairlines.co.uk).

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