San Diego, USA

The flight from Mexico City to Tijuana was straightforward enough, but the real adventure started when I met a bloke called Adam on the plane who lived in San Diego. When he offered to drive us over the border, I thought brilliant, this’ll be easy. It was not easy. Three hours in that customs queue, barely moving. I’ve had shorter bus rides across entire countries in South America. Still, Adam was good company and it beat figuring out the border crossing on our own.

Once through, we made a beeline for In-N-Out Burger, because what else do you do when you cross into the United States? I’d heard people bang on about In-N-Out for years and it lived up to the hype. Sometimes the simple things just work.

Checked into the hostel, threw every piece of clothing I owned into the washing machine (the glamorous side of backpacking), and that evening went to the movies to see Ted. Quiet night — sometimes you just need one.

Woke up after one of the best sleeps I’d had in weeks. Walked around downtown San Diego, which is a genuinely pleasant city — clean, sunny, laid-back in a way that feels effortless. Made it down to the USS Midway, the aircraft carrier museum sitting in the harbour. Even if you’re not into military history, walking around that thing is impressive. It’s absolutely enormous.

In the afternoon we hit up the San Diego Zoo, which is one of those places people always tell you is “the best zoo in the world.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it was pretty solid. That evening the hostel organised a Taco Tuesday outing, which sounded brilliant in theory but ended up being fairly average. Can’t win them all.

San Diego was a nice, easy stop. No major dramas, no life-changing moments, just a couple of days of good weather, good food and good sleep before the chaos of the next destination.