2025年12月14日

Eye-shaped sandy island with paddleboard

The United States' biggest border city with Mexico is famously a feast for the eyes, and this peeper-shaped island is just one of San Diego's hidden-in-plain-sight nature havens. Mission Bay is the centerpiece of the largest human-made aquatic park in the nation at 6.6 square miles, over half of which is water. A former wetland converted to a shallow tidal inlet, it's a haven for jet skis, sailboats, and kayaks—and paddleboards like this one parked on Leisure Island, a tiny landmass also reachable by trail during especially low tides.