This post has been made in partnership with Capital One and Hotels.com. As always, all thoughts & opinions are our own.

We have a lot of love for San Diego. The ocean, the harbor, the beaches, the shops, the pizza, tacos, the hotels, friends and soooo much more. What’s not to love?! It’s also conveniently a 5 hour drive for us from Phoenix, so it’s a trip we should probably be doing once a month.  We recently had the pleasure of spending a week there with my parents who flew in from New York to enjoy the sights (and food) with us.

We used our Capital One Venture card (Helllooooo miles!) to book our stay at The Pendry hotel. The whole miles world has really opened our eyes to a whole new way of traveling. By booking and paying with your Venture card at hotels.com/venture you could also earn 10x miles on your stay — and you can add this on top of the Hotels.com Rewards program. Easy peasy and so worth it! (I think a tropical place is on our radar next. 😉 ) Anyway, guys! If you haven’t stayed at this hotel…do it! The views and sunsets from our room were beautiful. The pool was heated, so we even got to enjoy a few laps even though the outside temps were only in the 50s. On the last night, we had a delicious dinner at one of the hotel restaurants which was the perfect send off. If you ever find yourselves at The Pendry – get the crab cakes, you won’t regret it! We walked around the hotel with my parents before retreating to our rooms for the night and came across these cool lounge areas….my Dad found them pretty amusing so of course we had to take a photo. 😉

Our favorite shop in San Diego is Pigment. It’s easily the most photogenic store we’ve ever stepped foot in. We had a great time looking through all their goodies with my parents who headed back to New York with plenty of souvenirs…planters, candles, you name it. If you haven’t visited the store, we highly recommend checking it out soon. It’s pure eye candy! Also Pigment, if by some chance you’re reading this — how about a second location in Phoenix?! Just a thought. 😉

As we mentioned in our post about planning this trip, it’s been a long time since vacationing with my parents. It was so fun to show them around San Diego, eat our way through Little Italy (of course there was a lot of pizza involved — there always is), check out all the local shopping and coffee shops, and most importantly just enjoy the calm moments and beautiful ocean views. I swear, we would sometimes spend an hour just sitting in the sun together, watching the waves crash and chatting together. It was one for the books and special trip to share just the four of us. Looking forward to the next one!

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