Hike Bike Kayak Adventures — Local services in San Diego

For the kayak and snorkel tour, here are some helpful things to know: You’ll be offered a half sleeve or full long sleeve wetsuit. I recommend the full longsleeve one (which our guide wore) because the water is COLD (even in August).

There’s a place to leave your sandals at the beach while you’re kayaking, but most of us walked over barefoot. However, I don’t recommend this if you’ll be leaving or coming back in the afternoon, when the pavement is scorching!

WEAR SUNSCREEN, especially if you’re not wearing the full wet suit. The sun’s rays are strong, especially reflecting off the water, and your arms and legs can get burnt to a crisp.

It’s a decent bit of paddling from the beach to the sea caves, and you’ll get a workout. Our guide did take a couple breaks to let the slower kayaks catch up.

It gets pretty crowded around the sea caves. While snorkeling, we were constantly having to swim out of the way of groups of kayaks or push them away as they floated towards our heads.

If you have never snorkeled before, make sure to try on your mask with the mouthpiece before you get in the water. It takes a bit of getting used to.

Don’t feel like you have to wear the fins. You can swim much more freely without them.

There are four changing rooms and plenty of lockers ($6 to rent).

Have fun! The sea caves are pretty cool to swim into (we didn’t go in on the kayaks on the kayak/snorkel tour).

Also, this place is owned by the same people as La Jolla Kayak (according to a sign on the window of Hike Bike Kayak). So if you're trying to figure out how much your experience would differ at either place, as I was, I'm guessing the answer is "not much." They are literally less than a...

They are the only place being truthful online and in person about booking a snorkelling guided tour for beginners. In regards to the fact they didn’t recommend the la jolla cove tour for beginners. I am not comfortable swimming in the ocean and was scared as the la jolla beach did not seem particularly sheltered. The water was rough and the swells were big- think indoor wave pool- nothing awful, but for an inexperienced snorkeler it was intimidating. I did the shore excursion where you don’t go out to the coves and that was hard enough for a beginner. I almost turned back as it was difficult to get accustomed to breathing with a mask and snorkel in rough water but once I relaxed it turned out to be a good experience. No life jackets were offered but if you want they provide a boogie board to hold on to as a floatation device. It was too hard for the youngest girl (8 years) in our group so her mom took her back to shore but everyone else managed. I personally hope they always bring a boogie board even if not requested because someone had a leg cramp and needed it to get back to shore. We saw a few fish and 1 small (tiger? leopard?) shark. Overall it was murky but perhaps it was a rougher day than normal. If you are worried like me, do the shore excursion, use a boogie board and you’ll be fine. The depth we swam out to never got much deeper than approx 15 feet perhaps. Don’t do the more experienced la jolla snorkel unless you know what you’re doing. On a last note, both instructors were friendly and helpful. One more experienced then the...

There are a lot of reviews on here from people giving bad ratings for some REALLY ridiculous reasons. Let me set some clear expectations: You’re paying money for a KAYAK tour. It should be be implied by name, that you’re going in the water. Kayaks are little boats. Boats go in water. I’m not sure why some people struggle with this concept. A kayak is not motorized. Instead, you are provided a paddle. This is common sense. If your source of propulsion is a paddle, held by your hands, which are attached to your arms, then reason dictates it will require some caloric investment. Yes, you will need at least a bit of upper body strength. If you can’t handle paddling yourself, that’s your problem. Not the kayak’s. Water is wet. Phones don’t tend to like being wet. Again, this SHOULD be common sense. Don’t bring your phone into the ocean without protection. Same rule applies to showers. And swimming pools. Oceans have waves. Fact. This is not anybodies fault. It’s just part of nature.

Now that that’s out of the way...Yassin was awesome!! Super knowledgeable and informative about the geological features features of La Jolla Shores. We had a blast! Caves were cool, water was wet, ocean was moving about. Saw fish, saw sea lions, saw snorkelers. Took a swim off the kayak. Had a blast. Well worth the money! I highly recommend.

Please pay attention to the top 4 bullet points. These should be basic, simple, 2nd grade level logic statements, but sadly, judging by a relatively large sample size (all these reviews) it’s not so common to be as smart as...