Andaz San Diego

The pool

• Rooftop pool
• Lap-size, heated to 80°
• Gaslamp skyline
• Hotel guests only

Why it's on the list

A heated, lap-size rooftop pool seven stories over the Gaslamp with a downtown skyline view. Scene-y on weekends, genuinely swimmable on a weekday morning — pick your hour.

The stay

The Andaz is the historic one behind a modern face — Hyatt's boutique brand inside a 1913 building that spent decades as the Maryland Hotel, now running in the brand's usual dark, design-forward idiom. It sits on F Street at the northern edge of the Gaslamp, so everything the district does after dark is walkable while the loudest blocks stay a little further off. At $$$ it's fairly priced for the character and the roof — the pick if you want boutique history and a genuinely swimmable pool over big-hotel polish.