← The Safari

Guitar shops worth the trip in California

25 shops across 3 areas.

The scene runs through Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego. Every entry is researched and dated; open a metro and the marks flag the shops I've visited in person or bought from.

• Los Angeles

  15 shops

  The deepest vintage city in the country outside Nashville. Group these by geography — Westside, Valley, Eastside — or you will spend the day on the 101.

• San Francisco

  6 shops

  Read this one as the Bay Area, not the city — the best shops are spread from Berkeley to Palo Alto down to Redwood City, and the bridges decide your day more than the map does. The city itself has thinned out; Haight Ashbury Music Center left Haight Street in 2019 and now trades down the Peninsula, and what is left downtown is worth going to deliberately rather than stumbling into.

• San Diego

  4 shops

  A county, not a city — Kearny Mesa, Point Loma and Escondido are forty minutes apart on a good day. Thinner than Los Angeles by a wide margin, and several shops that show up in listings publish no address at all, so call before committing to the drive.