Three-wheel buggy rides are a great way to see San Diego, California finds LYNN HOUGHTON

"IT'S so  close I can almost touch it!" squealed my 15-year-old niece Emily as a Boeing 757 screeched over our heads preparing to land.

We're on a half-day GoCar tour of downtown San Diego, California, and our virtual guide had told us to wait on a street corner for "something". And that was quite something.
A GoCar is a tiny, yellow three-wheeled contraption with roll bars which looks a bit like a dune buggy.

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Fitted with GPS satnav it also has a "talking tour guide" that gives you directions and tells stories about the city as you drive around.

Instead of a steering wheel, you navigate the two-seater vehicle with moveable handlebars incorporating brake controls and a throttle.

Conveniently, there is a lockable compartment in the back to store bags. Not so convenient is the fact that there is no reverse so you have to move the car manually if you need to go backwards.

After watching a safety video, we don our less than fashionable crash helmets (Emily is not impressed) and get belted up.

The owner of GoCars, Roger, says the tour will take us only on streets with a 35mph limit, which is as fast as a GoCar will travel, and it is strictly prohibited to go on high-speed freeways. I feel reassured.

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Our speaking tour guide kicks in as soon as we are on the street, with a female voice giving directions. "You are such a good driver.

I like the way you handle me, " she says, rather suggestively (the tour is obviously geared to male drivers).

A GoCar may be small but it is also very noisy, a bit like a big lawnmower.

We make a pit stop in Little Italy on India Street. This community emerged with the burgeoning tuna fishing industry at the beginning of the last century and is now populated with excellent restaurants.

We pop into the Trattoria Fantastica for a quick coffee then on to Harbor Drive to have a spin around the edge of San Diego Bay and the Harbor, home to naval ships and museums.

We stop to take photos in front of the world's oldest active sailing ship, the Star Of India, which was built in the Isle of Man in 1863, before we go to see the USS Midway.

GoCars are allowed on to the parking pier that aligns with the ship so we can motor by to have a closer look.

My talking tour guide gives me a quick lesson about the importance of the US Navy to San Diego. "Can you spot the gas lamps on the four corners of this intersection?" prompts the voice.

Yes, there are still four original gas lamps here but only on the intersection of Market Street and Fourth Avenue. Some 150 years ago brothels, saloons and a couple of grand hotels sprang up to accommodate gold rush miners, sailors and merchants of this frontier town.

Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp moved here after the gunfight at the OK Corral. He opened a brothel and stayed for 10 years.

By the 1970s the entire area had become downtrodden and dismal until Ingrid Croce, the wife of late singer Jim Croce, launched a campaign to refurbish the district and it is now a fashionable and historic part of town.

"Move over into the left lane and get ready to turn on to Fifth Avenue." I'm given directions in plenty of time. We drive up towards the 1,200-acre Balboa Park, first set aside in 1868 and unused for 20 years.

That is until the 1890s when frontier woman Kate Sessions convinced city hall to give her 32 acres for a commercial nursery. In exchange, she offered to plant 100 trees a year in perpetuity.

We cross Cabrillo Bridge before entering the building and museum complex where the Spanish renaissance style adds old-world charm.

We have a quick tour around Fort Stockton which was used as a strategic lookout for the Mexican war in the 1840s and where a wedding party is having photos taken (I can't resist a quick toot of my horn! ). "We will now experience more of the history of what was a remote frontier town" and down we drive towards the Old Town.

The few surviving original structures there include the first office of the San Diego Union newspaper and the first school.

We shop in the Bazaar del Mundo and stop at the Cafe Coyote on San Diego Avenue just around the corner from Old Town for a dinner of margaritas and fish tacos.

Are GoCars a "cure for the common tour" as they advertise? My family agreed they are.

We found them safe, easy, fun and a relaxing way to see a wonderful city. I can't wait to do it again.

THE KNOWLEDGE:

GoCar Tours (dialling from UK: 001 800 914 6227/www.gocartours.com) offers hourly hire from £32. It is available in San Francisco, Miami, Barcelona and Lisbon.

The Sofia Hotel, San Diego (619 234 9200/ www.thesofiahotel.com) offers doubles from £85 per night (two sharing), room only.

Delta Airlines (0845 600 0950/www.delta.com) offers return flights from Heathrow, Gatwick or Manchester to San Diego from £463.

San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau: 0207 257 6180/www.sandiego.org