Stockton is a large city in California's Central Valley, sitting at the eastern edge of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. It is not a tourist destination in the conventional sense, but the surrounding delta — a maze of waterways, levees, and small towns — is one of the most distinctive landscapes in the state.
The delta offers superb boating and fishing. Rent a houseboat and explore the waterways past the old towns of Locke (a surviving Chinese-American settlement from the 1920s and the last of its kind in the country), Isleton, and Walnut Grove. Striped bass fishing is good year-round, and salmon and steelhead run in the autumn. The Grizzly Island Wildlife Area near Suisun City is excellent for birdwatching.
Downtown Stockton has the Haggin Museum — a serious collection of French academic painting and Central Valley history that surprises most visitors. The revitalised waterfront on the San Joaquin River, with its minor league ballpark and marina, is the city's most pleasant area for an evening walk. Stockton is also the birthplace of the Caterpillar tractor: Benjamin Holt invented the continuous-track vehicle here in 1904 to navigate the soft peat fields of the delta, and the technology went on to shape both modern agriculture and WWI tank warfare.
Stockton's Miracle Mile district on Pacific Avenue has a cluster of restaurants, pubs, and small shops. The city has strong Mexican and Southeast Asian food scenes — look for Il Grullenese on Charter Way for Mexican, or explore the restaurants near downtown for Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese.