Casa de Balboa, architectural landmark in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, USA

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Balboa Park Museums

San Diego

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Balboa Park is a 1200-acre space with 17 museums and cultural institutions, including key attractions San Diego History Center, San Diego Air & Space Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Man, San Diego Natural History Museum and San Diego Zoo. All attractions are easily walkable, or jump aboard the park's tram to whizz around them all at speed.

One-day explorer tickets include admission to five museums for adult/child $46/$27, multiday explorer tickets include admission for 17 museums over seven consecutive days for adult/child $57/$30, plus zoo entry adult/child $97/$62.

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

  • Children's Pool

    Children's Pool

    10.92 MILES

    Built in the 1930s behind a wave-cutting seawall, La Jolla’s Children’s Pool was created as a family beach but has since been invaded by herds of seals…

  • Star of India at the Maritime Museum on the Embarcadero.

    Maritime Museum of San Diego

    1.53 MILES

    Next to the new Waterfront Park, this collection of 11 historic sailing ships, steam boats and submarines is easy to spot: just look for the 100ft-high…

  • Birch Aquarium At Scripps, La Jolla, California. (Photo by: Education Images/Citizens of the Planet/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

    Birch Aquarium at Scripps

    10.95 MILES

    This state-of-the-art aquarium is a wonderous underwater world home to 5000 fish. Visitors can watch sharks dart, kelp forests sway, and even meet a…

  • Estudillo Museum, Old Town State Historic Park.

    Old Town San Diego State Historic Park

    3.18 MILES

    On the site of San Diego's first European settlement, Old Town consists of a cluster of restored or rebuilt historic 19th-century buildings filled with…

  • New Children’s Museum

    New Children’s Museum

    1.66 MILES

    This interactive children’s museum offers interactive art meant for kids. Installations are designed by artists, so tykes can learn principles of movement…

  • San Diego Main Library

    San Diego Main Library

    1.58 MILES

    A couple blocks east of Petco Park, the city's recent landmark is a beauty. Crowned by a steel-and-mesh dome, the futuristic, nine-story library features…

  • San Diego, AUG 2 2014 - Overcast view of the entrance of Sunny Jim Sea Cave; Shutterstock ID 2148197953; GL: 65050; netsuite: Online editorial; full: POI updates: San Diego; name: Ann Douglas Lott 2148197953

    Cave Store

    10.72 MILES

    Waves have carved a series of caves into the sandstone cliffs east of La Jolla Cove. The one below the Cave Store, a shop selling vintage curios, is 200…

  • Parque de la Amistad

    Parque de la Amistad

    13.67 MILES

    For a glimpse at what a wall between neighbors really looks like, find your way to binational Friendship Park. On the Mexico side of the wall in Playas de…

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Nearby San Diego attractions

1. San Diego Museum of Art

0.04 MILES

Pride of place in SDMA's permanent collection goes to its Spanish old masters (El Greco, Goya) and a respectable selection of works by other international…

2. Timken Museum of Art

0.05 MILES

Don’t skip the Timken, home to a small but impressive collection of American and European paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Rubens, El Greco,…

3. Japanese Friendship Garden

0.08 MILES

Designed using the simple principles of Japanese gardening, this well-maintained quiet garden includes flowers like the cherry blossom.

4. Casa de Balboa

0.08 MILES

The Casa de Balboa has a fabled past. A Spanish renaissance-style structure was built in this very spot for Balboa's 1915 exposition. It burned down in…

5. San Diego Model Railroad Museum

0.08 MILES

Your (inner) four-year-old child will love this railroad museum; one of the largest indoor railroad museums in the world, it has some 27,000 sq ft of…

6. Museum of Photographic Arts

0.08 MILES

Tracing the history of photography, the museum offers special exhibits from crowd-pleasing animal themes to landscapes by Ansel Adams and avant-garde cell…

7. Botanical Building

0.09 MILES

The Botanical Building looks lovely from El Prado, where you can see it reflected in the large lily pond that was used for hydrotherapy in WWII when the…

8. San Diego History Center

0.1 MILES

The San Diego Historical Society operates this center, with permanent and temporary exhibitions on city history. Previous exhibitions have included the…

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