20 Attractions to Explore Near Port of San Diego

This is a 375-foot long pedestrian bridge that stretches across the Kate Sessions Canyon at a height of 70 feet. The bridge is supported by steel cables that are secured to huge slabs of concrete buried in the soil.Today, locals and visitors enjoy a stroll across this bridge for the views and serenity offered in its secluded spot.

San Diego Waterfront Park is a 12-acre open space park surrounding the San Diego County Administration Center. Numerous walkways with intermittent benches wind through the gardens. There are six large civic green lawns, and a long row of reflecting pools with interactive spray fountains.

Established in 1948, it preserves one of the largest collections of historic sea vessels in the United States. The centerpiece of the museum's collection is the Star of India, an 1863 ironbark.

Star of India is an iron-hulled sailing ship, built in 1863 in Ramsey. After a career sailing from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, she was renamed, re-rigged as a barque, and became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route. Retired in 1926, she was restored as a seaworthy museum ship in 1962–3 and home-ported at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in San Diego, California. She is the oldest ship still sailing regularly and also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still afloat.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego offers access to the very best art of our time at two iconic locations. While the La Jolla location is currently closed for a major renovation and expansion project, the downtown location serves as MCASD's primary hub of activity. The Museum of Contemporary Art has a nearly 5,500-object collection of post-World War II art that includes key pieces by color field painter Ellsworth Kelly.

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This is the world's largest accredited model railroad museum. This unique museum contains five enormous scale model layouts depicting railroads of the Southwest in O, HO, and N scales. Its mission is to collect, preserve and present the heritage of American railroading using educational programs, displays, toy trains, and scale models of California railroads.

This anthropology museum's cultural resources and permanent exhibits focus on the pre-Columbian history of the western Americas, with materials drawn from Native American cultures of the Southern California region, and Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Maya. The museum also holds one of the most important collections of Ancient Egyptian antiquities in the United States, which includes burial masks, figurines, and seven painted wooden coffins. The most extraordinary of these is an extremely

An aviation and space exploration museum containing many original and reproductions of historic aircraft and spacecraft.

The California Tower, the soaring, intricately detailed, portion of the California Building, is an icon of San Diego, and can be seen from miles around. The building houses the San Diego Museum of Us. This beautiful structure is an architectural hybrid of architectural different styles, including Baroque, Plateresque, Churrigueresque, and Rococo, with some Gothic details.

A historical naval aircraft carrier museum. The museum consists of the aircraft carrier Midway. The ship houses an extensive collection of aircraft, many of which were built in Southern California.

The Comic-Con Museum operates differently than most museums. Instead of a set of permanent collections accented by one or two rotating exhibits, the Comic-Con Museum focuses on a constant stream of new and ever-changing exhibits, requiring flexible and adaptable spaces to accommodate a wide variety of creative art forms. The Comic-Con Museum will encourage an appreciation of comics and related popular arts through exhibits, programs and events drawn from across the Comic-Con universe.

Mingei International Museum preserves and exhibits folk art, craft and design from all eras and cultures of the world. Its collection now comprises more than 26,000 objects of folk art, craft and design from 141 countries. The collections contain artifacts from the 3rd century BCE to the present day and include objects as diverse as ancient clay vessels and 21st-century Venetian glass.

This is an 1857 Greek Revival style residence, a California Historical Landmark,[2] and museum located in Old Town, San Diego. From its rich Greek Revival architecture style and authentic decor to its mysterious past and unrivaled haunted pedigree, it’s no wonder this home attracts visitors from all over the world. Besides being the Whaley family home, it was also San Diego’s first commercial theater, the county courthouse, and a general store.

Fine arts museum housing a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The exhibits ranges in date from 5000 BC to 2012 AD.

The Timken Museum of Art is a fine art museum, established in 1965. It preserves the Putnam Collection of European old masters, American art, and Russian icons for the education and benefit of present and future generations of San Diego residents and visitors

The Japanese Friendship Garden is located in Balboa Park and represents the friendship between San Diego and its sister city in Yokohama, Japan. It binds the two cultures to create a unique experience for visitors from all over the world; over 240,000 people from across the United States and the world visit the garden annually. The garden is well-known for its unique placement, sukiya-style buildings, koi ponds, and landscape exhibits.

With over 4 million visitors, San Diego Zoo is the most visited zoo in the United States. Housing more than 3,500 animals of more than 650 species and subspecies, San Diego Zoo was a pioneer in the concept of open-air, cageless exhibits that re-create natural animal habitats.

The Botanical Building is an historic building located in San Diego's Balboa Park. Built for the 1915–16 Panama–California Exposition, it remains one of the largest lath structures in the world.

This is one of the only museums in the country dedicated exclusively to the photographic arts, presenting work by some of the world's most celebrated photographers and cinematographers. Its mission is to inspire, educate and engage the broadest possible audience through the presentation, collection, and preservation of photography, film and video.