20 Attractions to Explore Near Balboa Park

A wonderful art centre located in San Diego's Balboa Park, in the U.S. state of California. Located between the Zoo and theNAT these quaint buildings and colorful courtyard were originally built in 1935. They depicted a charming old village in Spain for the second California Pacific International Exposition. Over the last 60+ years, San Diego artists have continued to preserve and enhance this historical landmark by adding to its beauty.

The museum located in Balboa Park. It was founded in 1874 as the San Diego Society of Natural History. It is the second oldest scientific institution west of the Mississippi and the oldest in Southern California.

The Fleet Science Center is a science museum and planetarium in Balboa Park, located in San Diego, established in 1973. It was the first science museum to combine interactive science exhibits with a planetarium and an IMAX Dome theater, setting the standard that most major science museums follow today.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

This is a historic movie theatre in downtown San Diego, US, built in 1924. It now hosts the Mainly Mozart Festival, special events, and touring companies of Broadway productions. The city of San Diego holds the annual "State of the City" address at the theatre. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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.

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.

A majestic Sea port in San Diego. In addition to port activities, the Port District controls San Diego Bay and owns and manages the Bay's immediate waterfront under the state's Tidelands Trust. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics has ranked the Port of San Diego as one of America's top 30 U.S. containership ports bringing in nearly 3 million metric tons of cargo per year through the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal and the National City Marine Terminal.