Balboa Park and Museums, San Diego CA

Next to the San Diego Zoo is a great park hosting 15 museums, gardens, theatre performances and so much more! My family and I had the pleasure of spending the weekend in April here and enjoyed ourselves so much. Panama 66 is a lovely al fresco restaurant with a menu that was tastier than I ever expected. There are a great variety of museums for almost any interest and the park has lots of places to explore. The park itself is a sprawling area originally used by San Diego to host a Panama - California exhibition celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal in 1915 and also used to host United Nations events in the 1950s. The park visitors center sells different types of passes allowing you entrance to multiple attractions in a day or over the span of a week.

During our visit the San Diego Turtle and Tortoise Society held an event in one of the exhibition halls and they host different events throughout the year so check the schedules for things of interest to enhance your visit. The Turtle exhibition was just our first stop in our day-long adventure to the Air & Space Museum, Museum of Man, Automotive Museum, an al-fresco lunch at Panama 66, and then a tour through the impressive Museum of Natural History (it was a very full day).

The San Diego Museum of Man is the only museum dedicated to anthropology in the Southern California region and you can learn about the history of mankind and even see real mummies and other ancient artifacts. While we were there the museum was hosting a special engagements on the Instruments of Torture Tour - a limited engagement with historical artifacts from the era of the Inquisition in Europe - was thought provoking to say the least and may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Another "extra" tour we took was the California Tower Tour within the Museum of Man. The building the museum is housed within was one of the three remaining original buildings from the 1915 exhibition and was designed to look like a classic Spanish Mission with a ten-story "bell tower" (which was purely decorative and never actually housed any bells). There has been no public access to that view for more than 75 years. The tour takes you up 164 steps to the 8th floor of the tower where you will enjoy panoramic views of San Diego. It was wonderful! Instead of large cast bells, the Tower’s music comes from an electronic carillon installed in 1946 and upgraded in the 1990s. A musician sits at a standard musical keyboard and plays the tunes, which are translated to signals for programmed bell-ringing later. The bells are small but highly amplified – real metal is hitting real metal when the Tower’s tones are heard.
















The Air & Space Museum was a huge hit with the family and contained a variety of exhibits spanning the history of powered flight and included artifacts from the Apollo 9 mission around the Moon. The museum includes some hands-on exhibits and knowledgeable docents providing rich details about the items on display.

Stop at the Balboa Park Visitors Center which is open from 9:30am-4:30pm daily. The Visitors Center offers brochures, maps, audio tours, free guided tours of the Park, transportation information, dining advice, and more.

We could not see it all and plan on returning and would need to spend at least four days to enjoy all of the attractions.