Unspecified/General

Spread across some 1,200 acres in the heart of San Diego, Balboa Park is the largest urban cultural park in the United States and a beloved centrepiece of the city's public life. The land was set aside as a public reserve in 1868 under the name City Park, making it one of the earliest formal public parks in the American West, and was renamed in honour of the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1910 ahead of the great Panama-California Exposition. That 1915 exposition, and a smaller second one in 1935, transformed the park into a remarkable showcase of Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission-Revival architecture. The two Bertram Goodhue-designed expositions left behind a cluster of richly ornamented buildings, including the iconic California Tower with its blue-and-yellow tiled dome, the imposing Casa del Prado and the elegant Botanical Building, all of which still anchor the park today. Today Balboa Park is home to more than fifteen major museums covering art, natural history, photography, automobiles, model railroads, space, anthropology, science and aerospace, plus an internationally celebrated zoo on its northern edge. Performance venues including the Old Globe Theatre, modelled on Shakespeare's original, and an outdoor pavilion hosting one of the world's largest pipe organs add a strong cultural calendar. Outdoors, beautifully tended Japanese gardens, rose and desert gardens, a long lily pond, broad open lawns and miles of pathways offer plenty of green space for visitors who prefer a walk in the sun to a museum visit. Free to enter, with separate admission for individual museums and the zoo, the park is open every day and easily fills a single visit or several. For travellers, it offers a richly layered, all-in-one introduction to the cultural and natural life of San Diego. Free shuttle buses, generous parking and easy access from downtown make the park unusually convenient, and combination passes bundling several museums together offer particularly good value. With its mix of museums, gardens, performance venues and the renowned zoo on its northern edge, Balboa Park rewards repeat visits across a multi-day stay in San Diego.

Type: Outdoors

Address: 1549 El Prado, San Diego, CA, United States

Telephone: 619-239-0512

Website: balboapark.org

Opening Date: 01/01/1868