Death Valley National Park
Dante's View is an overlook that sits perched at 5475ft atop the Black Mountains, affording stunning panoramic views of the entire southern Death Valley…
Must-see attractions in California
San Diego
It's easy to spend an hour in this heartfelt museum of surf artifacts, from a timeline of surfing history to surf-themed art and a radical collection of…
Joshua Tree National Park
High atop the Little San Bernardino Mountains, Keys View offers panoramic views of the whole Coachella Valley spread out like a picnic blanket. On clear…
Greater Palm Springs
Art fans should not miss this museum and its changing exhibitions drawn from a stellar collection of international modern and contemporary painting,…
Santa Monica
Once the very end of the legendary Route 66 and still the object of a tourist love affair, this much-photographed pier dates back to 1908 and is the city…
San Diego
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…
Mammoth Lakes
Mammoth Mountain is the product of millions of years of volcanic activity, so it should be no surprise that the region surrounding it is full of…
Yosemite National Park
With their massive stature and multi-millennium maturity, the chunky high-rise sequoias of Mariposa Grove will make you feel rather insignificant. The…
Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens
Pasadena & the San Gabriel Valley
One of the most delightful, inspirational spots in LA, the Huntington is rightly a highlight of any trip to California thanks to a world-class mix of art,…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
From the instant it opened in September 2015, the Broad (rhymes with 'road') became a must-visit for contemporary-art fans. It houses the world-class…
Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood & Westwood
In its billion-dollar, in-the-clouds perch, high above the city grit and grime, the Getty Center presents triple delights: a stellar art collection …
Yosemite National Park
If you drove, the views from 7214ft Glacier Point might make you feel like you cheated – superstar sights present themselves without your having made…
The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill
A renowned and beloved Mission landmark since 1979, the nation's first women-owned-and-operated community center is festooned with one of the neighborhood…
The Haight & Hayes Valley
Jeremy Fish's bronze bunny-skull sculpture hints at the weird wonders inside this nonprofit dedicated to works on paper and San Francisco's signature art…
Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Yosemite & the Sierra Nevada
Joined by a high-altitude roadway bisecting a national forest and contiguous with a number of wilderness areas, these two parks combined offer vast…
The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill
Art revolutions are instigated at Catharine Clark, a showcase for such gorgeous provocations as Masami Teraoka's paintings of superheroine geishas and…
San Fernando Valley
Dodge dinosaurs, hang with Homer Simpson and morph into a Minion on the sometimes hair-raising, always entertaining attractions at Universal Studios…
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
LA is unlike any other city, and this cathedral is unlike any other cathedral. Seat of the US's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese (some five million…
Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park
Gold Country
An otherworldly testament to the mechanical determination of the gold hunt, Malakoff Diggins is a place to get lost on fern-lined trails and take in the…
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
North Coast & Redwoods
Famous for some of the world's best virgin redwood groves and unspoiled coastline, this 14,000-acre section of Redwood National & State Parks has…
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
West Hollywood & Mid-City
The depth and wealth of the collection at the largest museum in the western US is stunning. LACMA holds all the major players – Rembrandt, Cézanne,…
Mono Lake Region
At Bodie State Historic Park, a gold-rush ghost town is preserved in a state of 'arrested decay.' Weathered buildings sit frozen in time on a dusty,…
Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park
Gold Country
This state park comprises a fascinating collection of buildings in a bucolic riverside setting at the site of James Marshall's riot-inducing discovery…
Malibu & Pacific Palisades
Stunningly perched on an ocean-view hillside, this museum in a replica 1st-century Roman villa is an exquisite, 64-acre showcase for Greek, Roman and…
Orange County
From its stately, Spanish Colonial–style shell, the Bowers Museum explodes onto the scene every year or so with remarkable exhibits that remind LA-centric…
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve
Carmel-by-the-Sea
They bark, they laze and bathe and they’re fun to watch – sea lions are the stars in this state park some 4 miles south of Carmel, along with the…
The Peninsula
Just over a dozen miles southeast of Pescadero State Beach, Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve is home base for one of the world's largest mainland breeding…
Los Angeles
The three 'Gothic' spires of the fabulous Watts Towers rank among the world’s greatest monuments of folk art. In 1921 Italian immigrant Simon Rodia set…
Hollywood
Ever wondered what it’s like to be in George Clooney’s shoes? Find his foot- and handprints alongside dozens of other stars', forever set in the concrete…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
A molten blend of steel, music and psychedelic architecture, this iconic concert venue is the home base of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but has also…
Greater Palm Springs
This rotating cable car climbs nearly 6000ft vertically and covers five different vegetation zones, from the Sonoran desert floor to pine-scented Mt San…
Manzanar National Historic Site
Eastern Sierra
A stark wooden guard tower alerts drivers to one of US history's darkest chapters, which unfolded on a barren, windy sweep of land some 5 miles south of…
Orange County
Follow the giant 10-story cube – balanced on one of its points – to the county's best educational kiddie attraction. About 100 hands-on displays await,…
South Lake Tahoe & Stateline
Sheer granite cliffs and a jagged shoreline hem in glacier-carved Emerald Bay, a teardrop cove that will have you digging for your camera. Its most…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
Until 1966 no LA building stood taller than the 1928 City Hall, which appeared in the Superman TV series and 1953 sci-fi thriller War of the Worlds. On…
Central Coast
This museum will interest almost anyone, even if you don't know anything about Salinas’ Nobel Prize–winning native son, John Steinbeck (1902–68), a…
Berkeley
This 2079-acre park, up in the hills east of town, is Berkeley’s best. It has nearly 40 miles of hiking and multiuse trails of varying difficulty, from…
Venice, Marina Del Rey & Playa del Rey
Abbot Kinney, who founded Venice in the early 1900s, would probably be delighted to find that one of Venice’s best-loved streets bears his name. Sort of a…
Big Sur
A little over 6 miles south of Bixby Bridge, Point Sur rises like a velvety green fortress out of the sea. It looks like an island, but is actually…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
The highlight of LA Live, this museum's interactive exhibits define, differentiate and link musical genres. Spanning three levels, the rotating…
