Stroll Through Balboa Park

The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture alone is enough to inspire, but throw in the magnificent gardens and top-notch museums, and it’s no wonder this park is considered the “crown jewel” of San Diego. A must-see is the lily pond outside of the Botanical Building (the century-old structure is closed for renovation until 2025). Other garden favorites are the Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden and the Trees for Health Garden, which teaches visitors about medicinal plants. Peek at some artwork without paying admission prices at the Timken Museum of Art and on the commons level of the Mingei Museum. On Sundays at 2 p.m., enjoy a free organ concert at Spreckels Organ Pavilion, home to one of the largest outdoor pipe organs in the world, now 110 years old. 

Plan-ahead tip: The Visitors Center offers free tours at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays and architectural tours at 11 a.m. on the first and third Friday. If those times don’t work, you can book a custom tour and request a particular focus (history, horticulture, or architecture).

Hike Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve 

Feel the ocean air and explore rugged coastline under the shade of the rare Torrey Pines at this 1,500-acre La Jolla reserve. At low tide with some resilient hikers (at least 4 or 5 years old), you can trek the 2.5-mile beach trail loop. Start at the parking lot at the base and follow the road to the top (your best chance for a restroom break). Take one of the trails out to the cliffs and down the steps to the beach, then finish the jaunt on sand back to the parking lot. Pack sunscreen, water, and snacks, and keep your hands free to carry your shoes (and kids’ sneakers) across the sand. If you need a stroller-friendly route, park at the top and explore out-and-back trails and ocean views. The reserve offers free guided walks on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 10 a.m.

Plan-ahead tip: California public library card–holders can rent free vehicle day-use passes for participating state park units, including Torrey Pines. Depending on the library, the pass is good for up to two weeks, so you won’t have to spend your time hunting for street parking.

Splash Around at Waterfront Park

San Diego Bay views and a central location make this urban splashpad a favorite for families year-round. On 12 acres beside Pacific Highway, Waterfront Park features grassy lawns, spray fountains, reflecting pools, colorful sculptures, and a modern playground, all of which will entertain kids for hours. Pack for this park like you would the beach—umbrellas, sunscreen, blankets, towels, swimsuits, and snacks—and enjoy not coming home with a car full of sand. (Note: Downtown parking can be tricky and pricey, but there is an underground lot below the park.)

Plan-ahead tip: Gather blankets, jackets, and some treats and cart the kids to Summer Movies in the Park on some Friday evenings in May through October. Check the park website for other events year-round.

Explore a Museum

On Tuesdays, Balboa Park offers free admission to a rotation of museums for San Diego County residents. On the first Tuesday of the month, touch real fossils and rocks from prehistoric Southern California at the San Diego Natural History Museum. On the second Tuesday, peer into the Apollo 9 command module, flown in space on a 10-day mission in 1969, at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. On the third Tuesday, see if your kids can identify the 20 koi by name at the Japanese Friendship Garden. The flagship location of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla also offers free admission on the second Sunday and third Thursday of the month. Inside, view pop art and contemporary landscape exhibits; outside, tour the impressive sculpture garden.

Plan-ahead tip: Certain months of the year, the Old Globe offers free, one-hour behind-the-scenes tours for ages 8 and up (registration is required).

Learn About Julian History

Julian is more than the home of delectable apple pie—this 1870s gold rush town in the Cuyamaca Mountains east of San Diego is also packed with history. Pick up a map from the local chamber of commerce, then breathe in fresh mountain air as you navigate the self-guided walking tour. Start from Julian’s town hall and finish at Pioneer Cemetery.

Plan-ahead tip: Julian maintains a lively year-round calendar of community events, like a Sasquatch scavenger hunt and stargazing nights. Check the online calendar to take advantage of family-friendly activities.

View the Art at Chicano Park 

In Barrio Logan, a hub for Mexican-American culture in San Diego, lies this National Historic Landmark. It contains more than 100 massive, vibrant artworks, the largest concentration of Chicano murals in the world, painted onto the Coronado Bridge’s concrete pillars. The colorful murals are the showstoppers of this seven-acre park, but if that won’t hold your kids’ attention for long, bring some snacks to enjoy at the picnic tables, walk through the gardens, and then let them go wild on the playgrounds.

Plan-ahead tip: Print out a map of the murals to identify them as you tour.

See the Sea Lions at La Jolla Cove

Fair warning: They stink, literally, but watching a raft of California sea lions bark at each other all day among picturesque sandstone cliffs is a SeaWorld-level experience, minus the price tag. A short distance away are the equally fascinating Pacific harbor seals, who have now taken over Children’s Pool Beach. Dip your toes into the small beach area at La Jolla Cove, then enjoy the sunset from the picnic tables or the grass at the adjacent Ellen Browning Scripps Park.

Plan-ahead tip: If you have your own snorkel gear (and strong swimmers in the family), La Jolla Cove is famous for its snorkeling—it’s even part of the San Diego–La Jolla Underwater Park Ecological Reserve. On good visibility days, you’ll see garibaldi, guitarfish, sea stars, and anemones.

Play Outside at Mission Bay Park 

Hike, bike, frisbee, swim, and more at this expansive, 4,600-acre waterfront park. Mission Bay is a paradise for active families—it features a marked 12-mile paved path for a leisurely ride or run, plus plenty of grass to set up a volleyball or badminton net. Crown Point is a popular spot for volleyball games, and Tecolote Shores is where the kite-flyers go. Playgrounds and picnic tables dot the entire park, almost all within sight of the water.

Plan-ahead tip: Bring Fido along for the adventure—the sand dune–covered Fiesta Island has an off-leash dog beach.

Discover Mission Trails Regional Park

Your first stop at this 8,000-acre park should be the Mission Trails Visitor and Interpretive Center, which features a beautiful outdoor area overlooking Mission Gorge. Meander through the cultural, historical, and natural exhibits to learn about the local wildlife and the Kumeyaay, the indigenous people who once lived there. Then grab some trail maps to explore the 60-plus miles of trails. Don’t forget sunscreen!

Plan-ahead tip: Time your visit for the park’s volunteer-led free nature walks. The walks include a variety of emphases, from wildlife tracking to bird watching and park geology, all on specific days each month.

The post 9 of the Best Free Family Activities in San Diego appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Recently, San Diego had a bumper crop of cool new playgrounds popping up, with even more in the works that will open in the next year. So if you’re looking to mix things up and try something different, check out one of these five new playgrounds.

Tecolote Shores South

Mission Bay

The Tecolote Shores North’s upgraded playground reopened in November 2022, and now there’s the Tecolote Shores South playground just a few feet away (both designed by Schmidt Design Group). North has new play equipment, plus an adult fitness course, shade structures and updated bathrooms.

The South playground just opened in December. It has a big raised play mound in the middle that’s carved with winding pathways that helps even the smallest kids reach the tallest points of each play structure. 

Then there are real kid pleasers, like a big spinning merry-go-round, two ziplines–one with a safer seat for smaller kids–and rockers, a mix of types of swings, and plenty of places to climb. 

Children’s Park

Downtown

Across the street from the downtown Children’s Museum is the new Children’s Park that reopened in November. The park originally debuted in the mid-1990s, and the park’s revamp had been in the works for years by downtown and city leaders, says city spokesperson Benny Cartwright. 

“The park’s makeover includes a new children’s play area, picnic tables, adult exercise equipment, an off-leash dog area, public restrooms with an attendant booth, a multi-use lawn area, a new walkway through the Civic Pond and a vendor building,” he says.

The park looks a bit like an old-school tree fort with lots of wooden towers to climb and massively long slides to rocket down. Plus, San Diego-based artist Miki Iwasaki created a public art piece called “Petrichor,” a sculptural installation that looks like a cloud floating above the park. It’s a fun and imaginative space. 

Park de la Cruz

City Heights

The Park de la Cruz Community Center opened in June 2021, taking over a former YMCA building. The center has been transformed with a public gymnasium, fitness room, recreation room, sensory room, computer lab, multipurpose and community spaces, a kitchen and space for the Parks and Recreation Department’s Therapeutic Recreation and AgeWell Services programs, Cartwright says.

Then in September, the Program Garden opened outside the community center. It took over a vacant lot and now has accessible gardening activities, with garden beds, benches and shade coverings. 

“Participants will be able to learn gardening skills, harvest fruits and vegetables, and enjoy the tranquil outdoor space,” Cartwright says. “To enhance the space further, a mural was also painted on the walls surrounding the garden. The mural was designed by a local artist and community members assisted with the painting.”

To use the garden, or for more information, contact the Park de la Cruz Community Center. 

Lake Poway Playground

Poway

This revamp of a playground built in the 1990s opened in December at the Lake Poway Recreational Area. It’s designed to fit in the rustic space, which has a lake and Mount Woodson nearby.

The playground is mostly covered with shade sails, plus natural shade from trees. The play space looks like it’s made of trees and rocks, even with little hidden chipmunks tucked into stacks of logs. 

There’s also a boat and a dock that are accessible by wheelchair, plus a play snack bar and bait shop that look like the concession building at the lake—the perfect place for kids to pretend to buy and sell snacks and whatever else their imagination comes up with. 

SDSU River Park

Mission Valley

The new river park accompanying Snapdragon Stadium had a soft launch in December, and now is a bustling spot filled with kids and grownups recreating.

The park has hardtop courts with four basketball hoops, including two half- and one full courts, as well as pickleball. There is also fitness equipment, plus places to play cornhole, ping pong and teqball (or soccer pong), where players hit a soccer ball across a table with any part of the body except arms and hands. 

The playground itself has a rope climbing tree and play structures with slides and monkey bars. Most of it is tucked under the trolley tracks, making it a shady spot when the summer comes. There’s a huge climbing net, twisty slides, and a thicket of what look like bamboo trees for kids to climb up and between.

Around the park is a two-mile paved loop for walking, running and biking. It has markers every quarter mile decorated with plants vital to the native Kumeyaay people.

Be warned, parking can be a challenge. Two-hour parking is available on River Park Road, but on weekends that’s often full. The rest of the parking is metered through SDSU’s PayByPhone mobile app. A better choice? Take the trolley, hop off, and explore the playground directly underneath the tracks.

The post 5 New San Diego Parks and Playgrounds to Check Out appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

But I’m going to keep trying—because children should be encouraged to interact with art, says Nina Garin, associate director of marketing at The Old Globe.

“Exposing kids to the arts just makes them better citizens of the world,” she explains. “Their point-of-view is expanded, they learn about people different from them, they learn empathy and acceptance, [and] they learn about beauty and hope.”

Luckily, San Diego has a thriving arts scene packed with family-friendly activities, including touchable sculptures, kid-approved studios, and silly stage productions. To help you and your little ones make the most of it, we asked some experts where to go, what to do, and how to encourage your kids to be more interested in art. Here’s their advice.

At What Age to Start

According to Garin, children are never too young to begin exploring the arts. 

“If you’re reading your baby a bedtime story, that’s exposing them to fiction and storytelling,” she says. “Drawing pictures in preschool is exposure to visual art. It’s when their lives become busy with school and sports that the arts start fading. The challenge is to keep arts in that rotation, which can be done with dance or music lessons or by making an effort to attend regular arts events, [even something] as simple as a free concert in the park.”

Just be sure to start in the right places, adds Bob Lehman, executive director of the San Diego Museum Council. 

“Kids love to … make noise and run around,” he says. “For an awesome first art museum experience, take your kids to the sculpture garden at the San Diego Museum of Art. This is where they can explore real art [while running] through the grassy yard and [getting] a bite to eat at the Panama 66 restaurant. There might even be some live music on the outside patio.”

Visitors can stand near the sculptures but aren’t allowed to touch them, so checking out the garden is also a great way to teach children how to respect both public and gallery art. Get close to one of the pieces and show kiddos how to look with their eyes, not their hands.

These early engagements with creative spaces can help kids interact confidently with art throughout their lives—a boon considering that institutions like museums can sometimes intimidate even adults.

“I think kids, as they grow older, become more self-conscious,” says Maru Lopez, the education and engagement manager at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. “So, definitely, that’s something to take into consideration, since exposure kind of makes them comfortable.”

Where to Go

The New Children’s Museum in downtown offers a fun, approachable take on serious art. 

“Essentially, it’s a giant playground made by innovative artists and educators,” Garin says. “Oh, this fun tube slide you’re riding? That’s the work of internationally renowned street artist Panca.”

Gabrielle Wyrick, chief curator and director of audience engagement at the New Children’s Museum, explains that the museum is one of the few in the entire country that commissions artists to make work that kids can play in and interact with.

“In the children’s museum field, there are a lot of museums that focus on STEAM and cross-disciplinary topics and adult readiness,” she says. “And we really felt like this was a prime opportunity to do something distinctive around the arts. And this is such a rich arts community and such a beautiful, beautiful space that it’s become our signature.”

The museum offers daily workshops where kids ages 6 and up can make art. There’s also a paint and clay studio, where children of all ages can drop in and create something. On Fridays, the museum has a program called Toddler Time focused specifically on younger visitors.

Outdoorsy types will appreciate the Stuart Collection at UC San Diego, since most of the pieces are on view in the open air. You can see awesome sculptures and other works while treating the visit like an adventure or scavenger hunt.

The Museum of Contemporary Art hosts a free family Play Day on the second Sunday of each month with kid-friendly museum tours and art projects. The museum collaborates with local artists and organizations, who lead crafts, share stories, and play age-appropriate tunes. 

Meanwhile, Family Sundays at the Mingei International Museum also offer storytelling, musical performances, and hands-on art making with San Diego artists. They have a “Mini Mingei” series, too, providing crafts for little ones ages 2 to 5.

Museums also offer camps throughout the year (not only in summer!). And, even if you’re just stopping by for the day, many museums host fun spaces where kids can grab a seat and draw, paint, or craft. 

“The Centro Cultural de la Raza has a great table just for kids to play and create,” Lehman says. “Kids can also get their fingers gooey at artistic workshops, like the ICA San Diego Ceramics Lab [that took place] this fall in Encinitas.”

Performances to Check Out

The Old Globe’s annual Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is the first introduction to theater for many young San Diegans, Garin says. But the Globe also has free student matinees designed to engage high school students. 

“I love attending these performances because I see firsthand the impact theater has on young people,” Garin adds. “Teens are dismissed as being addicted to social media or not having long attention spans, but, in our theater, they are so passionate and supportive of what’s on stage that it gives me genuine hope for the future.”

Summer musicals at Moonlight Amphitheater in Vista offer a chance to experience live performances while munching on a picnic. Lawn seating means that “kids can wiggle and squirm without bothering anyone,” Garin says.

What to Do When You Get There

When heading out to see art, there are things parents and caregivers can do to encourage their kids to be more engaged. The preparation starts before you arrive, Garin says, so if you’re going to a concert, listen to some of the music beforehand. Or read a summary of a play or an exhibit. 

“Make it feel exciting and wondrous on the way there,” she emphasizes. “On the day, I like to arrive early, get kids a treat from concessions, and walk around the venue as long as possible before having to sit for a long period.”

It’s also vital to make clear to little ones that art is about freedom and expression—not getting things “right.”

“[Regardless of] how you approach any art activity, it’s correct, and that’s the beauty of art,” Lopez says. “There’s space for all of us to create, no matter our skills, especially when you’re young and you’re at that point where you’re just learning about colors and being creative. … And we say more or less the same thing in the galleries when we’re talking to them and asking, ‘What colors do you see? What is it that you’re seeing here?’ There’s no right or wrong answer. There are multiple points of entry to every work of art.”

What to Do at Home

You can read books about artists you see and provide your kids with chances to explore their creativity at home, says Eva Struble, an artist and professor at San Diego State University. She likes to give her 6-year-old son Felix found objects—like bamboo or wood scraps from their yard—as fodder for his creative play. 

“You can make bridges or gates or towers out of pieces of bamboo,” she says. “We built a little stage in the backyard, so any of these objects might become part of Felix’s pirate costume, and he performs onstage.”

She also suggests bringing paper and crayons along on museum visits, so kids can sit on the floor there and sketch out some art inspired by the work they’re seeing on the gallery walls.

What to Avoid?

There can be pressure to do certain activities or see certain performances (think Hamilton or The Nutcracker), but when allegedly amazing experiences don’t live up to the hype, it can leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. 

“So, everyone dresses up in uncomfortable clothes and experiences the event as if it’s homework,” Garin says. “This was how I first saw Cats, and I left the theater absolutely hating it. No one prepared me [for the fact] that this show would have zero talking or that the songs would be so treacly, and, from the back row of a giant theater, I felt bored and disconnected.”

Garin now enjoys and appreciates Cats—but it took her years to get there after her initial distaste for the show.

In the same vein, professional productions of The Nutcracker, for example, may feel overwhelming and stuffy to young kids. Instead, check out a version of the ballet put on by your local dance studio, where most people on that stage are students. 

“Let your kids get caught up in the iconic Tchaikovsky music, the costumes, and the magical story about a land full of sweets,” Garin says. “Eventually, you can work your way up to a professional Nutcracker, and then maybe even different kinds of ballet and dance.”

Arzu Okhal, an artist and professor at San Diego State University, feels that all art institutions need to continue to find ways to make children feel excited, curious, and relaxed when visiting. 

“Do you know any children who would not want to go to Target? I don’t think so,” Okhal says. “These stores provide parents with carts that kids can sit on and comfortably look at products almost from the same eye-level as their parents. Parents are comfortable, as they don’t have to carry the kids. The stores know that children are potential consumers, and if they enjoy the experience, they will be the next generation of consumers of the store.”

Art institutions should also understand this, Okhal adds. She has designed a rolling chair that museums can offer to help kids come face-to-face with the art.

“[Museums] need to find creative ways to engage and involve young audiences,” she says. “Children might not become artists when they grow up, but, if they feel welcomed, they will develop an understanding and appreciation. They will become future members and supporters of these institutions and perhaps collectors of the artwork.”

The post How to Get Your Kids More Interested in the Arts appeared first on San Diego Magazine.