San Diego Natural History Museum

The San Diego Natural History Museum, a Balboa Park fixture since 1874, reopened in 2026 with an upgraded atrium ceiling and a solar installation alongside its Fossil Mysteries dinosaur skeletons. Its headline exhibit, Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea, fills 3,000 square feet with 25 marine sculptures built from ocean debris, including an 18-foot whale ribcage and jellyfish blooms made from bottles, flip-flops and toothbrushes. On Friday nights the museum turns 21-plus for Nat at Night, with half-price admission after 5 p.m. and food from The Craft Taco in the atrium, while summer Sundays bring a rooftop brunch with mimosas.