Museum of Us

On our list of the best activities in San Diego.

Housed in the California Quadrangle built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, the museum traces to an exhibit called The Story of Man through the Ages, assembled for that fair by archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett. Renamed from the San Diego Museum of Man in 2020, it still holds Kumeyaay and Mesoamerican history alongside a set of Ancient Egyptian burial masks and painted coffins. Admission includes a guided climb up the California Tower, ending at an eighth-floor deck with a 360-degree view of the park. The tower stood closed to the public for nearly 80 years before it reopened in 2015.