Community and Family Fun Links

Family Outings

Below are some fun and fairly inexpensive outings that the entire family can enjoy:

• The Living Desert (Palm Springs) - You will also find out about one of the most unusual institutions in the United States. There isn’t a single word to describe all that The Living Desert is and does. We must string words together, like beads: zoo and endangered species conservation center – botanical gardens – natural history museum – wilderness park – nature preserve – education center. The thread that holds all the beads together is the word “desert.”


• Discovery Center (Orange County) - Discovery Science Center (DSC), a 59,000-square-foot learning facility designed to spark children's natural curiosity, is Orange County's largest nonprofit educational resource. Since opening in December 1998, it has been dedicated to educating young minds, assisting teachers and increasing public understanding and appreciation of science, math and technology through interactive exhibits and programs. It is a community-wide resource where families come together to learn and have fun.


• Professor Pennypickles (Temecula) - The Professor's home...7500 square feet of it, cluttered with hands-on inventions, gadgets, experiments...and kids won't even know they're learning as they play! Located in the heart of Old Town Temecula, Southern California (a great place to visit, by the way), the recently opened Imagination Workshop has already won a THEA award from the Themed Entertainment Association, representing creators of compelling places and experiences, and two awards from the California Park and Recreation Society.
  


• Balboa Park (San Diego) - the nation's largest urban cultural park. Home to 15 major museums, renowned performing arts venues, beautiful gardens and the San Diego Zoo, the Park has an ever-changing calendar of museum exhibitions, plays, musicals, concerts, and classes—all in the beautiful and timeless setting of this must-see San Diego attraction.


• Page Museum & La Brea Tar Pits (Los Angeles) - The Page Museum is located at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles. Rancho La Brea is one of the world’s most famous fossil localities, recognized for having the largest and most diverse assemblage of extinct Ice Age plants and animals in the world. Visitors can learn about Los Angeles as it was between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, when animals such as saber-toothed cats and mammoths roamed the Los Angeles Basin. Through windows at the Page Museum Laboratory, visitors can watch bones being cleaned and repaired. Outside the Museum, in Hancock Park, life-size replicas of several extinct mammals are featured.


• Riley's Farm (Oak Glen) - Nestled in the apple growing foothills of historic Oak Glen, Riley's Farm is a working apple orchard and living history farm featuring pick-your-own fruit, living history education, dinner theater, group banquet facilities and extended, historically-themed overnight stays.


• Travel Town Train Museum - train rides (Los Angeles) - Travel Town is located on a 9-acre site and is open to the public daily. There is no admission charge. Displaying everything from a 104-ton locomotive to a one-horse shay, Travel Town offers its visitors what for most of them is the only opportunity they ever have to see and examine at close hand many different types of vehicles.
  


• Toms Farm (Temescal Canyon) - Rides, gifts, gourmet foods, fresh produce, carousel, petting zoo, live entertainment.