San Diego Museum of Art

It’s not all icy beers, big animals and sunny good times: San Diego pulls its weight, and then some, on the cultural front too. The region’s oldest, largest and most visited art museum, the San Diego Museum of Art has a nationally renowned permanent collection that includes Spanish and Italian old masters, as well as 19th-century American paintings and sculptures. It also regularly features notable exhibitions from around the world, and from September 2015 plays host to the major “Art of Music” exhibition, which explores the intersection between music and art to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Balboa Park, where the museum is situated.