The California Science Center (700 Exposition Park Dr.) appears on every L.A. grade-schoolers' field trip calendar and should be on your itinerary as well. Hundreds of hands-on exhibits teach fertile minds about basic science, nature and technology. The IMAX Theater boasts a seven-story screen, and the center is the home of retired Space Shuttle Endeavour.
On a smaller scale, but no less fun, Pasadena's imaginative Kidspace Children's Museum (480 N. Arroyo Blvd.) rolls out the fruit juice-stained carpet for the under-13 set with a host of indoor and outdoor interactive exhibits and play areas.
Things to Do With Teens
Let's face it: Many teens simply want to hang out, shop, text and sulk. Enter Hollywood & Highland (6801 Hollywood Blvd.), an open-air mall across the street from El Capitan Theatre and home to Lucky Brand Jeans, Q and more. Along the same lines, Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade (Santa Monica Blvd. & 3rd St.) does the trick with retailers like Adidas, Anthropologie and Quiksilver. Junior fashionistas should plan a boutique-crawl down Roberston Boulevard, where celeb sightings (of the TMZ variety) abound.Smart-alecky teens will get a kick out of the world-famous freak show that is the Venice Beach's Ocean Front Walk (1800 Ocean Front Walk), a sun-splashed promenade packed with plenty of fun things to do with friends, including wacky sidewalk performers, oddball merchandise stands, surf shops, greasy pizza-by-the-slice joints and a colorful crush of SoCal humanity.
Fun Places to Go for All Ages
From Dumbo the Flying Elephant to California Screamin', Disneyland® Resort (1313 Harbor Blvd., Anaheim), has the whole clan covered with the original Disneyland® Park and Disney California Adventure® Park . Consult your local AAA travel agency about available Disneyland® vacation packages.Griffith Park (4730 Crystal Springs Dr.), a sprawling, mountainous park, is home to the world-class Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens (5333 Zoo Dr.), the outstanding Griffith Observatory (2800 E. Observatory Rd.) and the Travel Town Museum (5200 Zoo Dr.), an outdoor collection of old train engines and rail cars (climbing allowed).
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Pack the cooler and slather on the sunblock. No L.A. vacation is complete without a beach day. You can't go wrong with Malibu or South Bay strand areas like Manhattan Beach. At SoCal's most popular beach destination, Santa Monica , you'll also find amusement park rides, midway games, gift shops and eateries at Pacific Park (380 Santa Monica Pier) on the Santa Monica Pier (200 Santa Monica Pier).
More theme park than work-a-day movie studio, Universal Studios Hollywood™ (100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City) amps up its behind-the-scenes tour with an animatronic Jaws, the King Kong 360 3-D experience and all sorts of special effects razzle-dazzle.
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With the ocean at its doorstep, a natural fit for SoCal is the Aquarium of the Pacific (100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach). More than 11,000 creatures swim, crawl and fly through some 50 exhibits. Everyone will love petting sharks and rays, watching sea otters at play and getting up close and personal with penguins.
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The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino) offers a 207-acre, gorgeously landscaped playground where the whole family can run wild in a variety of themed areas—Palm, Desert, Japanese, Australian and many more. There's even a terrific, hands-on Children's Garden geared toward ages 2 through 7.