Explore San Jose

The Japanese Friendship Garden is a walled garden of about six acres in Kelley Park, San Jose, dedicated in 1965. It is modelled on the Kōraku-en garden in Okayama, one of San Jose's sister cities. Paths lead around three ponds at different levels, linked by streams and stocked with koi first sent from Okayama in 1966.

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo is a combined zoo and children's amusement park in Kelley Park, San Jose, first opened in 1961. It covers 16 acres (6.5 ha) and reopened in 2010 after a two-year rebuild. Visitors see animals such as lemurs, a jaguar and red pandas, and ride a carousel, a family roller coaster and other small rides.

The Tech Interactive is a science and technology centre in downtown San Jose, housed since 1998 in an orange building with a blue dome designed by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. Visitors try hands-on exhibits, labs and design challenges on subjects such as engineering, biology and robotics, and the dome holds an IMAX theatre.

The San Jose Museum of Art is a museum of modern and contemporary art in downtown San Jose, founded in 1969, with a collection centred on West Coast artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. It occupies the city's former main post office, a sandstone Romanesque Revival building of 1892, together with a wing added in 1991.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph stands on Plaza de César Chávez in downtown San Jose. The present church, the fifth on the site since 1803, was dedicated in 1877; its portico followed in 1884 and its dome in 1885. It became the cathedral of the Diocese of San Jose in 1985 and keeps an Odell pipe organ built in 1886.

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose is a museum of ancient Egypt founded by the Rosicrucian order AMORC, which first showed its collection in 1928 and moved it in 1966 into an Egyptian-style building in Rosicrucian Park. It displays mummies, statues and everyday objects and has a walk-in replica of a rock-cut tomb.

The San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, founded in 1927, lies in the Rose Garden district west of downtown San Jose. It is planted only with roses: more than 3,500 shrubs of 189 varieties grow in formal beds set around lawns and a central fountain, with tall conifers along its edges.

The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose is the Victorian mansion of Sarah Winchester, widow of the rifle maker William Wirt Winchester, who kept extending it from 1886 until her death in 1922, when it had about 160 rooms. Guided tours lead through the house, past doors that open onto nothing and staircases that end abruptly.

Mission Santa Clara de Asís in Santa Clara, north-west of San Jose, was founded by Franciscans in 1777 as the eighth Spanish mission in California and the first named after a woman, Saint Clare of Assisi. The present church, rebuilt after a fire in 1926 and consecrated in 1929, stands on the campus of Santa Clara University and serves as its chapel.

California's Great America is an amusement park in Santa Clara, north-west of San Jose, opened by the Marriott Corporation in 1976 and now run by Six Flags. Its themed areas hold more than 40 rides, among them the wooden roller coaster Gold Striker, a Peanuts-themed children's area and the South Bay Shores water park.

Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, north-west of San Jose, has been the home of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers since it opened in 2014. The open-air stadium hosted Super Bowl 50 in 2016, Super Bowl LX in 2026 and matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup; visitors come for games and concerts and for the 49ers Museum inside the stadium.