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Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded in 1769 by the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra as the first of the 21 Spanish missions in California, and moved to this site in Mission Valley in 1774. The whitewashed church with its five-bell campanario dates in its present form from 1813; the grounds hold a small museum and gardens, and it is an active parish.

LEGOLAND California in Carlsbad, north of San Diego, opened in 1999 as the first Legoland park outside Europe. Built for families with children of about two to twelve, it has rides and play areas themed on LEGO toys and Miniland USA, where American cities and landmarks are built from millions of LEGO bricks, with a water park and a SEA LIFE aquarium beside it.

Sesame Place San Diego is a theme park based on the children's television series Sesame Street in Chula Vista, south of San Diego, opened in 2022 on the site of the former Aquatica water park. Aimed at young children, it has family rides, water slides and play areas themed on the show's characters, along with parades and shows.

The Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad was opened in 2000 by NAMM, the trade association of the music products industry, whose headquarters it shares. Its galleries trace music-making in the United States from the 1890s onwards through the instruments, sound equipment and stories of their makers, and a hands-on room lets visitors play guitars, drums and keyboards.

Grouse Mountain is a peak of the North Shore Mountains in the District of North Vancouver, rising to over 1,200 metres above Metro Vancouver. The Skyride aerial tramway carries visitors to the Peak Chalet and a mountaintop area with a grizzly bear habitat, walking trails and lookouts; in winter it is a ski area with four chairlifts.

Balboa Park is a cultural park of about 490 hectares north-east of Downtown San Diego. Its Spanish Colonial Revival buildings along El Prado were built for the Panama–California Exposition of 1915 and the exposition of 1935, and today it holds 17 museums, theatres, gardens such as the Botanical Building with its lily pond, and the San Diego Zoo.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park is a private park in the District of North Vancouver, built around a footbridge 140 metres long that hangs 70 metres above the Capilano River. The first bridge of hemp rope and cedar planks was put up in 1889. Paths lead to the Treetops Adventure walkways in the Douglas firs and to a collection of totem poles.

The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is a walled garden in Vancouver's Chinatown, built in 1985–86 in the style of the Ming dynasty scholars' gardens of Suzhou, with craftsmen and materials from China. Pavilions, covered walkways, limestone rocks and a jade-green pond are arranged as a series of views. A public park beside it shares the pond.

Science World is a science centre at the eastern end of False Creek, housed in the geodesic dome built as Expo Centre for the Expo 86 world's fair. It opened as a science centre in 1989 and is run by a not-for-profit society. Its galleries hold hands-on exhibits on physics, the body, nature and technology, along with changing exhibitions.

The San Diego Natural History Museum, known as The Nat, was founded in 1874 and has occupied its Balboa Park building on the Plaza de Balboa since 1933. Its exhibitions cover the plants, animals, fossils and minerals of Southern California and Baja California, among them dinosaur and mammoth fossils, and it has a giant-screen theatre.

The Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park opened in 1973 with the world's first IMAX dome theatre, named after the aviation pioneer Reuben H. Fleet. Besides films in the dome, it has hands-on science exhibitions on topics such as light, sound, electricity and the human body, aimed largely at children and families, and planetarium shows.

The San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park was founded in 1916 by the physician Harry Wegeforth and covers about 40 hectares of canyons and mesas. It keeps some 12,000 animals of more than 650 species in open, moated habitats grouped by region, and visitors can cross the grounds on the Skyfari aerial tram or a guided bus tour.

The Timken Museum of Art on the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park opened in 1965 to show the collection of the Putnam Foundation. Its low modernist building, the only one on the plaza not in Spanish style, holds European old master paintings, including a Rembrandt, as well as American paintings and a group of Russian icons.

The San Diego Museum of Art opened in 1926 in Balboa Park, in a building by William Templeton Johnson whose Spanish Plateresque façade is modelled on the University of Salamanca. Its collection is known for Spanish old masters such as El Greco, Zurbarán and Goya, and also covers South Asian painting, Italian Renaissance and American art.

Canada Place is a waterfront building on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver whose roof of white fabric peaks resembles sails. Built as the Canada Pavilion of Expo 86, it now holds the city's main cruise ship terminal, where Alaska cruises begin, the Vancouver Convention Centre East building, the Pan Pacific hotel and the FlyOver ride.

Gastown is the original settlement from which Vancouver grew, named after 'Gassy' Jack Deighton, a steamboat captain who opened its first saloon in 1867. Now a national historic site, it has Victorian brick buildings along cobbled Water Street, shops and restaurants, and a steam-powered clock built in 1977 at the corner of Cambie Street.

The Museum of Us is an anthropology museum in the California Building of Balboa Park, whose tiled dome and 60-metre California Tower were built for the 1915 exposition. Founded that year as the San Diego Museum of Man and renamed in 2020, it shows exhibitions on human cultures, from ancient Egypt and the Maya to Kumeyaay heritage.

The Vancouver Lookout is the observation deck on top of the Harbour Centre skyscraper on West Hastings Street, opened with the building in 1977. Glass elevators run up the outside of the tower to a circular deck with a 360-degree view over downtown, Stanley Park, the harbour and the North Shore Mountains. Panels on the deck name the landmarks in view.

The San Diego Automotive Museum on Pan American Plaza in Balboa Park opened in 1988 in a building from the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition. It shows classic and historic cars and motorcycles in changing exhibitions, from early automobiles to racing and custom cars, along with a library and archive on motoring history.

The San Diego Air & Space Museum occupies the round Ford Building, built for the 1935 exposition in Balboa Park. Its galleries trace flight from balloons and the Wright brothers to the space age, with original aircraft, a replica of Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis built in San Diego and the Apollo 9 command module, and an A-12 spy plane stands outside.