Museums in California

Discover 102 unusual museums in California.

San Diego, California

Women's Museum of California

This San Diego museum is dedicated to preserving women’s historic achievements.

The Beat Museum in San Francisco

San Francisco, California

Beat Museum

A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

Davis, California

Bohart Museum of Entomology

This museum boasts the ninth-largest collection of insects in North America.

La Brea Tar Pits

Los Angeles, California

La Brea Tar Pits Dragonfly Fossils

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

The Alabama Hills

Lone Pine, California

The Museum of Western Film History

The hundreds of movies and television shows shot in this high desert town are commemorated in a unique museum.

Solvang, California

Hans Christian Andersen Museum

Honoring the famed folktale author, this California museum looks like it belongs in the Black Forest.

Los Angeles, California

Valley Relics Museum

One man's vast collection of artifacts and ephemera from matchbooks and postcards to vintage neon signs and cars.

William Workman's adobe abode

City of Industry, California

Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum

Explore an early California pioneer's rancho hidden in LA's manufacturing hinterland.

The Tenderloin Museum

San Francisco, California

The Tenderloin Museum

A walk down memory lane in the heart of one of San Francisco's most notorious neighborhoods.

Willow Creek China Flat and Bigfoot Museum

Willow Creek, California

China Flat Museum Bigfoot Collection

This little museum has an exhibit devoted to the elusive forest denizens.

Permanently Closed

Crockett, California

Bailey Art Museum

Junkbots and mud babies are the masterpieces in this fantastically sci-fi art museum.

Hair jewelry

Colma, California

Colma Historical Association

This odd little museum holds exhibits on everything from blacksmith equipment to hair jewelry.

A map of Calistoga from 1871.

Calistoga, California

Sharpsteen Museum

A veteran Disney animator turned his gift for storytelling to a museum devoted to his love of a California city.

Cabazon, California

Cabazon Dinosaurs

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.

The Do Nothing Machine

Carlsbad, California

Craftsmanship Museum

This large collection of tiny things revels in the art of fine machinery well made.

Unofficial McDonald's Museum

San Bernardino, California

Unofficial McDonald's Museum

This unlicensed collection of fast-food memorabilia sits on the site of the first ever McDonald's restaurant.