This Unique Museum In Los Angeles Is Perfect For A Fun, Family-Friendly Outing

Though Los Angeles is full of museums, not many of them will keep the whole family entertained for long. La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is a big exception to that rule. The Ice Age fossil site has excavation areas and a Fossil Lab. There's also a 3D movie and a live puppet show to help bring extinct creatures to life. Kids will enjoy this museum so much that they may not realize how much they're learning during their visit.

The La Brea Tar Pits are in the Los Angeles Basin. This area, where the Los Angeles and Rio Hondo Rivers meet, was once submerged by water. As the earth shifted, a natural bowl began to form. Over millions of years and a lot of seismic activity, like earthquakes, this bowl diminished and the ocean floor rose. Plants and animals, such as dire wolves and saber-toothed cats, went extinct. Their fossils were discovered thousands of years later.

Excavations started in Rancho La Brea, a Mexican land grant, at the turn of the 20th century when animal bones were found. In 1924, 23 acres were donated to Los Angeles and named Hancock Park. That park eventually became a National Natural Landmark and a museum called the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries. Today, La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is part of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC), which has amassed the most natural history artifacts on the U.S.' west coast.

La Brea Tar Pits and Museum has a sprawling13-acre campus in Hancock Park. In the museum, there are fossils of a Columbian mammoth, a ground sloth, a saber-toothed cat, and dire wolves. You can walk right up to these massive creatures. Scientists are focused on new discoveries in the museum's Fossil Lab. Through its glass window, you can watch them clean and examine fossils before they're put on display. There are two theaters inside the museum, as well. In the 3D Theater, all these animals come to life in the movie "Titans of the Ice Age." While in the Encounters Theater, "Ice Age Encounters" is a live performance featuring an accurately-sized saber-toothed cat puppet.

All of the museum's displays and shows are possible because of the tar pits outside. This gummy asphalt is where animals got stuck and fossilized. The Lake Pit is near the entrance of the museum. It has huge sculptures of mammoths in and around it. Other tar pits are spread out behind the lake. Everything from huge animal fossils to tiny microfossils have been found in these sites during the last 125 years. Some of them are still active dig sites today.

Animal fossils weren't the only things found in these tar pits. Plant fossils were discovered, too. As you follow the outside pathway, you'll stumble upon the Pleistocene Garden. This garden showcases seeds, cones, and leaves that grew during the Ice Age.

Tickets for La Brea Tar Pits and Museum are $18 per adult and $7 per child. It's an additional $8 per person to see both Titans of the Ice Age in the 3D Theater and Ice Age Encounters in the Encounters Theater. For a more personalized experience, you can also book La Brea Tar Pits' Insider Tour that's led by an expert, goes behind the scenes of the tar pits, and allows you to get up close to microfossils. This unique tour is $145 per adult and $125 per child. There's no charge to visit the Lake Pit and the Pleistocene Garden, though. Hancock Park, where they're located, is one of the free things you can do while visiting Los Angeles.

La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is easy to reach. It's on Wilshire Boulevard, one of the city's main roads that extends from Downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica. Two buses, the Metro Rapid 720 and Metro Local 20, stop right near the museum. While Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the closest airport, receives nonstop flights from cities all over the world.

For a quick trip to the city, check out the best itinerary if you only have one day in Los Angeles. If you have a bit more time, here's how to plan the perfect three-day weekend in Los Angeles. Either way, La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is a fun, family-friendly spot that shouldn't be missed.