2 Best Sights in Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego

The oldest wooden house in San Diego houses the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation, the district's curator. Before developer Alonzo Horton came to town, Davis, a prominent San Franciscan, had made an unsuccessful attempt to develop the waterfront area. In 1850 he had this prefab saltbox-style house, built in Maine, shipped around Cape Horn and assembled in San Diego (it originally stood at State and Market Streets). Ninety-minute walking tours ($25) of the historic district leave from the house on Thursday at 1 pm (summer only) and Saturday at 11 am (year-round). If you can't time your visit with the tour, a self-guided tour map ($2) is available.

Featuring more than 20 immersive exhibits created by local and international artists, designers, and makers, the museum is an art and technology experience that challenges viewers to look at art in a new way. Among its exhibits are Masterpiece, which allows interactive distortion of familiar works of art, as well as the disorienting Quantum Mirror and the game-like interactive One Minute.