The Central Valley
We’ve compiled the best of the best in The Central Valley - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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14 Recommendations
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1. California Living Museum
Zoo/AquariumAt this combination zoo, botanical garden, and natural history museum, the emphasis is on the zoo. Within the reptile house lives every species of rattlesnake found in California. The landscaped grounds—about a 20-minute drive northeast of Bakersfield—also shelter captive bald eagles, tortoises, coyotes, black bears, and foxes. Additions in 2015 include a touch tank and jellyfish exhibit, a zip line, and a high ropes challenge course.
10500 Alfred Harrell Hwy., Hwy. 178 east to Harrell Hwy. north, Bakersfield, California, 93306, USA661-872–2256Sight Details
Rate Includes: $9 -
2. Castle Air Museum
Museum/GalleryYou can stroll among dozens of restored military aircraft at this outdoor facility. The vintage war birds include the B-25 Mitchell medium-range bomber—best known for the Jimmy Doolittle raid on Tokyo after the attack on Pearl Harbor—and the speedy SR-71 Blackbird, used for reconnaissance over Vietnam and Libya. A recently arrived star is an aircraft that from 1974 to 2006 was known as Air Force One whenever it transported the U.S president.
Castle Airport, 5050 Santa Fe Dr., 6 miles north of Merced, Buhach Rd. exit off Hwy. 99, Atwater, California, 95301, USA209-723–2178Sight Details
Rate Includes: $10 -
3. Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park
It's worth the slight detour off Highway 99 to learn about and pay homage to the dream of Allen Allensworth and other Black pioneers who, in 1908, founded Allensworth, the only California town settled, governed, and financed by African Americans. At its height, the town prospered as a key railroad transfer point, but after cars and trucks reduced railroad traffic and water was diverted for Central Valley agriculture, the town declined and was eventually deserted. Today, the restored and rebuilt schoolhouse, library, and other structures commemorate Allensworth's heyday, as do festivities that take place each October.
4129 Palmer Ave., Allensworth, California, 93219, USA661-849–3433Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
4. Farmer Bob's World
Taste, touch, and feel your way through orange and mandarin groves on a guided tour of this 180-acre working citrus farm. Tours last 60 minutes; tractor-pulled wagon tours are also available, as are more expensive walking tours. Kids and adults love the challenge of navigating the nation's only orange-grove maze, answering questions at a series of checkpoints to earn a prize at the end. You must book tours in advance online.
32985 Rd. 164, Ivanhoe, California, 93235, USA559-798–0557Sight Details
Rate Includes: Farm Tour $15; Tractor Tour $15; Walking Tour $100 for up to 2 persons, $10 for each additional person, Closed Sun.--Tues., Tour reservations required -
5. Forestiere Underground Gardens
Sicilian immigrant Baldassare Forestiere spent four decades (1906–46) carving out an odd, subterranean realm of rooms, tunnels, grottoes, alcoves, and arched passageways that once extended for more than 10 acres between Highway 99 and busy, mall-pocked Shaw Avenue. Though not an engineer, Forestiere called on his memories of the ancient Roman structures he saw as a youth and on techniques he learned digging subways in New York and Boston. Only a fraction of his prodigious output is on view, but you can tour his underground living quarters, including bedrooms (one with a fireplace), the kitchen, living room, and bath, as well as a fishpond and auto tunnel. Skylights allow exotic full-grown fruit trees to flourish more than 20 feet belowground.
5021 W. Shaw Ave., Fresno, California, 93722, USA559-271–0734Sight Details
Rate Includes: $23, Closed Dec.–Mar. Closed Tues. and Wed. in fall and early spring -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
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6. Kern County Museum and Lori Brock Children's Discovery Center
Museum/GalleryThis 16-acre site is one of the Central Valley's top museum complexes. The indoor-outdoor Kern County Museum is an open-air, walk-through historic village with more than 55 restored or re-created buildings dating from the 1860s to the 1940s. "Black Gold: The Oil Experience," a permanent exhibit, shows how oil is created, discovered, extracted, and transformed for various uses. The Lori Brock Children's Discovery Center, for ages eight and younger, has hands-on displays and an indoor playground.
3801 Chester Ave., at 38th St., Bakersfield, California, 93301, USA661-437–3330Sight Details
Rate Includes: $10 -
7. Bravo Farms
For one-stop truck-stop entertainment, pull off the highway in Traver, where at Bravo Farms you can try your luck at an arcade shooting gallery, watch cheese being made, munch on barbecue and ice cream, play a round of minigolf, peruse funky antiques, buy produce, visit a petting zoo, and climb a multistory tree house. Taste a few "squeekers" (fresh cheese curds, so named because chewing them makes your teeth squeak), and then be on your way.
36005 Hwy. 99, Traver, California, 93673, USA559-897–5762Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
8. Kaweah Oaks Preserve
Trails at this 344-acre wildlife sanctuary off the main road to Sequoia National Park lead past majestic valley oak, sycamore, cottonwood, and willow trees. Among the 134 bird species you might spot are hawks, hummingbirds, and great blue herons. Bobcats, lizards, coyotes, and cottontails also live here. The Sycamore Trail has digital signage with QR codes you can scan with your smartphone to access plant and animal information.
Visalia, California, 93277, USA559-738–0211Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free, suggested donation $5 per car -
9. Knights Ferry Recreation Area
City ParkThe featured attraction here is the 355-foot-long Knights Ferry covered bridge. The beautiful and haunting structure, built in 1863, crosses the Stanislaus River near the ruins of an old gristmill. The park has camping, picnic, and barbecue areas along the riverbanks, as well as campgrounds accessible only by boat. You can hike, fish, canoe, and raft on miles of rapids.
Corps of Engineers Park, 17968 Covered Bridge Rd., Knights Ferry, 12 miles east of Oakdale via Hwy. 108, Oakdale, California, 95361, USA209-881–3517Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
10. Micke Grove Regional Park
This 258-acre, oak-shaded park has a Japanese tea garden, picnic tables, children's play areas, an agricultural museum, a zoo, a golf course, and a water-play feature. Fun Town at Micke Grove, a family-oriented amusement park, is geared toward younger children.
11793 N. Micke Grove Rd., Lodi, California, 95240, USA209-953–8800Sight Details
Rate Includes: From $5 -
11. Mooney Grove Park
Amid shady oaks you can picnic alongside duck ponds, rent a boat and tool around the lagoon, and view a bronze replica of James Earl Fraser's iconic End of the Trail sculpture, which depicts a Native American warrior on horseback. The indoor-outdoor Tulare County Museum contains several re-created environments from the pioneer era, displays of Yokuts tribal artifacts (basketry, arrowheads, clamshell-necklace currency), and exhibits that chronicle farm history and labor.
27000 S. Mooney Blvd., Visalia, California, 93277, USA559-624–7326-museumSight Details
Rate Includes: $7 per car, free in winter, Closed Tues. and Wed. -
12. Murray Family Farms
Farm/RanchYou can partake of the southern Central Valley's agricultural bounty at the farm's Big Red Barn location—owners Steve and Vickie Murray promise more free samples than Costco, and they deliver. You'll find whatever's in season, including peaches, plums, apricots, and 18 cherry varieties. There are prepared foods, too, and activities for kids (jumping pillow, petting zoo, hay rides, AstroTurf sledding hill). The Cal-Okie Kitchen sells tasty fry pies filled with eggs and other ingredients for breakfast and pulled chicken and other meats for lunch and dinner.
6700 General Beale Rd., off Hwy. 58, 18 miles south of downtown, Bakersfield, California, 93313, USA661-330–0100Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free to store; $6 weekdays, $10 Sat., and $8 Sun. for farm tours -
13. Oakdale Cheese & Specialties
FactoryYou can sample the wares at this homey factory complex, which has tastings (try the aged Gouda) and cheese-making tours, a store, and a bakery. Outside are a picnic area and a petting zoo.
10040 Valley Home Rd., at River Rd., Oakdale, California, 95361, USA209-848–3139 -
14. Roeding Park
City ParkTree-shaded Roeding Park is a place of respite on hot summer days; it has picnic areas, playgrounds, tennis courts, horseshoe pits, and a zoo. A train, little race cars, paddleboats, a carousel, and other rides for kids are among the amusements at Playland. Children can explore attractions with fairy-tale themes at Rotary Storyland.
890 W. Belmont Ave., at Olive Ave., Fresno, California, 93728, USA559-486–2124Sight Details
Rate Includes: Roeding Park $5 per vehicle; Playland free (rides $1.50–$3, day pass $16); Storyland $5, Storyland and Playland closed Nov.–Feb.
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