311 Best Sights in USA

This 250-acre park in the heart of downtown is a cultural and recreational campus. At its west end is the Indianapolis Zoo and White River Gardens and on the east are several attractions including the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. Connecting the sides across the White River is the Historic Old Washington Street Pedestrian Bridge, originally built in 1833. Gentle banks slope to the river, with groves of weeping willows and other trees that invite visitors to picnic or just enjoy the view. The Promenade, which follows the upper banks of the White River, is built from 1,272 blocks of Indiana limestone and is accented with 14 stone tablets carved with renderings of famous buildings made of Indiana limestone, including New York's Empire State Building. A focal point of the Promenade is the hand-carved Rose Window, a limestone frame measuring more than 7 feet in diameter. The park also encompasses Victory Field baseball park, an outdoor music pavilion, Military Park, River Promenade, Pumphouse Visitors Center, and Celebration Plaza.

This triangular little patch of green, donated to the city in 1870 by politician Charles Wicker, is a neighborhood favorite and home to softball fields, a children's water playground, a dog park, and outdoor movies. The handsome central fountain is a great spot for chilling out and people-watching in warm weather.

One of 28 city green spaces, Woodland Park has a playground, ball fields, rose gardens, and a picnic area. Geese, ducks, peacocks, and black swans swim and flutter at the pond, which offers night-lit ice-skating and comfy locker rooms in winter. Open from June to August, Woodland Water Park is an affordable and popular attraction with a pool, waterslides, and a "Lazy River" float.

Knoxville hosted the World's Fair in 1982, and the legacy is a green space maintained in the heart of the city. The centerpiece is the Sunsphere, a gold-domed observation tower with 360-degree views of the city. Below, there's a splash pad that's popular with children during summer and a festival lawn and amphitheater that host events throughout the year.

At this leafy, 735-acre retreat, hiking paths wind through the trees, paddleboats navigate Porter Lake, and hungry ducks float on a small pond. The zoo, where Theodor Geisel—better known as Dr. Seuss—found inspiration for his children's books, is home to nearly 200 animals, from camels and bobcats to lemurs and wallabies. It's manageable in size, and spotting animals in the exhibits is fairly easy, which makes this an especially good stop for families with small children. Another plus: you can purchase small cones of food from the gift shop to feed many of the animals. Leave time to explore the park after you finish the zoo.

A well-traveled Native American trail through hardwood forests, meadows, and ravines is now part of the 650-acre Blendon Woods Metro Park. Just one of the parks in the system, it offers four-season fun with cross-country skiing, disk golf, hiking trails, and a nature center. In the waterfowl refuge, you might see 500 or more black ducks on the 11-acre lake on a winter's day.

An outcropping of nature in a sea of North Berkeley homes, this is an unbeatable spot for a sunset picnic. Look for amateur rock climbers, after-work walkers, and cuddling couples, all watching the sun sinking beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Come early to grab a spot.

The 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.

Runners, joggers, and power walkers charge along the 3.4-mile path that encircles this 155-acre heart-shaped natural saltwater lake. Crew teams glide across the water and boatmen guide snuggling couples in authentic Venetian gondolas (fares start at $60 per couple for 30 mins; 510/663–6603, gondolaservizio.com), while yogis, jugglers, and picnickers look on from the shore. Lakeside Park, which surrounds the north side of Lake Merritt, has several outdoor attractions, including the small children's park, Children's Fairyland (699 Bellevue Ave.), and the Lake Merritt Wildlife Sanctuary, a water and air fowl haven that was also North America's first wildlife refuge. Don't miss the nearby Grand Lake neighborhood, centering on the parallel strips of Lakeshore Avenue and Grand Avenue, for good browsing and even better eating.

Tree-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.

The Central Valley's largest urban park, with 300 acres of jogging trails, picnic areas, and playgrounds, is especially pretty in spring, when plum and cherry trees, magnolias, and camellias bloom. Outdoor concerts take place in summer. The Shinzen Friendship Garden (shinzenjapanesegarden.org) has a teahouse, a koi pond, arched bridges, a waterfall, and Japanese art.