La Brea Tar Pits and Museum Tickets, Los Angeles, CA

The museum was very informative and it's was really cool to see the actual tar pits where so many fossils have been found. There is a decent sized parking lot on-site, but it isn't free.

We recently visited the La Brea Tar Pits museum and had a great time. The highlights for us were the fossil displays, the fossil lab where items are cleaned, watching the ongoing excavation at Pit 91, and taking the Excavators Tour led by Daniel, who was very knowledgeable and engaging and patiently responded to all our many questions. Unique experience - not many museums have an active dig site where missions of fossils have been recovered and more are being found every day!

I've always wanted to check out the La Brea tar pits ever since I watched the Flintstones. Went with the wife and 3 kids. it's not a cheap museum which I guess should be expected in LA. Parking alone is $20. We skipped the museum but decided to walk around the grounds. There are trails and various tar pits with information. There was a crew excavating a chunk of the tar which was pretty neat. The fella who worked for the museum chatted us up for a bit and was friendly and informative. Warning, there are small pits of tar throughout the facility marked by bright colored cones. Easy to avoid if you want. Also, an attractive nuisance for trouble-making kids. Our boy got his hands into the tar and it was a huge mess and production to get it off. Lesson learned. ha! Have fun, enjoy the living history, but keep an eye on curious kiddos in your group.

Explore the world's only active, urban Ice Age excavation site where the best fossils, animals and plants are showcased. Located at 5801 Wilshire Boulevard, the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum are the world's most powerful gateway to the Ice Age. The sticky asphalt that seeps at the tar pits are the only fossil dig site in the world. Plants and animals that have lived in the Los Angeles Basin for the last 50,000 years are discovered here every day. Outside, watch excavators carve fossils out of the asphalt where animals were trapped and preserved for us to find today. See the results in the see-through Fossil Lab: saber-toothed cats, mammoths, dire wolves, sloths, mastodons, insects, plants, mammals and reptiles. Open daily from 9:30 to 5 at 900 Exposition Boulevard, the museum protects and preserves more than 35 million specimens and artifacts, the largest natural and cultural history collection in the western United States. The museum is one Los Angeles' oldest cultural institutions and today is the anchor of an emerging cultural, educational and entertainment hub on Exposition Road. Visitors can see exhibitions such as Age of Mammals, the Dinosaur Hall, the Gem and Mineral Hall and dioramas. Outdoors, they can browse the Nature Gardens. They also can visit the iconic Lake Pit, located in front of the museum, which is actually a pit left over from asphalt mining operations in the late 1800s. Rain and groundwater has collected above the bubbling asphalt, creating a small lake. See a recreation of a mammoth being trapped in tar. Also visit Hancock Park, which is nestled between the museum and the tar pits. It's a playground for kids, a picnic area for families and a place for tourists to stroll and relax. But that's not all. Visit the Pleistocene Garden, a prehistoric landscape representing the native vegetation from the Los Angeles Basin 10,000 to 40,000 years ago. Based on 35 years of research from fossil excavations, the garden is divided into four ecological systems: Coastal Sage, Riparian, Mixed Evergreen/Redwood Forest and Chaparrel. No doubt about it. A visit to La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of Wilshire Boulevard.