Photo by Brett Shoaf

For culturally minded visitors, San Diego makes it easy. Some 15 museums are located in one beautiful urban space: Balboa Park, a jewel located in the heart of the city. Established in l868, and encompassing almost 1,200 acres, the park hosts 13 million visitors annually.

They come to explore everything from  art to history to zoology.

Known as the Smithsonian of the West, the park offers the added attractions of eight gardens, walkways, hiking trails, an IMAX domed theater, and the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, where free Sunday concerts are held at the world’s largest outdoor organ.

And there’s still more — a separate area of Balboa Park acts as the site of the famed San Diego Zoo.

I  began my exploration with a guided walking tour that left from the Visitors Center. As we strolled along El Prado, a wide, palm-tree lined walkway, we learned about the park’s wide-ranging flora. Our guide pointed out a huge Moreton Bay fig tree, one of the largest trees in the U.S. (The tallest tree in the park is a 180-foot-tall eucalyptus, he added.)

The museums, too, are impressive in their diversity. One building alone houses the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Model Railroad Museum and the San Diego History Center.  Most of the Spanish Colonial buildings date from San DIego’s 1915-1916 and 1935-36 expositions.

The Mingei International Museum focuses on folk art, while the San Diego Museum of Art,  the city’s largest art museum offers an outdoor Sculpture Court Café, a delightful place to relax.

Another highlight was the Old Globe Theatre, which is actually three theaters. The best known one is the Old Globe, a circular building which looks just like the original in London and hosts summer Shakespeare festivals. But there’s also a larger open air theater and an arena stage.

The theater complex is situated behind the Museum of Man — one of the park’s most striking buildings. Built in 1914, it’s the tallest structure in San Diego. Its tower is crowned with a beautiful tiled dome.

Photo by Richard Benton

The next day, I visited the world-famous San Diego Zoo, home to more than 4,000 animals, including exotic and endangered species like the giant panda. (You can find them in just three other American zoos.)

Since the Zoo covers a large expanse, I began with a guided bus tour. It’s also an accredited botanical garden with 6,000 different trees and plants, I learned: including numerous banana trees, from which the Zoo’s gorillas daily feed.

We zipped by the 7.5 acre Elephant Odyssey, where we caught glimpses of these 12,000-pound animals. Not only do these thirsty creatures drink 30-50 gallons per day, our guide also noted that they get a daily pedicure.

Other areas we passed included the Polar Bear Plunge, Monkey Trails, and Gorilla Tropics.

When the tour was over, I followed signs to re-visit a few areas and get close-up views of the animals in their habitats. They seemed entirely undisturbed by the visitors peering at them with cameras pointed.

After two days, I’d still barely scratched the surface of Balboa Park’s multi-faceted offerings, but the beauty of the natural — and man-made — gems whet my appetite for future visits.

Entrance to La Mamounia; photos by Robert DiGiacomo

Marrakech is many things –– exotic, chaotic, dusty –– but rarely tranquil. The narrow streets of the medina, or old city, teem with humanity, as locals and tourists jockey for space with two- and four-wheeled vehicles powered by gas, diesel and donkey. A visit here is exactly what I imagined and yet it made want to seek out any touches of green I could find amid the unforgiving stone and dirt alleys.

I located several such spots, starting with the spectacular La Mamounia. This grande dame property’s stately olive grove dates to the 18th century, while the hotel opened in 1923 as Marrakech’s first hostelry. A meticulous three-year, nearly $180 million renovation has added a myriad of traditional tile and other handcrafted design details to what had been a generic luxury hotel.

The cost of entry is dear –– rooms start at about $500 a night –– but you can enjoy the public areas and sumptuous grounds for the price of the buffet lunch around the pool, or as it’s more elegantly described, Le Pavillon de la Piscine.

Le Pavillon de la Piscine at La Mamounia

Nearby is the public Lalla Hasna Park, which is as democratic as La Mamounia is exclusive. This swath of green offers a sweeping view of the Koutoubia Mosque, which dominates the medina’s skyline and whose regular call to prayer offers a sacred-secular call-and-response with the relentless drone of bargaining in the souks.

Lalla Hasna Park

But Morocco’s most unusual outdoor space proved to be the “secret” Majorelle Garden. Situated just outside the walls of the medina in an inauspicious plot next to a Lady Fitness center, the compact site is well worth seeking out.

Sprung from the imagination of French painter Louis Majorelle in 1947 and nurtured by another visionary –– iconic fashion designer Yves St. Laurent –– the garden transports you to a fanciful place.

Majorelle Garden

Here, spiky cacti, sweeping palms and mini forests of bamboo vie for space along with flowering blooms in shades of pink, purple and canteloupe.

The greenery contrasts with the buildings, pots and other elements trimmed out in electric blue, lemon yellow and deep orange. It’s startling and somewhat theatrical, but then so is much of colorful, cacophonous Marrakech.

My self-imposed parameters for this adventure were that the sites be in Dallas (not the suburbs), free (no restaurant patios or museums, then!), outdoors (you can hack the heat, can’t you?), and outfitted with generous amounts of seating.

Here’s what I found:

Dallas Farmer’s Market: A bench in the shade outside Shed 2 of the Market on a Sunday offers some of the city’s best people-watching. During my stint there, a busker with a guitar chatted with a buddy by the snack bar, an older gent sat reading a newspaper across the way, a little boy had a minor meltdown because his folks wouldn’t let him try to catch a pigeon on the shed roof. (Not clear how he intended to do that, but I’m sure he had a plan.)  Benches and tables and chairs are well place, and and the scene is a cultural crossroads, from sleek blonde mommies to grizzled bikers in bandanas and leather.

Pioneer Plaza Cattle Drive: I stopped here on impulse en route to the Farmer’s Market. Around the larger-than-life sculpture of longhorn and horse-riding cowboys, kids dabbled in the water, couples sat on stones in the shade, a tour bus pulled up and disgorged tourists with cameras, and an ice cream man set up shop. The downtown skyline added a touch of urban excitement. The scene is more tranquil than dynamic, but this inviting spot attracts all kinds of people — and is said to be the second-most visited attraction in the city (after Dealey Plaza).

Bishop Arts District: Benches in the Bishop Arts District are seldom ideally placed (what’s with the bench facing the parking lot?), but this funky intersection in the Oak Cliff neighborhood is ripe for people-watching. On a Sunday morning, diners line up in front of Oddfellows, waiting for brunch and a crack at the eatery’s famed coffee menu. At other times, a full calendar of events in the area — from chili cook-offs to crafts markets, plus the popular First Thursdays, draws an eclectic and always-colorful crowd.

Photos courtesy of Visit Dallas

Fair Park: The fountains burbled and the gardens were lush, but the park — which offers a great collection of Art Deco exposition buildings, as well as several specialty museums — was pretty empty on a Sunday afternoon. I did find clusters of strollers at the Texas Discovery Gardens, ten themed areas that offer everything from a butterfly habitat to a scent garden. I sat on a wall outside the gardens’ entrance, near a couple of fellows with their noses buried in books, and watched families come and go.

OK, so it’s not New York yet. But at least I see glimmers of hope — when I know where to look.

Sophia Dembling is the author of The Yankee Chick’s Survival Guide to Texas.

photo by Becca Hensley

For many, Amsterdam means Rembrandt, canal houses, and cheese so aged it tastes like crispy caramel. Then, there’s those nefariously intoxicating coffeehouses, those tulips, that Delft china. Antiques to die for and a not so seamy Red Light District.

But what leaves the biggest impression on me when I visit this treasure of a city is life in the bike lane.

Absolutely the first thing you have to know about Amsterdam is how to ride a bike Amsterdammer style: don’t ride two abreast, cross tramlines with care, yield to the right etc. Or at the very least, as a pedestrian, know how to dodge them.

According to recent statistics, there’s nearly a bike per person with 600,000 bikes rolling through the cobblestoned streets of this 900 year old city. Everybody pedals — and nobody wears a helmet, nobody. In a city with countless canals, narrow streets and more than a thousand bridges, bikes rule the road. (To live like a local, do consider renting a bike if just for a day — or take a scenic bike tour.)

But it’s not simply a question of streets crowded with bikes at all hours. (I look out the window of my hotel in the hip Jordaan area at 2 a.m. and see perhaps thirty bikes pass below me in fifteen minutes.)

What really awes even the bike savvy visitor is the way Amsterdammers ride. It’s as if they were born with two wheels attached to their body rather than two feet. They are totally at ease — which means they do on their bikes what the rest of us do sitting down, or at least walking very slowly.

Photos courtesy of the Amsterdam Tourism & Convention Board

Fearless, they pile myriad people onto bikes— including tiny children who sit either in front or behind their parents (both if there are two children) or in a sort of wooden bucket contraption that looks like a bicycle basket on steroids and elongates the front of the bike. On their own, these kids manifest superhuman bike skills, buzzing through the streets without training wheels.

And, people eat on their bikes — even messy foods like French fries crammed into paper cones, crowned with mayonnaise.

On a spring day in the central part of town, one woman carries four dogs on her bike: three in the bucket and one in the handlebar child seat. Another combines children, dogs, groceries and toys as riders, all ensconced in the bucket of her brightly painted vehicle.

I see a very old lady cycling, holding her bike with one hand and an overflowing bag of groceries with the other. I observe a father, kids balanced like bookends, riding with no hands while talking on his phone with one hand and lugging boards and other building supplies with the other.

Another guy, with an adult passenger sitting side-saddle behind him, texts with furious abandon while cruising into oncoming traffic. After exiting an antique store, one man rides while holding what appears to be a valuable vase.

When it starts to rain, nearly every rider, in echoes of Mary Poppins, pulls an umbrella from their bag and holds it to shield them —and their riders —without even stopping. Many women cycle in spiked heels and tight, short dresses; tons of folks don business suits and carry briefcases.

And  — yes, really! — nearly everyone seems to tote a neatly wrapped bouquet of tulips.

It felt as if we had been transported to 19th-century England, but we were in the center of Halifax, in the provincial capital’s Public Gardens, one of the finest original Victorian gardens in North America.

A band struck up a rousing tune in the octagonal band shell. Fountains splashed. Over the way, a string quarter accompanied the clatter of tea-cups at the Mayor’s Garden-Party. Toddlers fed ducks at the pond, while pigeons perched on a tree, waiting for unwary crumbs to fall.

It was easy to imagine nannies in starch-stiff aprons wheeling high perambulators along the pathways among lavish flowerbeds. We almost expected to see Mary Poppins hovering overhead.

There’s been a private garden here as far back as 1753, and in the 1830s, the members of the Nova Scotia Horticultural Society leased 5 ½ acres along Spring Garden Road to demonstrate “the cultivation of choice fruit trees, vegetables, rare plants and flowers.” The aim: to be ‘accessible to all classes’ so they could find ‘health and cheerfulness.’

photos by John Downie

In 1866 an alderman created another garden on a piece of wasteland nearby, and in 1874 the whole lot was assembled into one. The present layout is thanks to the superintendent, Richard Power, who had been gardener to the Duke of Devonshire in Ireland. Remarkably, Power’s descendants carried on the tradition of caring for the gardens until the 1960s.

You enter this 17-acre urban paradise through ornamental wrought-iron gates imported from Glasgow in 1889. Weeping trees, classical bridges, a stone grotto and a delightful Water Fowl House: it all presented enough activity, floral and otherwise, to keep us haunting the place every day.

Roses edged along archways, 32 “floating gardens” surrounded the band shell, a hibiscus grove blossomed as the art-class from a nearby school keenly sketched it all. There were rare trees, like that living fossil, the ginkgo (Maiden Hair Tree), a confused young pheasant that thought it was a duck, and a giant grey goose straight from a fairy tale with orange beak and feet — and, despite it all, a dignified expression.

Times have changed slightly since our first enchanted discovery of this not-so-secret garden. After living in the gardens for 20 years, Mamma Goose went to that great pond in the sky last year, while a junior pair of Toulouse Geese have been recently adopted to delight the nursery rhyme set. A competition for children to choose their names yielded Flora and Finnigan. (We tried to get a picture, but they were too busy fluffing themselves.)

Visitors are asked not to feed the fowl, nor do the staff. The birds are encouraged to remain self-sufficient, to forage for themselves. They’re doing just fine, although they still waddle hopefully towards you. In fact, the black ducks fly downtown to the harbour for a fish dinner every night.

The rustic post-and-beam Horticultural Hall (1847), the oldest meeting hall in Canada (they kept vegetables in the cellar) serves hand-paddled cream, uber-cinnamon buns, sandwiches and fair trade locally-roasted coffee for those without wings.

Matanzas Inlet, courtesy of the St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra, & The Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau

In St. Augustine, Fla., anyone on a quest for the Fountain of Youth will find outdoor adventures certain to get their juices flowing.

Known as America’s first city, St. Augustine is hip-deep in history, including being the site of the legendary Fountain of Youth “discovered” by Ponce de Leon in the early 1500s and the 17th century Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest surviving European fort in the continental United States.

But the attractions that make this Floridian gem even more special have been around for thousands of years –– the sparkling Mantanzas Bay, the murky shallows of the Guana River, and the dunes of Anastasia State Park, home to a rare species of nocturnal mouse.

St. Augustine is an ideal spot to keep Father Time at bay, walking through the charming historic district, jogging on wide beaches and swimming in the Atlantic.

Led by Rachel Austin of Kayak Adventures, I took part in a group that paddled through Guana’s prehistoric wetlands, snaking through stands of lush reeds and gasping at the sight of a baby alligator swishing through the water.

The 2,000-acre preserve is home to more than 260 species of birds. Paddling near a clearing, we spied a flock of ravishing roseate spoonbills, long-legged birds with preternaturally beautiful pink feathers that make flamingos look drab by comparison.

If you want to soar like a bird –– and get your heart pounding –– try parasailing over Mantanza Bay. Our guides, Smile High Parasail, offered three different heights ranging from “Wussy Flight” (700 feet) to “Cloud Observer” (1,400 feet).

I screamed all the way up, paused to look down at the boat, which now looked like a bobbing toy in a vast sea, and then started screaming again.

Boy, did that feel great!

Castillo de San Marcos, courtesy of St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra, & The Beaches Visitors and Convention Bureau

At Marineland, a small dolphin conservancy, I swam with dolphins –– actually, it was more like wading –– and enjoyed an exhilarating, hands-on experience with these amazing mammals.

I also saw dolphins in the wild during an intimate boat excursion  led by  St. Augustine Eco Tours. Zach McKenna, the outfit’s owner and chief tour guide, is a passionate environmentalist who is studying the bottlenose dolphin. The water also offers a glorious view of the St. Augustine skyline.

After all that adventure, a gal needs refreshment.

For my money, the most authentic taste of old Florida is Cap’s on the Water, located on the Intracoastal Waterway between Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine.

Try to find a table on the deck overlooking the water, where you will be cooled by bountiful beer and vintage electric fans mounted in live oaks.

There’s an oyster bar and the menu is heavy on local seafood. In addition to shrimp, crab and fresh fish, I opted for the gator tail with a citrus dipping sauce. Served in chunks, it’s a mite chewy and doesn’t really taste like chicken.

But in the spirit of adventure, why not give it a try?

View of Fairmount Water Works and Philadelphia Museum of Art from West River Drive. Photo by Cathleen McCarthy

Philadelphia has a quirky beauty: part old-European elegance, part urban funk. It’s a city designed for pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages, and that intimacy of scale makes it nice for bikers and skaters too. According to the Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition, bicycling in the city has doubled since 2005 and is about to get even more popular. This summer, the city approved a plan to turn a traffic lane of Pine and Spruce streets into one-way bike lanes, which will make it blissfully easy to get from Rittenhouse Square to Society Hill on two wheels.

For a more adrenaline-fueled tour, join the Philadelphia Landskaters on one of their weekly city skates. Bladers meet at the steps of the art museum—yes, the ones Rocky ran up—then dash, en masse, through picturesque old neighborhoods and zoom through a subway tunnel. I’ve tried the advanced Tuesday night skates—whoosh!—and the more leisurely Sunday morning version. Both offer a fun way to meet adventurous locals. Warning: Skating over Belgian blocks can be a bit tricky and watch out for those subway grates.

On a sunny weekend, I recommend the trails along the Schuylkill. If you’re staying at a hotel downtown, you can access the Schuylkill River Trail from Walnut Street. Benches along the riverbanks present a perfect vantage point to watch the regattas on a summer weekend, or you can do what I do and join the race. It’s pretty easy to outrun scullers on a bike or skates.

A four-mile stretch of West River Drive takes you from the traffic barrier at Strawberry Mansion Bridge to the golden columns of the art museum. From this side of the river, the Fairmount Water Works resembles a mini-version of the neoclassical art museum looming above it. Spin around Eakins Oval and head back up the west bank or opt for the bike path along Kelly Drive. This trail gets crowded on the weekend, creating an obstacle course at times, but the mood is jovial and the views spectacular. You’ll pass the boathouses and tombs tucked into the hillside of Laurel Hill Cemetery. If you’re feeling ambitious and have time, you can follow the bike path to Manayunk or all the way to Valley Forge, 20 miles northwest.

One recent morning, I knelt beside West River Drive to take a picture of the Water Works. A few yards away, a tattered fellow with a long, straggly beard parked a shopping cart full of empty bottles and began waving his gnarly, rolled-up sleep mat at me. My first instinct was to bolt. Then I realized he was offering it as a kneeling pad. Ah, Philly, city of brotherly love. I thanked him and skated on with a smile.

David Byrne knows urban biking. Cathleen McCarthy reviews his new book, Bicycle Diaries.