La Brea Tar Pits Tickets: Visiting with Kids

Here's the thing most people miss before they even leave their hotel: La Brea Tar Pits tickets only apply to the museum building, not the park around it. The grounds in Hancock Park — including several of the actual bubbling asphalt seeps and the famous mammoth statues — are open to the public at no charge. The ticket you buy covers entry to the Page Museum, the indoor fossil lab, and the excavation exhibits that explain what's been pulled out of the ground since digging began there in the early 1900s.

That distinction matters for budgeting a family day. If you're traveling with toddlers who won't last through indoor exhibits, you can get a genuine LA experience — walking past a tar pit where Ice Age animals got stuck — without spending a dime. If your kids are old enough to care about actual fossils, skulls, and a glass-walled lab where paleontologists work on real specimens, the museum ticket is where the value is.

What museum admission includes

Standard admission gets you into the main exhibit halls, the observation pit area, and generally includes access to a short introductory film about the tar pits' formation. It typically covers same-day re-entry, so you can step out to the park, let kids run around the lawn near Pit 91, then come back in. Children under a certain age are usually admitted free or at a reduced rate — the museum's official site lists current age cutoffs and prices, and that's the only place to confirm them, since these details shift periodically.

What costs extra or is excluded

Special traveling exhibits, when they're running, usually cost extra on top of general admission. Parking is also a separate line item — there's a lot adjacent to the museum on Wilshire Boulevard, and it's paid, not included in your ticket price. Food isn't included either; there's a small café, but it's limited, and most families end up walking to the Original Farmers Market or grabbing something on Museum Row instead. Don't assume any guided tour or behind-the-scenes lab access is bundled in — those, when offered, are typically add-ons booked separately.

I'd argue the free outdoor section is actually the more memorable part for kids under seven, and the paid museum is the more educational part for kids eight and up. That's an opinion plenty of parents will disagree with — if your child is obsessed with dinosaurs and fossils specifically, the museum will win regardless of age. But for pure spectacle, nothing beats standing a few feet from a pit of black asphalt that's been slowly swallowing things for tens of thousands of years, for free, with no ticket scan required.

The outdoor tar pits cost nothing, while the museum and nearby Museum Row stops each require a separate paid ticket.

La Brea Tar Pits tickets compared: free pits vs paid museum vs Museum Row add-ons

Typical figures and structures; confirm current admission prices and age categories on the official museum site before you book.

What you can see in Hancock Park for free

Hancock Park itself is open daily during daylight hours and costs nothing to walk through. You'll find the Lake Pit with its sculpted mammoth family appearing to sink into the tar, smaller active seeps scattered across the lawn, and informational signage explaining the asphalt seepage process. There's also an outdoor area near Pit 91 where, depending on the season, you might see active excavation work behind a viewing fence. None of this requires a ticket, and it's a legitimate stop even if you only have 20-30 minutes between other Museum Row plans.

What only the museum offers kids

The museum is where the actual fossils live — dire wolf skulls, saber-toothed cat skeletons, and the famous wall of dire wolf crania that tends to be the one photo every kid remembers. There's usually a glass-enclosed fossil lab where visitors can watch real preparators cleaning bones pulled from the pits, which is far more engaging for kids than static displays. Interactive stations let children touch casts of fossils and compare bite force or skeletal size, something you simply can't replicate standing outside at the Lake Pit.

Once you've decided the museum is worth it, the next question is which ticket tier makes sense. The museum generally structures pricing by age bracket — adult, senior, student, and young child — with the youngest kids often free or heavily discounted. There isn't usually a separate "family ticket" bundle the way some European attractions offer; you typically buy individual tickets per person.

General admission vs add-on experiences

General admission is the only ticket most families need. Add-on experiences — like a guided excavator tour or special lab access — pop up occasionally and are priced separately on top of your base ticket. Unless your child is genuinely fixated on paleontology, skip the add-ons; the standard ticket already includes the fossil lab viewing and most interactive exhibits. I'd avoid booking an add-on sight unseen before your trip, since availability and format can change — check what's actually running when you buy.

Passes and memberships that include entry

If you're combining several LA museums in one trip, it's worth checking whether a city attraction pass includes La Brea Tar Pits — some multi-attraction passes bundle it with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, since both are operated by the same county museum system. A household or individual membership to that museum system can also cover unlimited entry to both the Natural History Museum and La Brea Tar Pits for a year, which pencils out if you're local or returning to LA within 12 months. For a single family vacation, straight general admission is almost always simpler and cheaper than chasing a pass.

Buy directly from the museum whenever possible. It's the fastest way to confirm current La Brea Tar Pits admission prices, age discounts, and whether timed entry is required that day — all details that change and that only the official source can state accurately.

Buying through the official museum site

The official site lets you select a date and ticket type, then checkout with a mobile ticket you scan at entry. If the museum is running timed entry (common during peak school-holiday weeks), the site will show available slots rather than letting you book an open-ended day pass. Buying a day or two ahead is sensible during spring break or summer, since popular time slots can fill before you arrive. Always confirm current prices when booking — the museum updates figures periodically, and this page won't quote a number that could already be outdated by the time you read it.

Tips for avoiding third-party resellers

Third-party ticket sites sometimes rank well in search results for "La Brea Tar Pits tickets" and charge a markup for exactly the same admission you'd get at face value from the museum. Some also bundle in unrelated attractions you don't need, inflating the price further. If a site isn't the museum's own domain, treat it with suspicion — check the URL carefully before entering payment details, and compare the listed inclusions against what official admission already covers.

La Brea Tar Pits sits in the middle of Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district, which makes it one of the easiest LA attractions to combine with a full day out rather than a standalone stop. You won't need to drive between venues — most are walkable from each other.

Nearby Museum Row stops that suit kids

The Petersen Automotive Museum is a short walk away and tends to land well with kids who found the fossil lab a bit slow — its ground floor has flashy cars and a hands-on Discovery Center aimed squarely at children. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is next door too, though it skews more toward teens and adults unless there's a specific family program running. Compared to spending a Museum Row day versus, say, a day trip to Anaheim for theme parks, this is the far cheaper, far less exhausting option — no lines, no all-day commitment.

Sample half-day and full-day flow

For a half-day: start at the free outdoor pits for 30-45 minutes, then do the museum for 1.5-2 hours, and finish with lunch at the Original Farmers Market a short drive away. For a full day: add the Petersen Automotive Museum in the afternoon, since kids' attention spans usually hold for one more museum before they're done. Visiting on a weekday morning avoids the heaviest school-group crowds, which tend to arrive midday.

For most families spending a day on Museum Row, yes — but it's not a must-do on the scale of, say, Griffith Observatory or the Getty, both of which are free and arguably offer more visual payoff per hour spent. La Brea Tar Pits earns its place because of novelty, not grandeur: there's nowhere else in a major US city where you can watch an active fossil excavation site a few steps from a traffic-heavy boulevard.

By age group and traveller type

Toddlers and preschoolers: stick to the free outdoor pits, skip the museum ticket, and don't force it — the indoor exhibits move too slowly for that age. Elementary-age kids: this is the sweet spot; the museum ticket is worth buying, and kids this age tend to remember the dire wolf wall for years. Teens: hit or miss, but pairing it with the Petersen or LACMA next door usually keeps them engaged longer. Seniors and couples without kids: the museum is a reasonable 60-90 minute stop, though it's less compelling than a coastal day in Santa Monica or Santa Barbara if natural history isn't a particular interest. European travelers comparing it to home-country fossil museums may find it modest in scale — it's not the Natural History Museum in London — but the outdoor tar pits are something you genuinely can't see elsewhere.