7 Best Sights in The University of Arizona, Tucson

Students and counterculturists favor the ½-mile strip of 4th Avenue between University Boulevard and 8th Street, where vintage-clothing stores rub shoulders with eclectic gift shops and eateries. After dark, 4th Avenue bars pulse with live and recorded music.

The museum has exhibits exploring the history of Southern Arizona, starting with the Indigenous Hohokam Tribe and the Spanish explorers. The harrowing Life on the Edge: A History of Medicine in Arizona exhibit promotes a new appreciation of modern drugstores in present-day Tucson. Children enjoy the exhibit on copper mining (with an atmospheric replica of a mine shaft and camp) and the stagecoaches in the transportation area.

The library has an extensive collection of historic Arizona photographs and sells inexpensive reprints. Park in the garage at the corner of 2nd and Euclid streets and get a free parking pass in the museum.

Inside the main gate of the university is Arizona's oldest museum, dating from territorial days (1893) and a preeminent resource for the study of Southwestern cultures. Exhibits include the largest collections of Southwest Native American pottery and basketry, as well as Paths of Life: American Indians of the Southwest—a permanent exhibit that explores the cultural traditions, origins, and contemporary lives of 10 native tribes of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.

Ansel Adams conceived the idea of a photographer's archive and donated the majority of his negatives to this museum. In addition to its superb collection of his work, the center houses the David Hume Kennerly Archive and works by other major photographers, including Paul Strand, W. Eugene Smith, Edward Weston, and Louise Dahl-Wolfe. Changing exhibits in the main gallery display selected pieces from the collection. 

Attractions at the university's science museum include a 16-inch public telescope for evening stargazing; hands-on science exhibits about the solar system, fossils, bugs and marine biology; and planetarium shows.

This small campus museum houses a collection of more than 6,000 artworks, mainly European and American paintings from the Renaissance through modern day, including works by Georgia O'Keeffe and Jackson Pollock. A highlight is the Kress Collection's retablo from Ciudad Rodrigo: 26 panels of an altarpiece made in the 1490s by Fernando Gallego.

The giant mirrors used in the world's most advanced telescopes take about five years to create, and on this guided 90-minute tour you can view them in the different stages of the production process: glass melting, casting, grinding, and polishing. Reservations for the tours, offered weekdays for ages 10 and older, must be made in advance; closed-toe, flat shoes are a must.