The entire Balboa Park is a primary attraction in San Diego and the region. The Park's landscape has many mature, beautiful, and sometimes rare trees and groves creating an urban forest for San Diego. Many of the original trees were planted by the renowned American landscape designer, botanist, plantswoman, and gardener Kate Sessions. She was a forerunner of using drought tolerant and California native plants in garden design, establishing a nursery to propagate and grow for the Park and the public.

There are a number of Gardens in the Park including: Alcazar Garden, Botanical Building, Desert Cactus Garden, Casa del Rey Moro Garden, Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden, Japanese Friendship Garden, George W. Marston House and Gardens, Palm Canyon, and Zoro Garden.

Many of the park's cultural attractions are along El Prado, a long, wide promenade and boulevard running through the center of the park. Most of the buildings lining this street are in the Spanish Colonial Revival architecture style, a richly ornamented eclectic mixture of European Spanish architecture and the Spanish Colonial architecture of New Spain-Mexico. [2] Along this boulevard are many of the park's museums and cultural attractions, including the San Diego Museum of Man, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the San Diego Art Institute the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, the San Diego Natural History Museum, the San Diego Historical Society, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, and the Timken Museum of Art (where admission is always free). Other features along El Prado include the Reflection Pond, the latticed Botanical Building, and the Bea Evenson Fountain. Adjacent to the promenade is the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Theatrical and musical venues include the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, featuring the world's largest outdoor pipe organ (free performances every Sunday at 2:00 PM year round, and on Monday evenings at 7:30 PM during the summer); the Old Globe Theatre complex, which includes a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre as well as an outdoor stage and a Theatre in the round; and the Starlight Bowl - an outdoor amphitheatre. The Casa Del Prado Theater is the home of San Diego Junior Theatre, the country's oldest children's theatre program. The "International Cottages" collected on El Prado offer free entertainment shows during the 'high season' (Sundays-2:00 PM).

"The Botanical Building" is a very large and beautiful greenhouse from 1915 designed by Carleton M. Winslow, with large specimen palms and other plants inside and a long reflecting pool out to El Prado.

Located in the northeast corner of the Park is the Morley Field Sports Complex. Included in this complex are: the Balboa Park Golf Complex, the largest tenant with a public 18-hole golf course and 9-hole executive course; the San Diego Velodrome, baseball fields; the USTA awarded Balboa Tennis Club and tennis courts, archery ranges, the Bud Kearn Swimming Pool, and a disc golf course.

Other attractions in various areas of the Park include bridge and chess outdoor tables, horseshoe pits, playgrounds, walking and jogging trails, sports fields and courts, and picnic areas. Clubs and facilities for petanque and lawn bowling are based in the park. Abundant public transit and automobile parking options make Balboa Park easy to access and explore.

Among the institutions and facilities within the Park's borders but not administered by the city's Parks Department are the world famous San Diego Zoo, the Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), and San Diego High School.