Arboretum · State College, Centre County
The Arboretum at Penn State
The university's public garden, with the formal H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens, a children's garden and pollinator plantings, and the Palmer Museum of Art next door.
What you will find
- Garden
Make a day of it
Nearby
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Palmer Museum of Art
Penn State's art museum, which moved in 2024 into a striking new building in the arboretum, with galleries spanning American, European, Asian and contemporary art.
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Pennsylvania Military Museum
Exhibits on the state's soldiers from colonial times onward center on the 28th Infantry Division Shrine, with a walk-through World War I trench scene.
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Rothrock State Forest
Deep hollows and long ridges of the Seven Mountains, with the Mid State Trail, the old-growth hemlocks and rhododendron of the Alan Seeger Natural Area and the boggy Bear Meadows Natural Area.
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Whipple Dam State Park
Cool water and a sandy beach make this small, forest-ringed lake a low-key summer swimming spot, with shaded picnic groves and short trails in the surrounding ridges.
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Bellefonte
A Victorian county seat of ironmasters' mansions and governors' homes, built around the Big Spring and Talleyrand Park, with trout fishing on Spring Creek.
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Penn Roosevelt State Park
Remote and rustic, this tiny park sits in a mountain bowl of the Seven Mountains, with a small pond, the remains of a Depression-era CCC camp and backcountry trails heading into Rothrock State Forest.