Best Things to Do with Kids in Dallas

Are you taking your kids to Dallas and thinking about how to keep them occupied? Not to worry. Whether you have an energetic toddler, a perceptive tween, or a demanding teen, the city is bursting with family-friendly activities that even parents might enjoy.

To begin with, there are numerous family-friendly attractions in the downtown area alone. One of the most well-known is the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, which has enough mind-blowing displays to captivate both children and adults for hours. Klyde Warren Park, a 5-acre deck park close to the Perot, offers a great kids’ area, and a games area with foosball and ping-pong tables, and it also regularly holds free events including performances and film screenings. Teenagers might be a difficult demographic to appeal to, but they won’t be bored at all when they swing their way around the zip-line obstacle course at Trinity Forest Adventure Park.

Oh, and that’s not the end of it. Also, there is a fantastic zoo and everything from a virtual reality experience. Thus, the next time you’re looking for family-friendly activities in and around Big D, keep this checklist close at hand.

 KLYDE WARREN PARK

Klyde Warren Park is a must-have on any list of family-friendly attractions. This 5.2-acre linear park is one of Dallas’ top places for locals to congregate and is perched on top of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway in the Dallas Arts District. It features a butterfly garden as well as designated sections for toddlers, pets, and playing video games. Speaking of children, the park is expanding the area designated for them to 18,000 square feet to make place for brand-new, cutting-edge play structures that include a climbing tower, a climbing wall, and spinning components. Were holiday activities, musical performances, family movie screenings, and food trucks mentioned?

Klyde Warren Park is suggested for Things to Do with Kids because it provides a never-ending selection of enjoyable, cost-free activities for children of all ages.

 TRINITY FOREST ADVENTURE PARK

Trinity Forest Adventure Park, a seven-acre hybrid assault course and zip line park where families can soar, bounce, climb, and clamber to their hearts’ delight, is located only minutes from downtown Dallas. Designed for visitors aged four and up, the park features more than 20 zip lines that range in height from 10 to 75 feet above the ground, as well as 70 different elements (such as cargo nets, wobble bridges, strict ropes, and others) that are dispersed across eight aerial obstacle courses that each have a different elevation and level of difficulty. All of the courses are self-guided so that everyone can proceed at their own pace, but it’s crucial to keep an eye on the clock because tickets are only good for three hours.

Trinity Forest Adventure Park is a delight for teenagers, tweens, and children aged 4 and up. It is suggested for Things to Do with Kids because.

 PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE

This magnificent 180,000-square-foot science museum on the outskirts of the Arts District was designed by Thom Mayne, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Award. It has five floors of interactive exhibits covering everything from Earth and space to geology, archaeology, and engineering. Features include a quake simulator, a children’s museum with a dinosaur excavation, and a collection of gems and minerals with a 5-foot geode. Take the external glass escalator to the top and descend while taking in the expansive views of downtown Dallas. This is an excellent starting point. This location will interest visitors of any age, whether they are science enthusiasts or simply have a curious mind.

Suggested for Things to Do with Kids because Children ages 3 to 15 will find the Perot Museum to be very engaging.

 DALLAS WORLD AQUARIUM

This privately owned aqua paradise is situated inside a sizable renovated warehouse in Dallas’ Historic West End District and is home to various varieties of marine life from all over the world. The aquarium is home to stingrays, piranhas, electric eels, poison dart frogs, and Orinoco crocodile in addition to stingrays, piranhas, electric eels, poison dart frogs, and sharks that circle overhead in a 20,000-gallon walk-through display that is forty feet long and is enclosed in glass. Along with seeing manatees, enormous river otters, three-toed sloths, dolphins, and other animals up close, visitors may also explore a lush, three-level recreation of the South American rainforest.

The Dallas Aquarium is a great family activity since it offers an authentic, enjoyable experience for all ages.

 EPIC WATERS INDOOR WATERPARK

You’ll soon forget about the public swimming pools of your childhood after seeing this 80,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor aquatic wonderland. The waterpark, which is owned by the City of Grand Prairie, has eleven distinct waterslides, including the highest indoor Aqualoop in the country and the nation’s first indoor double-rider Aquasphere inner tube attraction. You don’t like water slides. No problem, the park also has one of the biggest lazy rivers in America, a kiddie play area, a 10,000-square-foot wave pool, and a surf simulator. 4,000 square feet of arcade space, a café, and a full-service bar are also there; good luck getting your family to leave. The park is open all year round, which is the best part if you want to swim around.

Because Epic Waters is the biggest indoor water park in the country with a single-roof terrace, it is suggested for things to do with kids.

 DALLAS ARBORETUM AND BOTANICAL GARDEN

The Dallas Arboretum, regularly rated as one of the best botanic gardens in the nation, has 66 acres of sculpted gardens filled with annual flowers, attractive bushes, trees, and exotic plants. So, it goes without saying that horticulture lovers must visit this location, but kids will also like it. Kids will especially enjoy exploring the Rory Meyers Children Adventure Garden, an 8-acre oasis with water features, interactive displays, a treetop canopy walk, and a two-story treehouse, in addition to a year-round calendar jam-packed with family-friendly events. Pick up a scavenger hunt map at the information desk, just in case.

The Dallas Arboretum is a fantastic opportunity for children to blow off steam while simultaneously learning about gardening, making it a recommendation for Things to Do with Kids.

 DALLAS ZOO

The 106-acre Dallas Zoo, which houses approximately 2,000 animals from about 400 species, is the biggest and oldest zoological park in the state. Yet this place isn’t just your typical walking animal exhibit. The majority of the cages were built to mimic the animals’ natural habitats. One of them is the 11-acre Giants of the Savanna exhibit, which is the only zoo exhibit in the United States to house elephants alongside other animals of the same genus in the same environment (think calves, cheetahs, and zebras). Aside from a miniature train and a specially designed merry-go-round, there is also a pet farm, a child’s zoo with interactive screens, and a swap shop with nature-inspired things where kids may trade stuff. Animal encounters and a giraffe feeding experience are included in daily presentations.

The Zoo is a fantastic place for people of all ages to get up and personal with nature, making it a suggested activity for things to do with kids.

 KIDZANIA USA-FRISCO

Children can role-play more than 100 occupations in a miniature version of a city at this international chain of indoor theme parks located in Frisco’s Stonebriar Mall mall. Kids ages 4 to 14 can participate in a range of real-life experiences at this 100,000-square-foot, two-story facility, including piloting aircraft on flight simulators, putting out fires, and creating Spotify podcasts. Kids receive a paycheck in kidZos (play money), which they may spend on activities and toys inside KidZania, for each assignment they complete. Oh, and did we also mention that in the on-site restaurants, you can make your own pizzas and design cupcakes?

Although KidZania is intended for children 4 years of age and up, kids between the ages of 7 and 12 will benefit the most from it.

 NATIONAL VIDEOGAME MUSEUM

Parents won’t have to persuade their children to visit this museum. The National Videogame Museum (NVM), a real vintage gamer’s paradise housed inside the Frisco Discovery Center, is devoted exclusively to the history of the gaming industry. The museum, which was the creation of three lifelong gamers, houses the largest functional Pong game in the world among its astounding collection of videogame artifacts. Also, visitors can play all the classic games in addition to seeing them. Both Donkey Kong and Space Invaders are present, along with a retro arcade with game stations where you can compete against loved ones. Talk about a time travel moment.

Suggested for Things to Do with Kids because  What’s not to appreciate about a museum full of computer games, many of which are playable?

 DREAMSCAPE IMMERSIVE

Do you want to send your kids on a fascinating adventure into another world? When it happens, Dreamscape Immersive will be unlike anything they’ve ever had. Dreamscape is a hybrid of a theme park ride and a movie theatre that is situated on the second level of North Park Center. Using body-mapping and real-time motion capture technology, participants can interact as full-body avatars in a virtual, three-dimensional environment. Each adventure lasts roughly 35 minutes and costs $19.99 for a ticket (including check-in and gearing up). It’s important to order tickets online in advance because showings frequently sell out.

Dreamscape is a fantastic journey for kids ages 10 and up, and it is strongly recommended for Things to Do with Kids.