2019 Top 20 Places to Take Kids in and around Salt Lake City, UT

Discover the power of play at Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum! Located at the Gateway shopping center in downtown Salt Lake City, Discovery Gateway offers 60,000 square feet of interactive, hands-on fun. Visit the Museum to explore engaging workshops, programs, and exhibits that invite the whole family to create, learn, and play together!  

Visit the animals of the African Savanna, the bears and pinnipeds at Rocky Shores, or the big cats of the Asian Highlands plus much more!  Classes, events, camps, and daily programs occur all summer long!  Visit hoglezoo.org for details.

Tracy Aviary offers opportunities to view hundreds of live birds. Families can also watch bird shows, attend classes and summer camps, take guided tours, and hand feed some of the birds. Birthday party packages are available.

The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium showcases ecosystems from around the world. Come see sharks, otters, penguins, seahorses, sea jellies, snakes, caimans, piranhas, stingrays, and more! Make sure you don't miss the Expedition: Asia habitat, featuring clouded leopards, Asian small-clawed otters, giant Asian fish, birds, and more.

Of course, our local library system is not really ONE place, it is MANY places... but it's important to emphasize how valuable libraries are for family learning and fun. The libraries in our area are wonderful about posting their events to the KidsOutAndAbout calendar so you always can get ideas for free things to do with your kids that celebrate education and imagination. KidsOutAndAbout.com takes this opportunity to salute the wonderful children's librarians who serve our community with such dedication.

For more than 50 years, Clark Planetarium has been Salt Lake’s go-to destination for visitors of all ages who want to discover and learn about space and science. We engage audiences inside our walls and across the State of Utah in the creative process that is science through educational outreach, hands-on exhibits, on-site programming and our IMAX and dome theatres. 

Cherry Hill features a pirate ship, a Cardiac Canyon River Run, a lazy river, water slides with fog and lighting effects, 2 swimming pools, mini golf, batting cages, a ball crawl, climbing wall, camping, and outdoor pavilions for parties.

Wheeler Historic Farm is a Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation facility, open to the public 365 days a year. A restoration of the turn-of-the-century dairy farm of Henry J. Wheeler, the farm includes demonstrations and exhibits. As an interactive working farm. Visitors can milk cows, view farm animals, and learn about the buildings and machines that made this 19th-century farm successful.

Red Butte Garden is the largest botanical garden in the Intermountain West and together with the University of Utah, is a state arboretum. We are located on 100 acres in the foothills on the eastern edge of the University of Utah campus. The Garden has welcomed guests since 1985 and consists of over 21 acres of developed gardens and five miles of hiking trails winding through an extensive Natural Area. The Garden; which is community-funded; is renowned for its numerous plant collections, display gardens, 500,000 springtime blooming bulbs; including a vast collection of daffodils; world-class outdoor summer concert series, and award-winning horticulture-based educational programs.

To provide innovative, professional family theatre and theatre education that involves and elevates our community.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens, the Children’s Discovery Garden, Farm Country, and the Museum of Ancient Life, Emporium, and restaurants offer stimulating and engaging experiences in a safe, family-friendly setting. They foster learning, bring families closer together and provide beautiful gathering places for groups of all kinds, giving them opportunities to share their cultural heritage and common bonds.

Cornbelly's offers corn mazes, haunted corn mazes, and Halloween/farm fun (scarecrow scavenger hunt, a cow train, slides, a zipline, a pumpkin patch, corn cannons, pig races, a jumping pillow, a princess playground, a Jack-o-Lantern tree, etc.).

Visit the animals of the African Savanna, the bears and pinnipeds at Rocky Shores, or the big cats of the Asian Highlands plus much more!  Classes, events, camps, and daily programs occur all summer long!  Visit hoglezoo.org for details.

CenterPoint Legacy Theatre is a community-based theatre performing broadway style musicals and plays. CPT offers incredibly talented local artists the opportunity to perform on a  beautiful main stage and little theater performing space. Their academy also performs familiar stories like "Annie, Jr." and "Aladdin, Jr.". There is truly something for everyone at CenterPoint Legacy Theatre.  

Red Butte Garden is the largest botanical garden in the Intermountain West and together with the University of Utah, is a state arboretum. We are located on 100 acres in the foothills on the eastern edge of the University of Utah campus. The Garden has welcomed guests since 1985 and consists of over 21 acres of developed gardens and five miles of hiking trails winding through an extensive Natural Area. The Garden; which is community-funded; is renowned for its numerous plant collections, display gardens, 500,000 springtime blooming bulbs; including a vast collection of daffodils; world-class outdoor summer concert series, and award-winning horticulture-based educational programs.

The Utah Jazz is an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association as part of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference.

The South Davis Recreation Center is the premier swimming, fitness, ice skating and family activity center in Davis County. Come for physical fitness, personal training, family swim or ice skating days, racquetball, basketball and more. You can join competitive and recreational athletic teams like basketball, volleyball, softball, water polo and more