With kids · Dallas · United States
Dallas with kids
Family-tested sights, a calm base and the practical details that make travelling with children easier.
Updated By the AMZBooking editorial team
Photo: Photo: Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0
Quick answer
Dallas suits families with the Perot Museum, Dallas World Aquarium, Klyde Warren Park's children's area and the Arboretum's children's garden, plus the zoo on the light rail. Arlington's Six Flags and stadium tours are half an hour away. Top picks: Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas World Aquarium and Klyde Warren Park. Families usually base themselves in Downtown and the Arts District.
Key facts
- Family picks
- 7
- Best area for families
- Downtown and the Arts District
- Rainy-day options
- 2
Best things to do with kids
Museum · Victory Park
1.Perot Museum of Nature and Science
A striking cube-shaped building by Thom Mayne with an outdoor escalator in a glass tube, five floors of hands-on halls on dinosaurs, energy, gems, the human body and engineering, and a children's area for the youngest visitors.
Take the glass escalator to the top floor and work down; it avoids the crowds at the ground-floor dinosaur hall.
- Time needed
- 3 hours
- Cost
- Mid-priced
- Kids
- Rainy day
- Architecture
Aquarium · West End
2.Dallas World Aquarium
A privately run aquarium and zoo in a converted West End warehouse, built around a multi-level South American rainforest walkthrough with sloths, monkeys, toucans and an underwater tunnel with manatees and fish from the Orinoco River.
Go early on weekends; the narrow rainforest walkway gets congested by late morning.
- Time needed
- 2 hours
- Cost
- Mid-priced
- Kids
- Rainy day
- Nature
Park · Arts District
3.Klyde Warren Park
A deck park built over the sunken Woodall Rodgers Freeway in 2012, joining downtown's Arts District to Uptown. It has lawns, a children's park with water features, a dog park and a daily line-up of food trucks, plus free activities such as yoga and outdoor games.
Grab lunch from the food trucks along the park's edge and eat on the lawn facing the downtown towers.
- Time needed
- 1 hour
- Cost
- Free
- Free
- Kids
- Outdoors
- Food
Zoo · Oak Cliff
4.Dallas Zoo
Dallas's long-established zoo, just south of downtown, has a large African savanna section with giraffes you can feed, elephants and lions, as well as a children's zoo. A DART light-rail station sits at its entrance.
Ride DART's Red Line straight to the Dallas Zoo station and visit in the morning before the heat.
- Time needed
- 3–4 hours
- Cost
- Mid-priced
- Kids
- Outdoors
- Nature
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Garden · White Rock Lake
5.Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden
Display gardens on the eastern shore of White Rock Lake, known for the Dallas Blooms spring festival with hundreds of thousands of bulbs, the autumn Pumpkin Village of tens of thousands of pumpkins, and a large children's science garden.
Visit on a weekday morning during Dallas Blooms; spring weekends get very busy.
- Time needed
- 2–3 hours
- Cost
- Mid-priced
- Outdoors
- Kids
- Couples
- Photo spot
Viewpoint · Downtown
6.Reunion Tower GeO-Deck
The tower topped by a lattice ball of lights, a landmark on the Dallas skyline since 1978, has an indoor and outdoor observation deck about 140 metres up with views over downtown, the Trinity River bridges and on clear days towards Fort Worth.
Go at sunset; the ball's light displays look best from the ground afterwards.
- Time needed
- 1 hour
- Cost
- Mid-priced
- Views
- After dark
- Couples
- Kids
Landmark · Downtown
7.Pioneer Plaza cattle drive
A park next to the convention centre with 49 larger-than-life bronze longhorn steers and three cowboys driving them down a hill and across a stream, commemorating the cattle drives along the Shawnee Trail. It is a popular free photo stop.
Combine it with the Pioneer Park Cemetery next door and a walk to Dealey Plaza, about 10 minutes away.
- Time needed
- 20–30 minutes
- Cost
- Free
- Free
- Kids
- Photo spot
- History
Rainy-day ideas
- Perot Museum of Nature and Science — Take the glass escalator to the top floor and work down; it avoids the crowds at the ground-floor dinosaur hall.
- Dallas World Aquarium — Go early on weekends; the narrow rainforest walkway gets congested by late morning.
Where families should stay
$$$ · Best for first-timers, culture and families
Downtown and the Arts District
Downtown Dallas holds Dealey Plaza, the Sixth Floor Museum, the Dallas World Aquarium and Reunion Tower, while the Arts District on its northern edge has the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher and the Crow Museum. Many historic office buildings have become hotels, and DART light rail lines all meet here.
- Good
- Walk to the main museums and the JFK sites; Hub of the DART rail network; Grand historic hotels
- Watch out
- Quiet streets at night outside events; Hot to walk in summer
- Nearby
- Sixth Floor Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Klyde Warren Park, Reunion Tower
Family travel tips
- In summer, keep outdoor sights to the early morning and spend afternoons at the Perot Museum or the aquarium.
- Stay downtown near the Arts District to walk to the Perot Museum and Klyde Warren Park.
- The Arboretum's Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden is excellent for school-age children.
- Take DART's Red Line to the Dallas Zoo to avoid parking.
- Pack swimwear for the splash areas at Klyde Warren Park.
Day trips for families
- Fort Worth (About 45 minutes by car or 1 hour by TRE train) — Fort Worth's Stockyards keep cowboy traditions alive with a twice-daily longhorn cattle drive along Exchange Avenue, rodeos and honky-tonks such as Billy Bob's Texas.
- Arlington (About 30 minutes by car) — Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth, has AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, with tours of the field and locker rooms, the Texas Rangers' Globe Life Field and the Six Flags Over Texas theme park.
- Waco (About 1 hour 30 minutes by car) — Waco draws visitors to Magnolia Market at the Silos, the Dr Pepper Museum in the drink's original bottling plant and Waco Mammoth National Monument, where Columbian mammoth fossils lie where they were found.
- Grapevine (About 35 minutes by car) — Next to DFW Airport, Grapevine has a historic Main Street of shops, wine tasting rooms and restaurants.
- Dinosaur Valley State Park (About 1 hour 45 minutes by car) — Near Glen Rose, the Paluxy River bed preserves some of the best dinosaur trackways in the country, visible when water levels are low.
When to go with children
The best months overall are March–April and October–November. Weather by month.
Questions travellers ask
+Is Dallas good for kids?
Dallas suits families with the Perot Museum, Dallas World Aquarium, Klyde Warren Park's children's area and the Arboretum's children's garden, plus the zoo on the light rail. Arlington's Six Flags and stadium tours are half an hour away.
+What can kids do in Dallas?
Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas World Aquarium, Klyde Warren Park, Dallas Zoo and Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.
+Where should families stay in Dallas?
Downtown and the Arts District: JFK sites, art museums, Klyde Warren Park and converted office towers.