top family-friendly spots

The Adventure Science Center

Explore the 15,000-square-foot Space Chase, scale the Adventure Tower or take in a star show at the Sudekum Planetarium, where a GOTO Chiron optical star projector displays more than 6 million stars (!) onto the theater’s 63-foot dome.*

Nashville Children’s Theatre

With year-round programming, NCT has provided exposure to the theatrical arts to deserving kids, families and educators across Middle Tennessee for 90 seasons and counting. The production quality is top-notch, and its Rutledge Hill venue also hosts the Nashville Repertory Theatre’s Ingram New Works Festival each spring.

Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

At the Nashville Zoo you can feed birds while they sit on your hand (or sometimes head), pet kangaroos (which are softer than chinchillas), hang out in a petting zoo filled with goats, llamas and alpacas, and visit more than 300 different species of animals, including red pandas, tigers and so many more.

The Adventure Park at Nashville

This maze of ropes, cables, planks and netting is the perfect spot for kids’ day out, a place for your little ones to unleash their inner monkey by swinging, climbing and ziplining their way through the trees.

Red Caboose Park

Playgrounds are often full of big kids, and the structures are just a bit too large to set a little one loose on. But at Bellevue’s Red Caboose Park, you’ll find bouncy stuff on the ground underneath the equipment to protect delicate noggins, a zero-entry merry-goround, and some fake trees for climbing fun. Plus, there are a dozen comfy picnic tables, gloriously located under a pleasant stand of wide-canopied trees.