Six Flags Fiesta Texas | Go San Antonio Pass

10+ things to do in San Antonio with kids for a fun family vacation

If you’re looking for things to do in San Antonio with kids, you won't be short of things to do.
By Katie Sagal

San Antonio has lots of family-friendly attractions and things to do that are perfect for keeping both younger and older kids entertained.

Check out this list of our favorite kid-friendly activities, including... 

  • SeaWorld® San Antonio 
  • Six Flags Fiesta Texas 
  • Tower of the Americas 
  • San Antonio Zoo 
  • Natural Bridge Caverns Discovery Tour 
  • and more... 

SeaWorld® San Antonio

Immerse yourself in the wonders of the sea at SeaWorld San Antonio. Kids can get up close to diverse marine life, including dolphins, penguins, and polar bears. They can also reach speeds of up to 50mph on a roller coaster, see orcas up close, and meet the cast of Sesame Street® at SeaWorld® San Antonio.

In between shows, you can visit a variety of sea animals in their different habitats at the park's exhibits. Adrenaline-seekers can take their turn on one of SeaWorld’s thrill rides, like the fast-moving The Great White® ride featuring 360-degree flips and corkscrews, or The Steel Eel with its 15-story vertical drop and series of camelbacks that will make you feel weightless.

Seaworld San Antonio

Six Flags Fiesta Texas

From roller coasters to bumper cars, Six Flags Fiesta Texas boasts all the classic theme park fun kids love. With six distinctly themed areas within the park, there's something for the whole family to enjoy. They have everything from water rides to bumper cars to roller coasters.

Their most popular attractions are BATMAN: The Ride, the unique Bahama Blaster, and the amazing Boomerang. In addition to lots of rides, there are tons of shows and other popular entertainment options including dining and shopping spots.

Splashtown San Antonio

Visit an amazing water park just three minutes north of downtown San Antonio. With 20 acres of rides, slides, and water-based fun, Splashtown San Antonio is sure to delight your entire family. While there's plenty for adults to enjoy, Kid's Kove is specially designed for the little ones. Filled with lily pads, splash features, and games, this area is perfect for them.

For older kids, Splashtown San Antonio is home to a massive wave pool, 40 slides of varying thrill levels, and fun beach games like volleyball if you fancy a break from the water. Visitors to Texas know that it gets hot, so head to the waterpark to cool off for an afternoon and take a break from the heat.

Tower of the Americas

Tower of the Americas

Tower of the Americas is San Antonio's very own Seattle Space Needle equivalent. This iconic tower stands out on the skyline and provides some of the best views of the city. Head up to the Flags Over Texas: Observation Deck and you'll get 360-degree views that stretch out for miles and learn about all the landmarks you see from the top.

For a slightly more thrilling experience, take a turn on the Skies Over Texas: 4D Theater Ride and feel like you're flying right over Texas. This thrill ride takes visitors to exciting scenes throughout Texas, including a Friday night football game and a space shuttle NASA.

San Antonio Zoo

From alligators to zebras, the San Antonio Zoo is home to 750 different species of animals from around the globe. This is truly one of our favorite things to do in San Antonio with kids. Featured areas include Africa Live!, Amazonia, Big Cat Valley, and several more.

Kids will also enjoy The Tiny Tot Nature Spot, which features daily activities for your little one. They can try climbing, playing dress-up, and more. Dedicated to inspiring curiosity and educating the public, the San Antonio Zoo is a great resource for educational entertainment that the kids will love.

Insider tip: To get the kids excited for their visit, download the San Antonio Zoo app and let the kids explore points of interest and learn about the animals they can expect to see.

San Antonio zoo

Natural Bridge Caverns Discovery Tour

Go on a guided adventure at 180 feet below ground at the Natural Bridge Caverns and travel through a half-mile of the most extensive cavern in the San Antonio area. This is perfect for the adventurous kids, the ones you can't get to come back inside after a long day of play. They'll learn about history and science, dating back to the Cretaceous period. Entertaining and knowledgeable guides will teach them all about these unique, natural formations.

Insider tip: Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, you'll need traction on these steep, wet surfaces. Don't forget your camera!

Natural Bridge Caverns

Witte Museum

From Texas-specific art and history to studies of ancient civilization, the Witte Museum explores a variety of topics that will appeal to kids and adults alike. Kids will love exploring the H-E-B Body Adventure exhibit designed to educate kids in a unique, interactive way about healthy living.

They'll be able to test their energy score, check their stride and height measurements, and receive a personalized take-home POWERprofile. They also have some immensely popular rotating exhibitions, so be sure to check their schedule before your visit to see what's on.

Witte museum

San Antonio Museum of Art

Get the kids excited about art in this former 19th-century brewery-turned-museum. The San Antonio Museum of Art is home to an extensive collection of art from around the globe boasting more than 30,000 artifacts spanning over 5,000 years of history. The museum features Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities, Latin American artwork, contemporary art, and Asian art.

There is even an entire gallery dedicated exclusively to Texas art. Check the museum website before you go to see if any family-centric events or activities are coming up during your visit. They offer frequent museum-hosted events like family storytelling, themed playdates, and even exercise classes.

You can visit many of these great kid-friendly attractions with a San Antonio pass. You'll enjoy incredible savings and can take your pick from over 25 top San Antonio attractions. To learn more about pass durations and how to make the most of your time in the city, click here.

Texas Hill County & LBJ Ranch Tour

Get the kids excited about American history and get the Texas Hill Country experience on a fully guided, one-day excursion from San Antonio. You'll tour Lyndon B. Johnson's boyhood home and the LBJ Ranch before breaking for lunch and free time in the picturesque and historic Luckenbach, a classic German town.

Then, learn all about the wine industry in Texas first-hand (for adults 21+, of course) at an award-winning winery.

Ranch tour

Ripley's Believe It or Not! San Antonio

See how you stack up next to the world's tallest man, Robert Wadlow, at Ripley's Believe It or Not! San Antonio. Kids and adults alike will get a kick out of all the unbelievable things at the strangest place in San Antonio.

Visitors can browse through 18 themed galleries with over 500 exhibits in this "Odditorium" dedicated to examining bizarre and unusual phenomena. Plus, you'll get to learn about the fascinating life of Mr. Ripley himself, from semi-pro baseball player and cartoonist to collector and curator of his famous discoveries.

The Alamo

If you're visiting San Antonio, you have to take the kids to the most visited historic landmark in all of Texas. The Alamo is located in the heart of San Antonio and the former Spanish church turned fortress serves as a testament to those who sacrificed their life in the famous battle in 1836. Walk around the very spot where Texan troops defeated the larger Mexican force and achieved independence to the shouts of "Remember the Alamo!" after months of fighting.

The Alamo

DoSeum

Inspire the kids at this interactive, cutting-edge children's museum in San Antonio that explores how imagination and creativity — when put into action — can advance the fields of science and technology in very tangible ways.

This indoor/outdoor museum features 39,000 square feet of exhibits, featuring Sensations Studio, Explore, Little Town, Innovation Station, Spy Academy, and Imagine it! Kids are challenged both physically and mentally to learn about scientific concepts in a way that feels strictly like play — where it's all about doing.

Explore The Pearl

Located a few miles up the river from downtown San Antonio is this vibrant, up-and-coming neighborhood in San Antonio. The Pearl is bustling with local flavor, home to some of the trendiest restaurants and shops in the city, and has a unique culture of its own that celebrates art, individuality, and originality. Head here with the family for an excellent meal, poke around the shops and get a feel for the local culture of San Antonio.

Insider tip: Check the Farmer's Market schedule and plan a visit during one for some authentic local eats!

The Pearl San Antonio

HemisFair Park

Located on the site of the 1968 World's Fair, today HemisFair Park is a public space that has played a pivotal role in unifying its surrounding areas in the urban revitalization of San Antonio. Young kids will love the Pre-K Play area with its various play structures, games plaza with ping pong tables and Foosball. There's the large San Play area, and Splash Pad to keep the kids occupied while adults enjoy relaxing in one of the HemisFair's many green spaces.

Kiddie Park

Head to America's oldest children's amusement park for a nostalgic day filled with good old-fashioned fun geared towards kids ages 1-12. Kids will love riding the carousel, ferris wheel, roller coaster, and lots of other original park rides. They're sure to get a kick out of a pony ride (available most weekend days). Featuring classic theme park attractions, you can expect lots of thrilling rides, arcade games, carnival games, face painting stations, and more at Kiddie Park.

San Antonio Aquarium

San Antonio Aquarium

If your little ones love aquatic critters and a visit to SeaWorld only sparked their passion and curiosity, then a trip to the beloved San Antonio Aquarium is a great idea. Your kids will get the opportunity to interact with marine life in a variety of informative ways, such as feedings, keeper talks, and dynamic exhibits. It's the perfect opportunity to teach them about conservation, too.

Save up to 50% on San Antonio attractions

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☀️See all San Antonio attractions ☀️ – 🌏 Explore other destinations 🌏 – ✈️ Buy a San Antonio pass ✈️

Katie Sagal
Go City Travel Expert

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San Antonio itinerary - 3 days for first timers

Spending a long weekend in San Antonio and looking for things to do? We've put together a list of the best things to do in San Antonio over a long weekend, so you can spend less time planning and more time exploring.
Katie Sagal
DoSeum in San Antonio
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Best Museums in San Antonio

Learning is one of life's many joys, but for many of us, it takes until adulthood to feel like that. When you're younger, learning can feel like a drag. After all, school gets in the way of all your life-learning experiences. How can you learn how to perfect a kickflip when you've got math? Learning to style pigtails? Sorry, write another book report on Of Mice and Men. Ugh. School, right? But now you're an adult, and what do you learn? Work's hardly stimulating your brain. Where can you turn for some of that sweet, sweet knowledge? Put down that book, you square, and head to a museum! These monuments to history, knowledge, and discovery come in all shapes and sizes, serving you with a hearty helping of information. San Antonio has its fair share of museums, so no matter your desires, you're sure to find one just for you. But which are the best? Read on, discover our picks of the best museums in San Antonio, and then brave the outdoors to see them. Including: Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Ranger Museum San Antonio Museum of Art The Alamo & Long Barrack Museum Witte Museum and more! Image courtesy of JustPixs/Shutterstock Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Ranger Museum Let's kick things off with some bucking buckaroos! If you're the kind of person that yearns for the Old West, minus the rampant diseases, daily chance of death, and general horror, then boy, do we have a museum for you! Take a trip back to Texas' hat-tipping past at the Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Ranger Museum! The Buckhorn Museum traces its heritage back to the late 1800s. The founder of the saloon started collecting bones, antlers, and other natural artifacts from hunters and tradespeople passing through. Now, you can see more than 500 species of preserved wildlife, some as old as ten thousand years old! The antler display alone is worth a whole picture album, so get snapping. Then, enter the adjoining Texas Ranger Museum to get a better look at life on the frontier. Created to bring law to a lawless place, you can now get up close and personal with their gear. You'll find hundreds of authentic ranger artifacts, from weapons and badges to their hats and coats. Even people with a passing interest in the old west will consider these two the best museums in San Antonio, so add them to your itinerary and go see them for yourself! Image courtesy of AbeSnap23/Shutterstock San Antonio Museum of Art Looking for something a little more...visually appealing? Then you're probably in the market for an art museum. In which case, how does gazing at over 30,000 artistic objects from over 5000 years of human history sound? Good? Well, take yourself to the San Antonio Museum of Art, then, because that's where you'll find them. You'll find historical delights from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as art from Asian and Latin-American History. But that's not all, because they're joined by contemporary pieces courtesy of some of the best modern artists around. You'll even find exhibits dedicated to Texan artists! If art is your thing, the San Antonio Museum of Art should be a must-visit on your vacation. The Alamo & Long Barrack Museum The Alamo is one of the most famous places in America. For more than 300 years, five different armies have been positioned there, and the flags of six different nations have been hoisted atop it. Perhaps most famously, it was the arena for the Battle of the Alamo, where Mexican troops retook the fortress before US coalition forces eventually retook it, finally declaring Texas a US State. So, there's a lot of history here. Why not explore it and visit this hallowed ground for yourself? You've got plenty of options during your visit. You could take a guided tour of the fort and surrounding area, or go your own way with an audio tour. You'll find the Alamo Church and the Long Barrack Museum on the grounds too, where you can learn more about the armies, and the people within them, which called the fortress home. You can even participate in recreations of famous moments from the Alamo, if you're so inclined. Courtesy of Kit Leong/Shutterstock Witte Museum Prefer your history of the natural sort? Well, why not head to San Antonio's largest museum and go exploring? With over 10 acres of space dedicated to everything from science to history, the Witte Museum is one of the best museums in San Antonio! Explore the Naylor Family Dinosaur Gallery, where you'll encounter skeletons, excavate dinosaur bones, and learn about giant dinosaur footprints. Did you know that Texas was covered in water 90 million years ago? Well, you will do when you go! At H-E-B Body Adventure, you'll explore the human body like never before. Over four floors, you'll learn about its limits, and its goings on from the inside out. And at the Kittie West Nelson Ferguson People of the Pecos Gallery, you'll learn about the lives and travails of Tecan prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Gaze upon life-sized recreations of their camps, how they created artwork within caves, and what they did to survive. The DoSeum Bringing the little ones along with you on your vacation? Then treat them to a museum made just for them! The DoSeum is San Antonio's museum for kids, and it's a great place to open their minds. Part museum, part classroom, they'll learn all about themselves, their world, and what lies beyond. Fun is the name of the game here, so don't expect any stuffy classrooms where they'll be bored. Instead, DoSeum aims to make learning fun, with interactive exhibits and workshops that will help them develop interests in science, art, and writing. It might not have much for us grown-ups, but with plenty to keep your kids engaged, you'll get away with doing something for yourself right after! And those are our picks for the best museums in San Antonio! Now take that newfound knowledge and go out to change the world! Or, at least, flex your superior intellect to your colleagues. If you're looking for more fun things to do during your vacation, check out Go City. With our Explorer Pass, you can see San Antonio's best bits, as well as some of the best museums in the city, at your own pace!
Dom Bewley
New Year fireworks light up the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio.
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New Year's Eve in San Antonio

San Antonio is a city that knows how to throw a party, and its New Year’s Eve celebrations are no exception. We’re talking gala dinners, lavish balls, live music (played loud!) and some of the biggest and best firework displays in Texas. And that’s not all: there are oodles of top-notch attractions to keep you entertained all day long in the Alamo City, before you hit the River Walk bars and restaurants in the evening, from the San Antonio Missions and historic Alamo itself, to the observation deck that tops the soaring Tower of the Americas. Suffice it to say, San Antonio is packed with way more landmarks than even the most dedicated sightseer could possibly fit into a single day. Our guide picks out some of the best to make your New Year’s Eve in San Antonio go off with a bang. Morning: Delve into Texan History San Antonio is chock-full of historic treasures, with the Alamo and San Antonio Missions being far and away the biggest ticket items. Set aside a full morning for either one of these bucket-list beasts and we promise you will not be disappointed. The 1836 Battle of the Alamo is etched into San Antonio’s very DNA. You can delve into the iconic Mission-turned-garrison’s rich history and discover its pivotal role in the conflict, as well as paying tribute to American folk heroes Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, who met their end here. Take a guided tour of the battlefield to hear how the massacre unfolded and view the epic collection of Alamo artifacts donated by pop legend Phil Collins in 2014. Once the biggest private collection of its kind, it boasts priceless treasures including an original Bowie knife, and a leather pouch and rifle owned by Davy Crocket. Choose the San Antonio Missions tour if you want to dive even deeper into the Spanish influences that shaped the city. This epic 3.5-hour extravaganza takes in multiple missions and other architectural marvels. Step inside the 200-year-old Mission Concepción – an ultra-photogenic IG addicts’ dream of Spanish and Moorish architecture that’s only the oldest unrestored stone church in the US. Here’s where you can ogle original frescoes and explore the various nooks (sanctuary, nave, granary) once used by Franciscan friars. The tour also calls at the (even older) Mission San José with its beautiful baroque rose window (La Ventana de Rosa), and the Espada Acequia, an extraordinary feat of 18th-century engineering that is one of the oldest working aqueducts on the planet. Afternoon: A Visual Feast Hit up the colorful San Antonio River Walk for lunch. This epic urban ecosystem is the cultural, artistic and social artery of the city, a broad and lively waterway that’s liberally lined with fine bars and restaurants. So you’ll have no difficulty finding somewhere great to eat, though you may well struggle to choose just one place! There’s so much to do down here that you could easily fill a leisurely afternoon. Stroll the River Walk Public Art Garden near the intersection of Market and Alamo Streets for eye-popping sculptures and installations from contemporary local visual artists. Explore the lavish mansions in the King William Historic District. Or just soak up the atmosphere and take in the views on a sightseeing river cruise. You could also spend your New Year’s Eve afternoon ticking off any one of stacks of other top-tier attractions in and around the Downtown area. Go wild at San Antonio Zoo, where you can meet the majestic lions of Big Cat Valley, say ‘hey’ to resident hippos Timothy and Uma, and spy spectacled bears snoozing in their grottoes. Or get your culture fix at the San Antonio Museum of Art, housed inside the former Lone Star Brewery, where the story of five millennia of human history is told through Roman and Egyptian antiquities, Latin American and Asian art, and much more. Look out for highlights including 1530 painting The Holy Family by Giuliano Bugiardini and an extensive collection of elaborately decorated Iranian pottery. And, if being in an old brewery has whet your appetite for a taste of the good stuff, hit up the original Texas brewstillery, Ranger Creek, where the tour and tasting experience includes samples of beer and bourbon straight from the barrel. Just remember though: New Year’s Eve is a marathon, not a sprint. And it isn’t even evening yet... Evening: The Best of San Antonio’s Party Scene Nighttime options abound for your New Year’s Eve celebration in San Antonio. Start your evening with dinner on the River Walk where cuisines run the gamut from fine dining seafood restaurants to dirty burgers and Tex-Mex. Perennial favorites here include Joe’s Crab Shack, Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse, and Boudro’s Texas Bistro. Or hit up the Southtown Arts District for hip oyster bars, trendy taquerias and some of the best modern American fare in town. Try Little Em’s, Bliss and Bar Loretta for the win. Suitably stuffed, it's time to get your party shoes on. There will be events going on at all the major players in town, with live music, dancing and general merriment all included in the price of entry. Check listings for the likes of The Pearl, the Grand Hyatt, Hotel Emma and the historic Menger Hotel for some of the grander shindigs. Live music bar Howl at the Moon’s New Year’s Eve parties are the stuff of legend, and proximity to the River Walk means great views of the midnight fireworks, making this one of San Antonio’s most popular options. And if views of the firework displays are at the top of your wish list, the River Walk is by no means your only option. There’s an annual party and pyrotechnics show in Hemisfair Park and, for completely uninterrupted views, the observation deck at the Tower of the Americas – 750 foot icon of the San Antonio skyline – glass of champagne in hand, is hard to beat. Do bear in mind that bars everywhere will be packed and events ticketed, so you should book well in advance if you plan to attend a specific party. Save on activities and attractions in San Antonio Save on admission to San Antonio attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak

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