Looking for the best things to do in Dallas? Locals point visitors to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Klyde Warren Park and the Arts District, the Dallas Arboretum, and the music and murals of Deep Ellum and the Bishop Arts District. Here’s how Dallasites actually spend their time, by area, by night, by budget, and by who you’re with.

Things to do in Dallas, by area

The Arts District & Klyde Warren Park

The largest urban arts district in the country: the free Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Perot Museum, and the deck-park over the freeway, Klyde Warren Park.

Dealey Plaza & Downtown

The Sixth Floor Museum tells the JFK story; Reunion Tower’s GeO-Deck gives the skyline view.

Deep Ellum

Dallas’s live-music and mural district — bars, venues, tattoo shops and street art east of downtown.

Bishop Arts District (Oak Cliff)

A walkable pocket of indie shops, murals and some of the city’s best restaurants.

The Dallas Arboretum & White Rock Lake

Gardens, seasonal displays, and a lakeside loop for walking and biking.

Things to do in Dallas at night

Deep Ellum for live music, Uptown and Lower Greenville for bars, and Bishop Arts for dinner and drinks — plus rooftop views around downtown.

Indoor & rainy-day things to do in Dallas

The Perot Museum, the free Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher, the Dallas World Aquarium, and the Sixth Floor Museum.

Free things to do in Dallas

• Klyde Warren Park
• The Dallas Museum of Art (free admission)
• The Katy Trail
• Dealey Plaza
• The Bishop Arts murals

Things to do in Dallas for couples

Klyde Warren Park and the Arts District, a Bishop Arts dinner, the Dallas Arboretum, and drinks with a view at Reunion Tower.

Things to do in Dallas with kids

Family wins: the Perot Museum, the Dallas World Aquarium, the Dallas Zoo, and Klyde Warren Park.

What Dallas locals actually recommend

Which districts are worth your evening, where to eat beyond the chains, the best local events — that comes from people who live here. On Neighborhood Nurturers’ Dallas community, real Dallas neighbors answer “what should I actually do this weekend?” Join your Dallas neighbors free →

Where this fits in Dallas

The best days here mix the well-known spots with the places only locals frequent. The picks in this guide make the most sense once you know how Dallas is laid out. Klyde Warren Park and the free Dallas Museum of Art sit at the center of where locals actually spend their time, so planning a full day out around one of them rarely goes wrong. When you want something calmer, the Katy Trail pulls you away from the busiest blocks, and White Rock Lake is the kind of spot regulars mention but visitors miss. Anchor your plan to one of those and the rest of the day in Dallas tends to fall into place.

More Dallas guides

Dallas rewards people who dig a little deeper. These related guides map the same neighborhoods from different starting points: Free things to do in Dallas, Best restaurants in Dallas, undefined Dallas — enough to plan a whole day or two.

Ask a Dallas neighbor

The best tips never make the guidebooks — they come from neighbors who know which spot is worth it this week. That is what the Dallas community on Neighborhood Nurturers is for. Ask Dallas locals what they would do, or join free and get honest answers from people who actually know Dallas.

Frequently asked questions

What are the top things to do in Dallas?

Locals send visitors to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Klyde Warren Park and the neighboring Arts District (the free Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher, the Perot Museum), the Dallas Arboretum, and the music and murals of Deep Ellum and the Bishop Arts District.

What is there to do in Dallas at night?

Dallas nights center on Deep Ellum (live music and bars), Uptown, Lower Greenville, and the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff. Rooftop bars and the view from Reunion Tower round it out.

What can you do in Dallas when it rains?

Head to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the free Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Dallas World Aquarium, and the Sixth Floor Museum.

What are free things to do in Dallas?

Klyde Warren Park, the Dallas Museum of Art (free general admission), the Katy Trail, and Dealey Plaza are all free.

What are the best things to do in Dallas for couples?

Klyde Warren Park and the Arts District, dinner and shops in the Bishop Arts District, the Dallas Arboretum, and drinks with a view at Reunion Tower.

What are fun things to do in Dallas with kids?

Family favorites: the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Dallas World Aquarium, the Dallas Zoo, and Klyde Warren Park’s lawn and food trucks.

The attractions, with what they actually cost

Dallas’s headline attractions are clustered closely enough downtown that several can be combined in a day. Prices and time needed matter more than descriptions, so here they are.

Reunion Tower — the GeO-Deck observation level sits 470 feet up with a 360-degree view, costs about $20 and takes roughly an hour. Evening and sunset slots book out; mornings and late afternoons are quieter and the light is better.

Perot Museum of Nature and Science — five floors including a T. rex, about $25, and realistically three to four hours. Entry is timed, and the interactive galleries fill quickly during school holidays and at weekends.

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden — 66 acres on the shore of White Rock Lake, about $20, three to four hours. Peak bloom is March to May, which is when it is genuinely spectacular rather than merely pleasant.

Klyde Warren Park — a five-acre deck park built over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, connecting downtown to the Arts District. Free, one to two hours, with food trucks. It is the best single illustration of what modern Dallas has tried to do with its downtown.

The Sixth Floor Museum and Dealey Plaza cover the Kennedy assassination and are the most-visited historical site in the city, and the Dallas Arts District holds the museums and performance halls in a walkable cluster.

Shopping, and two genuinely local institutions

Beyond the malls, two Dallas bazaars are worth knowing about because nothing else in the city is like them.

Harry Hines Bazaar at 10788 Harry Hines Blvd is a large indoor cultural bazaar with more than 300 locally owned shops — western wear, quinceañera dresses, jewellery, handcrafted goods and food. It opens Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 8pm, and is closed Monday to Wednesday, which is the detail that catches people out.

Big T Bazaar, also known as Big T Plaza, at 4515 Village Fair Dr in South Dallas has been running since 1989 and is a long-standing hub for affordable, unusual retail. Both are the opposite of a mall experience and far more interesting for it.

The districts are the real attraction

The single best piece of advice for a first visit is to spend less time on individual attractions and more in the walkable districts, because that is where the city actually lives.

Deep Ellum for murals, barbecue and live music; Bishop Arts for independent shops and the most walkable few blocks in the city; Uptown for polished dining and the M-Line heritage trolley; Lower Greenville for patios and bars. Each is a half-day in itself.

Outdoors, and the heat

White Rock Lake in East Dallas is the outdoor centrepiece — a lake loop for walking, running and cycling, with the Arboretum on its shore. Our Dallas parks guide covers the rest, including the water parks that dominate local summer searches.

Plan around the climate rather than ignoring it. Between June and September, outdoor attractions are a morning-or-evening proposition and the middle of the day belongs indoors — the Perot, the Sixth Floor Museum and the Arts District exist for exactly those hours. March to May and October to November are the months when Dallas is at its most comfortable outdoors, and when the Arboretum is at its best.

See also free things to do in Dallas, things to do with kids and events in Dallas.

A three-day first visit

Day one — downtown. The Sixth Floor Museum and a walk around Dealey Plaza in the morning, the Arts District and its museums through the middle of the day, and Klyde Warren Park in the late afternoon when the food trucks are out. Reunion Tower at a quieter hour if the view appeals.

Day two — the districts. Barbecue in Deep Ellum at opening, the murals along Elm, Main and Commerce, then across to Bishop Arts for the independent shops and an early dinner. Live music back in Deep Ellum, or a patio on Lower Greenville.

Day three — outdoors and out of town. The Arboretum and White Rock Lake in the morning while it is cool. Fort Worth is close enough for a half-day if you want the Stockyards and a completely different version of Texas, and it is the excursion most visitors are glad they made.

If you only have one day, do day two. The districts give a truer sense of the city than the attraction list does, and they are where you will actually meet people who live here.