Looking for the best things to do with kids in Denver? The Mile High City is a fantastic family town, with a top science museum, a children’s museum, and endless outdoor adventures. This local family guide covers Denver’s top kid-friendly attractions, museums, outdoor fun, and rainy-day options — plus how to find what local parents actually recommend.

Top things to do with kids in Denver

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (with its dinosaurs and planetarium) is a family must, as is the Children’s Museum of Denver at Marsico Campus, a beloved hands-on spot for younger kids. The Downtown Aquarium and the Denver Zoo round out the animal options.

Kid-friendly museums & attractions in Denver

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Children’s Museum of Denver anchor the family scene, joined by the Downtown Aquarium, the Denver Zoo, and the Botanic Gardens’ Mordecai Children’s Garden.

Parks & outdoor fun for families

Washington Park and City Park offer playgrounds, lakes, and open space, the Denver Botanic Gardens’ children’s area is a hit, and the nearby foothills (and Red Rocks) put easy family hikes minutes away. For more, see our guide to the best parks and outdoor spots in Denver.

Rainy-day & indoor options in Denver

On snowy or rainy days, families rely on the Children’s Museum of Denver, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and the Downtown Aquarium.

What local parents in Denver recommend

Kids’ favorites, new attractions, and which spots are worth it at each age change all the time — and local parents know the details that listings miss. On Neighborhood Nurturers’ Denver community, real Denver parents share what their kids genuinely love. For more ideas, see our guide to the best things to do in Denver. Join your Denver neighbors free and get real family recommendations →

Where this fits in Denver

Family spots here range from playgrounds to hands-on museums, and locals know which hold up on a rainy day. The picks in this guide make the most sense once you know how Denver is laid out. City Park and Cheesman Park sit at the center of where locals actually spend their time, so planning a day out with the kids around one of them rarely goes wrong. When you want something calmer, Confluence Park pulls you away from the busiest blocks, and the 16th Street Mall is the kind of spot regulars mention but visitors miss. Anchor your plan to one of those and the rest of the day in Denver tends to fall into place.

More Denver guides

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

Ask a Denver 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 Denver community on Neighborhood Nurturers is for. Ask Denver locals what they would do, or join free and get honest answers from people who actually know Denver.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best things to do with kids in Denver?

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Children’s Museum of Denver, the Downtown Aquarium, the Denver Zoo, and the Botanic Gardens’ children’s garden.

What can you do with kids in Denver on a snowy or rainy day?

Visit the Children’s Museum of Denver, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, or the Downtown Aquarium.

What do local parents recommend in Denver?

Denver parents share their kids’ genuine favorites and current tips in our community.

Family-friendly restaurants in Denver

Denver is an easy city to eat in with children, and the reason is structural rather than a matter of individual restaurants being tolerant. Two formats do most of the work.

Food halls solve the fundamental problem of feeding a family with different appetites. The Denver Milk Market at the Dairy Block downtown runs eleven all-local concepts from chef Frank Bonanno under one roof, from house-made pasta to a tuna poke stand, with a bar in the middle for the adults. Its recent refresh added two new food concepts and a game room. Avanti Food & Beverage in LoHi runs several independent kitchens out of modified shipping containers with a rooftop attached. In both, nobody has to compromise and nobody is stuck waiting for a single kitchen.

Brewery taprooms are the second, and this surprises visitors. Denver taprooms are frequently family spaces in the early evening, with large patios, outdoor room to move and food available. Denver Beer Co Platte Street at 1695 Platte Street has the patio that fills first on warm days. Policies vary by taproom and by time of day, so check, but the assumption that a brewery is adults-only does not hold in Denver.

And Little Man Ice Cream in LoHi, housed inside a twenty-eight-foot-tall milk can next door to Linger, is the most reliable bribe in the city. The queue is a permanent summer feature and moves faster in the evening than in mid-afternoon.

Parks and outdoor days

Denver has more than 300 parks, and Washington Park is the one residents name as the best. About 160 acres with two lakes, Smith Lake to the north and Grasmere Lake added in 1906, and the Great Meadow built between 1901 and 1907, which is the largest meadow in the Denver parks system and the reason it absorbs a busy weekend without feeling crowded.

For children specifically, the historic details give a walk a purpose: the 1911 bathhouse, the 1913 boathouse designed by Jules Jacques Benois Benedict, the Eugene Field Cottage moved into the park in 1930, and the Mount Vernon Garden near Grasmere Lake, which Saco DeBoer designed in 1926 based on the garden at George Washington’s estate.

The Cherry Creek Trail is the other outdoor asset, running roughly 45 miles, paved end to end, from Lower Downtown out past Franktown. Because it is fully paved and separated from traffic, it works for young cyclists and for pushchairs in a way that on-road routes do not. See parks in Denver.

Free things to do with children

Several of Denver’s best family outings cost nothing. The Great Hall at Denver Union Station is free to walk into and sit in, and for a child who likes trains it is an obvious win: the station opened on 1 June 1881, the Great Hall dates from 1914, and the restored chandeliers and marble floors survived the 2014 renovation.

The Highland Bridge is a 325-foot pedestrian span crossing the interstate, with its white arch rising seventy-five feet above the traffic and panoramic skyline views from the middle. The Dairy Block alley has bronze-cast butter churns set into the walls, honouring the 1920s Windsor Farms Dairy, and is partly covered so it works in rain or snow.

The Cherry Creek Arts Festival has free admission and includes a dedicated children’s creative area alongside more than 250 juried artists. See free things to do in Denver and events in Denver.

Altitude and children

Worth taking seriously on a family trip. At roughly a mile above sea level, children dehydrate faster, sunburn more easily and tire sooner than they would at home, and they are less likely than adults to notice or say so.

Practical measures: water constantly rather than at intervals, sun protection year-round including in winter, and a lighter itinerary for the first day or two than you would plan elsewhere. Denver weather also changes fast, with afternoon thunderstorms common in summer and rapid temperature drops in spring and autumn, so layers are standard rather than cautious.

A family day in Denver that works

One sequence, built entirely from places named above, that holds up with children of most ages.

Start at Union Station’s Great Hall, which costs nothing and gives everyone a calm indoor start with trains to watch. Walk the Dairy Block alley to find the butter churns. Cross the Highland Bridge into LoHi in the late morning for the skyline view from the middle of the span. Eat at Avanti, where everyone chooses separately. Finish at Little Man Ice Cream at the milk can.

If the weather is good and you want the outdoor version instead, swap the middle for Washington Park: the lakes, the Great Meadow and the historic buildings give a walk enough structure to keep younger children moving, and the park is large enough that a picnic does not feel crowded even on a busy weekend.

Wet-weather and winter options

Denver’s reputation for sunshine is deserved, but afternoon thunderstorms in summer and snow well into spring both arrive quickly, and a family itinerary needs a fallback.

The food halls are the most useful of these, because they are indoor, informal and allow children to move around rather than sit still. Union Station’s Great Hall is genuinely pleasant to wait out weather in and nobody will move you along. The Dairy Block alley is partly covered by the Maven Hotel overhead, which keeps it usable in rain and snow.

Winter is better than families expect. Denver gets a great deal of sun between snowfalls, and a bright winter afternoon at altitude is comfortable in a coat, so outdoor plans do not have to be abandoned between November and March the way they might in a colder, cloudier city.

Planning around the crowds

Two timing rules cover most of it. First, go early: Denver starts its day ahead of most American cities, and patios, queues and parking all fill sooner than visitors anticipate. Second, avoid Coors Field and the surrounding LoDo blocks on home game nights unless that atmosphere is what you came for, since those streets get crowded and loud in a way that suits adults more than young children.

For the rest of the city, see things to do in Denver, LoHi and downtown Denver.