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Does your family look forward to summer vacation each year, but this time you would like to do it frugally?
Why not try a staycation? Stay in your city and enjoy the cheap or free activities you find there.
Here is a round up of staycation ideas for the Fort Worth area, where I live:
Free or Cheap Activities in Fort Worth, Texas:
- Amon Carter Museum - FREE
- Burger’s Lake - $12 for ages 7+, $5 for ages 1-6
- Cowtown Cattlepen Maze - $5
- Fire Station No. 1 - FREE
- Fort Worth Botanic Garden – FREE
- Fort Worth Museum of Science and History – $14 for adults, $10 for children
- Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge - $5 for adults, $2 for children
- Fort Worth Stock Yards- FREE
- Fort Worth Water Gardens - FREE
- Fort Worth Zoo - $10.50 for adults, $8 for kids (HALF PRICE on Wednesdays)
- Grapevine Vintage Railroad - $10 for adults, $6 for children
- Kimball Art Museum – FREE
- Log Cabin Village - $4 for ages 4-17 and over 65, $4.50 for ages 18 and over
- Modern Art Museum - FREE for children 12 and under, $4 for students w/ id, $10 for ages 13+
- Mrs. Baird’s Bakery tour -FREE
- National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame $10 for adults, $8 for children under 13
- Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame - $5 for adults, $3 for children
- Texas Civil War Museum - $6 for adults, $3 for students
- U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing - FREE
- Vintage Flying Museum - $8 for adults, $3 for children
Near Fort Worth
- Creation Evidence Museum – $5 per family
- Dinosaur Valley State Park - $5 for ages 13+, FREE for children under 12
Do you have any other cheap or free staycation ideas for the Fort Worth area?
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! Great list of ideas. Makes me want to drive the four hours to get there and see all of those things. We are also staying closer to home this year, other than the short trip to the coast coming up. I love rediscovering our city and look forward to showing our children. Have a great summer!
Thanks for the list. We’re headed that way in about two weeks and might try to fit a couple in. I’m pretty sure we’ll go to the Dallas World Aquarium, too. It’s not exactly a staycation for us, but we’ll be in Dallas all week while our oldest son attends swim camp at SMU.
Celee
Don’t forget that the Fort Worth Zoo is half price on Wednesdays!
Thanks, Nicki! I added it!
I grew up in FW and my mom would always tell me that people TRAVEL here for vacation and I took it all for granted! (I didn’t know it cost to get into the Botanical Garden now–used to be free) Now I live in a small town in Louisiana and I LONG to go back to FW!!! There really is A LOT to do there…
The japanese garden cost but the rest of the botanical gardens was free when we went a couple weeks ago.
Girl… How in the world did I not know you lived in FW. I need to have you ever for tea!!!! PLEASE!!!
This is a great list!! I’m so glad you shared it!
I bet the Mrs. Baird’s tour smells awesome and the Dinosaur Valley State Park looks like fun, too.
Next time I’m in the area, I’ll know what new to do.
Amazing – So many of us from the FW area. We are in Burleson.
I believe that Cleburne has a little water park that is a reasonable price. Also, NRH2O in North Richland Hills is supposed to be great and reasonably priced. Also within an hours drive of Ft Worth are several state parks including Lake Mineral Wells, and Cleburne as well as the aforementioned Dinosaur Valley. Big rocks in Glen Rose can be fun is you are already in the area.
I’ve done several of those things with my kids over the years and they are a blast! Specifically if you have never taken your family to Burger’s Lake it is one of the highlights of our summers every year! Like going to the ocean without the salt water! The kids LOVE it. Fun for ALL ages. My kids really enjoyed the US Mint. Took all the cousins one year for cousin camp. Another fun place is Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Grand Prairie. Taking tours of the Stadiums around the area is also a fun day. There is also the Airplane Museum (can’t remember the name of it) at 360 and 183 that is really cool but I recommend it for slightly older kids.
Monday afternoons are FREE at the International Museum of Cultures at Wycliffe’s Linguistics Center. The address is 7500 W Camp Wisdom Rd, Dallas. Just at the edge of Ft Worth. We work for Wycliffe so we’re a little biased
— however, this is a fantastic way to teach your children about the history of Bible translation and what needs still exist! (over 2000 languages around the world still have no Scripture)
Here’s the link — http://internationalmuseumofcultures.org/
The website also includes free activities for your kids – including ones that are age-appropriate to prepare them for the visit. Give your kids a heart for things that matter for eternity!
I don’t live in Texas, but we’ve had our fair share of staycations here in NC. I take advantage of the local stuff, like you’ve mentioned above. But don’t discount things like camping in the backyard, having a monopoly tournament, building a fire late a night and roasting marshmallows (might be sweltering heat in Texas, but NC is hot too). Invite friends over for a potluck dinner and turn on the sprinkler outside. I’m sorry you’re facing this layoff and struggle. It’s been tight financially for us for FIVE YEARS. I’m just getting used to things like this as our “new normal.”
You have inspired me to make a list like this for my city! Montgomery, Al My blog is already pretty much about all the free things that go on around here, but I think a list like this would be nice to have. Thanks for the inspiration!
There is the Forest Park Miniature Train – near the FW zoo.
It’s not a huge train, but it’s pretty neat for little kids.
($3/ages 1-12; $3.50/ages 13+; $3/65+)
http://www.fpmt.us/tic.htm
Oh – and SUndance Square is really neat to walk around. They’re doing FREE movie nights on Thursdays through the summer in the square. They call it Stars Under the Stars.
http://www.sundancesquare.com/events.aspx
I’m sorry the Demand Media didn’t work out. I know another friend who got rejected recently as well.
I’ve been told that if you wait a few weeks and reapply you can sometimes get accepted on the second try. You can also write for associatedcontent.com although the pay isn’t as good it is something.
Great list! My kids are teenagers now, but it seems like only yesterday when I would load them up on hot summer days to do one of the many things you have listed! One of my kids’ favorite parks is in Benbrook behind the YMCA on Winscott Rd. We call it “Castle Park” because it’s so big and reminds us of a castle.
Also, there were several movie theaters that used to do free movies at 10:00 in the morning. I am not sure if they still do this but it might be worth checking out.
Even though my kids are older, they still enjoy the museums and the museum district. We usually hit Doc’s Records (janky used record store) on Montgomery St and the weekend Flea Market in the cattle barns when we are down there.
Downtown is fun too. We like to peruse Barnes & Noble, the public library, and the Sid Richardson Museum which occasionally has kid-friendly activities http://www.sidrichardsonmuseum.org
The Stockyards are also really fun, esp the stampede every day!
LOVE Dinoaur Valley State Park! You can camp there, swim in dinosaur tracks and visit the Creation Museum nearby! Fossil Rim is also there, but I know why it didn’t make the list! LOL $$$ especially with a lot of kids.
I am originally from FW and used the spend the summers there with my grandmother. Oh the memories! Casa Manya (spell?), Kimble Art Museum, the Zoo and the Science Museum were my favorite places to go!!
Also google free summer bowling for kids to get a list of local participation bowling alleys and free summer kids movies. Regal and AMC have some G and PG movies for $1 and Cinamark and other theatres have free movies as well.
Thanks for this Connie, We will be in the area all summer and I was looking for things that were relatively inexpensive to do with the kids.
Elizabeth
I’m sorry you didn’t get the writing gig! You may want to apply at tutor.com.
I work there as an online tutor. The pay isn’t great, and it’s not my favorite teaching method, but it is a flexible, online job, and your supervisor gives you lots of feedback.
I’m keeping your family in my prayers!
And if you are a Bank of America card holder you get free admission to the FW museum of science and history every first full weekend of the month.
PK Speedway Go Karts at Possum Kingdom Lake is fun if you don’t mind traveling out west a bit (or live out west as we do!) It is like Mountasia or Putt Putt, but they have karts that even my 7 year old can drive, and the people there are so nice. We’ve gone out on a Sunday afternoon, and we were the only ones on the track. http://www.pkspeedway.com
Some of those ideas are great before May and after September. Lived in DFW and Flower Mound area for nearly 14 years and we used to sneak to the zoo on Sunday mornings when it first opened until about noon- the misters were our only salvation- we attended Sat evening church so we could beat the crowds and our lawn was too burnt up to mow
I second NHR2O. There’s another one in the Colony. For those visiting DFW in the summer- NO WAY. My buddies and I would pick a cold location in January and dream of summer so we could pack up the mini vans and go away. These days we’re on a definite no vacation routine so we’re looking at staycation ideas nearby- that is once the lakes and rivers around us start to lower. It’s not safe to canoe or warm enough to swim in South Mo these days. Thanks for the links.
Thank you for this list! We live in Mansfield…I always forget about Mrs. Baird’s and the Bureau of Engraving. We haven’t been to either of those yet! I am putting those on our list for this summer.
Thank you for the ideas. We’re going to Fort Worth for a quick vacation over the 3-day July 4th holiday and was looking for something to fill up Monday
(Saturday is the Dr. pepper museum and the Creation Museum. Sunday is the Science Museum/children’s museum after church in the morning)
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