Things to do in Phoenix with Kids
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Although metropolitan Phoenix is in the Sonoran Desert, you won’t see much wilderness within city limits unless you go looking for it. The Desert Botanical Garden is a great place to start. Our kids moaned and whined about having to go to a “plant museum” on their vacation, then had to eat their words when they absolutely loved it.
Go as early as you can (they open at 8am) and wander the trails lined with amazing succulents, including rare, threatened, and endangered species from around the Southwest. Wildlife is everywhere—we saw birds nesting in trees and Saguaro cacti, quail, lizards, hummingbirds, tadpoles, chipmunks, and ground squirrels.
The Butterfly Pavilion was alive with 15 species of colorful, fluttering residents—not to mention friendly and helpful docents. I’m not a real bug fan, but I managed. This was a real highlight for our kids.
Stay at a water park
Family friendly resort-style hotels are thick on the ground in Phoenix and Scottsdale, but you’ll have a hard time finding anything your kids will like better than the Arizona Grand Resort.
There are plenty of suite-style accommodations, family friendly restaurants, and swimming pools in town, but just one with a 7-acre water park on the property.
Are you ready for three 8-story slides, a 25-person hot tub, a river with mini-rapids, and a gigantic wave pool. Your kids are.
All guest suites at the Arizona Grand Resort come with separate living rooms, patios or balconies, coffeemakers, and mini fridges. If you want a little extra room to spread out, the one and two-bedroom Villa Guest Suites are pretty much heaven.
If you somehow manage to drag your kids away from the water park (good luck with that), the resort offers hiking, mountain biking, and golf too.
Don’t miss dinner at family-friendly Rustler’s Rooste (a western-themed restaurant on-property whose motto is: beef and brew with a view). They have a country and western trio knocking off Johnny Cash, a slide entrance, a long-horned mascot in a pen outside, and a magician who comes to your table. Don’t ask me why, but it works.
Save room for Mexican food
The Food Network recently featured Los Taquitos on its show, “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” and—lucky you! —it’s right across the street from the hotel.
Grab a plate of carne asada street tacos or carnitas if that’s more your style. Both are a little spicy for kids, but there are cheese quesadillas on the menu too.
If we’d been in town longer, I would have tried some of these restaurants too.
Slide Rock State Park, Arizona
Wondering what’s so great about a state park? Slide Rock is no average state park—it’s a water park. A breathtakingly beautiful, naturally formed water park with enough pools, slides, twists, and turns through a quarter mile section of Oak Creek to keep everyone entertained for hours.
The lower area offers a slick, flat plane of rock for toddlers to splash in, complete with a few less intimidating slides and eddies polished out of the rock bed. Upstream, the creek widens and deepens to allow a perfect jumping area (no diving!) off the chiseled canyon walls, and deeper, swifter slides.
Sunbathing on the red rock on both sides is divine. Oh, and instead of paying upwards of $20 per person admission, you need only part with $5 per carload. There’s a lot of scrambling over rocks and boulders, however, and a set of stairs to climb, so anyone who has trouble navigating such terrain may have to sit this one out.
If you find yourself in Sedona (five minute drive) or Flagstaff (30 minute drive) or even passing through anywhere nearby, it’s worth spending the bulk of your day here. And pack a lunch. There’s a snack bar, but it doesn’t serve anything more substantial than hot dogs and nachos.
Next time
Because we were only in town for 48 hours, we had to make some tough choices. I wanted to see the Heard Museum (a huge collection of Native American Art) and the Phoenix Zoo. Sedona and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum called to me too. So did the Canyon de Chelly, the Meteor Crater, and Slide Rock State Park.
