While family vacations and weekend outings are great, it’s often hard for busy families to get away. The answer could be a day trip. You can find many interesting destinations the kids will enjoy near Madison, Wisconsin, and you won’t have to shell out money for lodging. Check out these ideas for fun day trips.
Devil’s Lake State Park
The largest park in Wisconsin, Devil’s Lake State Park is 35 miles northwest of Madison featuring huge bluffs and pink quartzite cliffs along the lake. It’s a favorite among geologists, rock climbers, botanists, hikers, and birders, drawing 1.3 million visitors each year. Scuba divers love the lake for its incredible clearness. There’s something for everyone in the family in this beautiful and spectacular park. You can also visit the nature center, view American Indian mounds, and swim at the beach.
You can find so many more fun day trips for the whole family in the beautiful areas around Madison, but these will get you started. If you’re really pressed for time, embrace nature right in the city with 16 acres of beauty at Olbrich Botanical Gardens.
Wisconsin Dells
Just an hour from Madison, Wisconsin Dells offers fantastic waterparks such as Noah’s Ark Waterpark, the fifth-largest in the United States and 17th-largest in the world. You can also choose from a number of amusement parks that offer go karts, zipline tours, rides, and much more.
As exciting as these parks are, Wisconsin offers more. Railfans will appreciate the Mid-Continent Railway Museum and the Riverside and Great Northern Railway living museum, kids can pan for gold at Dells Mining Company, and the whole family will enjoy the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum. The House on the Rock, originally built as a retreat on top of a rock chimney, grew into a huge attraction with unique collections such as maritime displays, a calliope, a Japanese garden, an intricate miniature circus, and much more.
You can go on a boat tour and take a stop for the Witches Gulch Canyon Hike, a 2-mile trek through a narrow canyon where you’ll see beautiful views of sandstone. Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area offers beautiful views of cliffs, canyons, and rock formations.
Mount Horeb
You’ll get a unique look at Norwegian heritage when you visit Mount Horeb, about a 30-minute drive from Madison. Dubbed “Troll Capital of the World,” Mount Horeb’s main street boasts life-size trolls carved from tree trunks, and you can find many specialty, gift, and antique shops, as well as wineries and artisan farms. From there, you can go on a tour of Cave of the Mounds and enjoy nature at Blue Mound State Park. Both are named for the Blue Mounds, a pair of nearby hills.
Circus World Museum
Baraboo, the childhood home of the Ringling brothers, was also their circus’ winter home. There, you can enjoy the Circus World Museum and see performances by clowns, aerialists, and magicians all summer. The exhibit hall is open all year, as is the Wagon Pavilion, which boasts a huge collection of restored circus wagons. And don’t miss the 7-mile trip to the Land of Evermor, a unique scrap-metal sculpture park.
“Devil’s Lake” via Flickr by philbencomo. Used with permission via CC BY-SA 2.0 / cropped from original
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