We are still relatively new to the whole “weekend getaway” thing. It seems like when you have little kids, your weekends are a time you can sit down and actually take a breath… along with catching up on the laundry, dishes, grocery shopping…. you get the point. But we recently had long weekend in early November and we wanted to enjoy the fall weather before winter hits the Midwest, so we took a weekend trip to Northwest Arkansas with our kids.
As soon as my oldest daughter was out of school Thursday afternoon, we drove down to Bentonville, Arkansas for the weekend. We stayed at the Hyatt Place in Bentonville for $0, using travel points that we transferred from this card. It was a great option for our family of 5; we were able to book a suite with a king bed and pull-out couch. The location was central to everything we wanted to do, and it had free breakfast, which we found to have lots of great options.
We started our morning with a quick breakfast at our hotel, then headed to the Walmart Museum in downtown Bentonville. Disclaimer, when we went in November of 2023, the original Walton’s 5-10 store was under construction for a full remodel, so we visited the temporary museum a few blocks away. It’s a small museum, but admission was free. When we walked in, the lady at the front desk gave them each a picture card scavenger hunt to help them explore the museum. They loved it, and we spent just under an hour here learning about Sam Walton and the history of Walmart. They turned their card in when they were done for a cool Walmart Museum membership pin, which they of course thought was the best prize ever.
After we finished up at the museum, we drove a couple of blocks over to the Compton Gardens and Arboretum. Part of the reason we picked to go this weekend was because all of the fall colors were at their peak, and they did not disappoint! The gardens are beautiful. We wandered around the gardens for a while, looking at the fall foliage and the neat statues. The whole downtown area is connected with walking paths and trails, so when we were done at the gardens, we found the path that would lead us to the Crystal Bridges Art Museum.
There were some really cool stops along this path that are a part of the outdoor art collection of the museum; tons of sculptures, creeks and waterfalls, a large walkthrough of natural gems, and a skyspace building that captures the sunlight at different times of the day.
We got to the museum right as they opened at 11 am. Normally, I would never take my 3 small children to a museum of modern art. However, admission here is free for everyone, so I wasn’t concerned about wasting a bunch of money if they were totally losing their minds and we couldn’t stay very long. However, I was pleasantly surprised.
It was actually a great stop, and I highly recommend you at least walk through it with your kiddos! There is a creatorspace art studio in the bottom part of the museum that my kids loved, and we spent almost an hour there working on the crafts they had out. There were some small blocks and toys that my 2 year old played with while my older kiddos crafted, and there was a neat selfie spot with a green screen that we took some cool family photos on.
After we finished in the creatorspace, we headed outside to eat our packed lunch. Their outdoor space has several life sized games that my kiddos enjoyed while we rested a bit, and we enjoyed the view of the beautiful building and art pieces in the water.
The contemporary art section was a little more on point with my kiddos interest, and they enjoyed looking at some of the paintings and statues. We also went into the Infinity Mirrored Room exhibit, which was everyone’s favorite piece of art.
Once we made it through the entire indoor museum, we headed outside to see the rest of the outdoor art and explore a few more of the hiking trails. We walked through the Art Trail first, which I highly recommend checking out. My kids loved exploring all the “houses”. The end of the art trail butts up right next to the Tulip Trail, so we headed down this path. This was a ¾ mile path that did have some stairs, but overall was very kid friendly and had some beautiful scenery.
After we finished exploring the trails and museum, we decided to head to Bentonville square for a little exploring before dinner. What a cute downtown! We wandered through a few of the shops, and walked around the town square. They were setting up for Christmas while we were there, and I wish we could go back to see the town square alight at the holidays! We got to see the original Walton’s 5-10 store, which was under construction, but was still neat to see. We had a little time to kill before it was dinnertime, so we walked over to the Dave Peel park to let the kids burn some energy. This is a great park for young kids since it is completely fenced in!
After dinner, we wanted to check out the Blue Zoo, which was a new interactive aquarium in Rogers, just a few minutes away from our hotel in Bentonville. Admission was pricey, I think we paid $105 for my family of 5 (2 year old was free) to get in, along with 10 tokens to feed animals inside.
I wouldn’t really call this an aquarium. It is very small, with only a few tanks to look at fish in. My kids did enjoy feeding the animals; there were birds, fish, turtles and stingrays available to feed while we were there. There are some activities to entertain kids after they feed the fish, such as a water table, bouncy house, and an life-sized, interactive video quiz.
We arrived just before 6, and the hours on the door and their website both said they were open until 8, however we were informed at 7:05 that they actually close at 7 now. Bummer. Even though my kids enjoyed it, I probably wouldn’t go back. It was way too expensive for how long we spent here.
After we left the Blue Zoo, we grabbed some cookies from Half Baked Goodness (YUM!) and headed back to our hotel to enjoy our treat and relax.
Once we were up and around for the day, we headed east out of Bentonville to spend the day in Eureka Springs. Word of warning, the roads heading into Eureka Springs are super winding and curvy, so beware if you have littles that get motion sick! Our two year old lost his breakfast about 5 minutes outside of town…yuck.
Our first stop was the Thorncrown Chapel, a stunning structure that sits atop a hill and contains more than 6,000 square feet of glass. You can enter the small building, which was built in 1980 and still functions as a chapel today. While it truly is a beautiful photo opportunity, my kids were not as impressed by the architecture as my husband and I were. We spent about 20 minutes here, and then headed on into Eureka Springs.
Razorback Tower is a 100-foot tall observation tower that overlooks the Ozark Mountains. It does cost 4 quarters to open the metal gate to enter the tower, but there is a change machine right by the entrance. There are 9 landings on the way to the top, and the stairs are quite steep. We only made it up to the 4th landing before we decided to turn around, but the views even ⅓ of the way to the top were incredible. Definitely a neat stop if you want some pretty views of the mountains.
After we left the observation tower, we headed to the Crescent Hotel. This historic hotel was built in the late 1800’s and has quite the history. It is supposedly haunted, and they do nightly ghost tours in the basement. We chose to keep that information to the adults only during our exploration of the hotel since my 7 year old is quite sensitive to scary things.
It’s a really cool old hotel with lots of history, and they have an observation deck on the top floor that you can look out and see the Christ of the Ozark statue through the trees. There is also a restaurant on the top floor that is open to the public, but we had packed our lunch, so we headed out to the courtyard to eat. There were tree swings and some yard games that my kids played with while we ate and relaxed for a bit.
We spent a little over an hour exploring the hotel and grounds, and it’s open and free to the public.
We booked tickets for the afternoon tram tour, so we headed to the depot to catch our ride after lunch. We loved this open-air tram ride through the city of Eureka Springs, and learned a ton about the history of the town. It lasted about 90 minutes, and we had 2 different stops that we could get off and stretch or use the bathroom. My 2-year-old used this opportunity for an afternoon nap, but my 4 and 6 year old really enjoyed it.
If you are looking for an afternoon activity that will allow some down time to give your kiddos a chance to rest, this is a great option. Book your tickets in advance here.
When our tram tour ended, we drove just outside of town to visit Onyx Cave. It’s one of the oldest caves in the state, and their tour is self-guided using a wireless headset. The cave itself is pretty small, and the tour only took us about 30 minutes. It was toddler friendly, with very few steps or steep areas. While it was neat to see, we didn’t spend very long here, so I wouldn’t say it was worth the $45 it cost us to enter.
After our cave tour, we were ready for dinner, so we headed back to our hotel in Bentonville. We grabbed takeout from a local Italian place and relaxed in our room after a long day of exploring.
We only had a half a day left before we had to head back home, so we decided to find some good hiking spots. After breakfast, we drove about 40 minutes south of Bentonville to Devil’s Den State Park. We parked at the visitor’s center and popped inside to grab a trail map, then headed to the Devil’s Den trailhead right behind the visitor’s center. I had done a little research beforehand, and decided that we wanted to give this trail a try despite it being a little more difficult than the hikes we normally attempt. My 4 and 7 year old are pretty good hikers and enjoy exploring trails, so I knew they would be fine. My 2-year-old was not feeling great, so he didn’t last long before dad and I were taking turns carrying him.
Overall, I would definitely rate this 1.5-mile trail moderate. It was the most difficult trail my kids had ever hiked, but they had so much fun. There are lots of stairs, many of which are very steep, and several places that you climb down a pile of rocks. There are two waterfalls along the trail, one of which was dry when we visited. You gain over 100 feet of elevation, and literally climb up and back down the side of a mountain. There are several caves along the path, but all were closed on our visit to help protect the bats that inhabit them. Once you get down into the valley at the bottom of the mountain and look up at what you just hiked, you will be amazed! The view is absolutely stunning. We are not avid hikers by any means, but this was the most beautiful and rewarding hike we had ever been on. The last ⅓ of the hike was much more leisurely, and we enjoyed walking along the crystal clear stream. We even saw some trees that had been gnawed by a beaver, and their dam in the creek. The trail led us back to the Visitor’s Center, and we found a picnic table to sit at and have an early lunch.
After lunch, we drove to a different parking lot to the Lake Trail. This hike is 1 mile round trip, is rated easy, and takes you right past a huge waterfall along Lee Creek. We enjoyed the easy hike, the pretty bridges, and the view of the waterfall, where we stopped for a snack. At this point in the day, my kids were getting pretty worn out and were over hiking, so we didn’t make it the whole mile. There’s a large bridge halfway to the end, and we crossed it and headed back the way we came from. We climbed down the rocks into the creek and walked along the edge, so we were able to get really close to the waterfall.
Once we finished our hike, we walked over to the lake to enjoy the scenery a bit and let the kids get out the last of their wiggles before we loaded in the car for the drive home. As we were sitting on the dock, we saw several otters splashing around and playing in the lake, just feet from us! We sat there for quite awhile watching them play and swim in the lake before they disappeared. There’s a building right behind the lake with bathrooms, snacks, and small souvenirs, so we stopped in there really quickly, then loaded up in the car to head back to Kansas!
Even though it was a quick weekend, we seriously had such a great time! The weather was absolutely beautiful, and the leaves were stunning. I am dying to go back to Arkansas this summer and explore some more of this gorgeous state. There are just so many great things to do here, this is the perfect destination for your next weekend getaway! What are your favorite places to visit in Arkansas? Tell me what we need to add to our next visit in the comments!