We took a weekend trip to Northwest Arkansas this fall, and spent a day exploring the charming town of Bentonville with our kids. This town has so much to offer, and I truly fell in love with it! There are so many things to do here with toddlers and kids, I wish we would have spent another day so we could have explored it even more.
We started our morning by heading 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 the admission is free. I was worried once we entered that my kids were not going to stay engaged because of the amount of reading on all the displays, but the wonderful lady at the front desk handed each of them 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. When they completed their cards, they turned them back in at the desk and got to choose between a Walmart pin or a coloring book as a prize.
After we finished up at the museum, we drove a couple of blocks over to the Compton Gardens and Arboretum. Our trip was the second weekend in November, and the leaves did not disappoint! The gardens were a beautiful picture of red, orange and yellow. They are free to enter, and there are several different trails to explore. We walked around the gardens for a while, looking at the foliage and the neat statues. My kids loved these huge wind chimes, and we walked along a neat trail right next to a creek flowing with water.
The whole downtown area is connected with 5 miles of paths and trails, so when we were finished exploring the gardens we followed the path to 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. Now I will say, as a mom of 3, there are very few instances where I would take my young 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 didn’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.
After we finished exploring the trails and museum, we decided to head to downtown Bentonville 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 townsquare 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. Overall, I would skip this stop and find something else to fill your evening. 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.
I wish we would have had one more day in Bentonville with our kids to explore the Amazeum- their children’s museum that looks so, so fun! If you have some extra time, definitely check it out!
What are your favorite things to do in Bentonville with kids? Let me know in the comments!