We have been spending some of our adventure time on back-to-school shopping and school preparations. Sometimes as summer winds up and school starts, it feels like adventuring has to stop, but that is definitely not true. We try to schedule adventures all year, whether it is a weekend outing, or a quick after school activity. There are lots of places you can visit when you have a few hours free.
Here are our go-to after school adventures. We visit these spots often throughout the school year. The main reason being that they stay open a little later than 5:00 pm, so you can adventure after school and dinner. The adventures outside can be done anytime until it’s dark. We hope these ideas will help you have a great school year filled with family adventures!
Museums
- Bean Museum (open until 9 on weekdays)
- Clark Planetarium (open until 7 on weekdays, and later on weekends)
- Thanksgiving Point (all of their venues are open until 8:00 pm Mon-Sat)
- NHMU (open until 9:00 pm on Wednesday)
- Church History Museum (open until 8 T-Th)
- Loveland Living Planet Aquarium (open until 8 on Monday)
- BYU Art Museum (open until 9 on Friday)
- Cabelas (locations in Lehi & Farmington and both are open until 9 pm weekdays)
- Scheels (open until 9:00 weekdays)
- Roots of Knowledge (open until library closes which is usually very late weekdays)
- Springville Art Museum (open until 8 on Wednesday)
Indoor Active Adventures
These are a few of our favorite places to burn off some energy indoors! There are lots of fun places like this throughout Utah!
- Airborne
- Kangaroo Zoo
- Fly High Ogden
- Mini Golf at Fat Cats
- HangTime
- Coconut Cove
- Provo Rec Center Pool
- KidsTopia
- Uptown Jungle
Parks
Parks are the best for a quick, fun adventure after school! You can often squeeze one in before dinner, but we also like to go in the evenings so Dad can come, too. Here are our “best of” lists, but you can always find lists of parks on your city website or search right here for your city name to see if we have highlighted anything.
Best of Davis/Weber County Parks
Thunder Junction (St. George)–best of St. George parks coming soon.
Hikes
This can be tricky because daylight slowly gets shorter and shorter, but Fall and Spring are great times to sneak in a quick hike when you have an hour or two. Here are some short trails that we love.
- Temple Quarry
- Lisa Falls
- Hidden Falls
- Silver Lake
- Ensign Peak
- Bridal Veil Falls
- Grotto Falls
- Birdsong Trail
- Adams Canyon Lower Falls
- Dripping Rock
- Cascade Springs
- American Fork Nature Trail
- Payson Lakes
- Miller Bird Refuge
- Eccles Wildlife Center Nature Trail
- Great Salt Lake Shorelines Preserve
- Observation Point at Snowbird
- Bear Canyon Suspension Bridge
Have fun as a family! Make time for those adventures. It is worth it! If you are still looking for some great back to school deals, or some new fall items, one of our favorite shopping spots is adidas. We do a lot of our back to school shopping online to allow more time for adventures. My boys always enjoy shopping from the comfort of our home, because, well, they are teenage boys. adidas has some great deals on clothes, shoes, and bags. And we love that adidas focuses on eco friendly ways to make their shoes and clothing. Read more about their earth friendly efforts on our blog post about adidas shoes.
