Things To Do in Arkansas

Inside The Wonder Place’s 5,700 square-foot indoor play space, colored balls and scarves shoot through spiraling tubes. Stuffed animals await vaccinations in the vet's office, and tables covered in water and sand become interactive landscapes. The playhouse's supervising staffers encourage their visitors, generally aged 8 and younger, to explore freely as they engage in imaginative play.

Kids slip down slides and scale a rock-climbing wall at the tree house, and build towers and obstacle courses for toy balls using square blocks and ramps at Wonder Works. A child-sized stage lets them perform their own plays or reenact Hamlet with puppets using costumes and set pieces, and an art area sets them loose with a menagerie of art supplies. Infants and toddlers frolic in a designated play area, filled with smaller play structures and toys. While kids can make pretend meals using pretend produce and haggle with pretend cashiers at the River Market and Cafe, there's also a real, health-focused vending machine. An onsite gift shop peddles educational toys and puzzles from brands such as eeboo, Melissa & Doug, and Manhattan Toy.

After a 20-year career in the air national guard, Britton Shaw still couldn’t get enough of the sky. So, he founded River Valley Paragliding to share his passion with new students. Whether soaring over local river bottoms or catching gusts of wind from atop Heavener Mountain, he performs and oversees solo and tandem flights, giving his charges hands-on experience in the air.

Lokomotion Family Fun Center paves the way for friendly competition and family fun in a multi-attraction complex filled with arcade games, mini golf, laser tag, go-karts, and bumper boats. Feed fistfuls of tokens ($0.25 value each) into a multitude of games to shoot hoops, smack air-hockey pucks, and recklessly race virtual cars without being grounded for hitting the neighbors' mailbox. Take aim at sibling rivalries during black-light laser-tag games or spray down peers in the bumper-boat pool. Thirty-six mini golf holes border an Illinois River tributary, setting a beautiful scene to knock grandma off the top of the family standings. Four different go-kart tracks separate racers by age with single-seat pro-track cars for licensed drivers and double-seated family-track cars that liberate backseat drivers.

Wide-open tracts of land roll past as a locomotive charges down the tracks. Passengers watch as the Boston Mountains' peaks and valleys rise and fall. A little red caboose brings up the rear. Aboard one of the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad's trains, passengers take a trip back in time without the aid of a DeLorean. As the train winds across valleys, through tunnels, and over bridges, the friendly conductors spin tales of the area's history. In total, the trains take a 150 mile route from Monett, Missouri to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

The Arkansas State Parks fete vibrant visitors and loping locals alike with a dizzying array of landscapes, natural and cultural resources, and myriad learning opportunities at parks scattered throughout the state. Familial units with children 18 and under can flex their pass muscles multiple times throughout the year at a wide range of museums, gleaning valuable state knowledge while conversing with park guides or well-read white-tailed deer.

A lengthy lineup of traditional game-day fare and a sports atmosphere captivate fans at Fox and Hound - Bailey's, where the kitchen remains open as late as its neighboring fully stocked bar. Chefs cook until the wee hours of the morning and always until the bar closes, baking Bavarian pretzel starters, crafting towers of onion rings, and preparing hand-battered chicken tenders that are cooked until they are golden brown. They blend their own seasonings to sprinkle over grilled-to-order burgers, and draw from a diverse roster of cheeses and toppings to crown their wood-oven-inspired flatbreads.

While manning the bars, bartenders tap into a stash of libations, such as UV Whipped vodka and Patron Silver tequila, to mix their specialty cocktails. To further foster a sporting ambiance, high-definition TVs glow with sports games and custom music-video playlists, and guests partake in pastimes of ump bashing, billiards, or competitive people watching.