Things to Do in Baraboo

Knucklehead's Bowling & Indoor Amusement Park's 80,000-square-foot facility is bursting with a dozen family-friendly attractions. In the bowling alley, a light show illuminates pins and balls to the tune of festive music and a black light adds an eerie neon glow to cosmic bowling. You can also bowl under conventional lighting, of course, opting for automatic bumpers to prevent gutter balls and marshmallow pins to muffle noisy strikes. Elsewhere, go-karts zoom around a track, bumper cars collide, and visitors swing hand-over-hand through a weblike ropes course. A roller coaster zooms throughout the space, and the arcade whirs and flashes with video games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Madden, as well as traditional games that award prize tickets to their deftest handlers.

Dells Watersports, a boating haven founded in 1979 by Steve and Kathy Zowin, creates adventures aboard its high-speed and leisurely paced watercraft. Atop the waters of Lake Delton, inflatable tubes bounce over waves as they’re pulled by rental ski boats, and rental waverunners heed the stop signs held up by mermaids. Taking more leisurely trips, kayaks and canoes carry groups on scenic floats by sandstone bluffs, white pine trees, and the Timme Mill dam. Back on shore, staff members man a full-service marina department stocked with boating equipment. Dells Watersports also maintains sister facilities for watercraft rental at Mirror Lake, Castle Rock Lake, and inside all the world's fishbowls.

At most golf courses, players look out onto dew-kissed fairways or swaying trees and, for a moment, have their breath stolen by the picturesque landscape. At Baraboo Country Club, those moments arrive seemingly at every turn.

With unrivaled views of the bluffs at nearby Devil's Lake State Park and water features formed by Draper Creek in play on nine holes, Baraboo Country Club’s scenery enchants golfers as they traverse the 18-hole course. The inventive layout makes the most of its surroundings, as showcased on the club’s signature hole—the par 5 8th—where drives must carry a water hazard down a tree-lined fairway that dog-legs left on its way to a blind green that, like all of the Club’s putting surfaces, reads a slick “10” on the stimpmeter and doubles as a dance floor for squirrel wedding receptions.

Golfers can prime swings for upcoming rounds with a 10-stall driving range, practice bunker, and putting green, while a full-service pro shop lets golfers replace worn-down gloves or disloyal sandwedges. A wraparound bar with granite countertops awaits at the Fore Seasons Restaurant and Lounge, which serves a menu of classic sandwiches and weekly specials.

Packs of go-kart racers keep pace as they round an uphill turn, and dart through the stomach of a giant Trojan horse. They drive past Greek ruins and navigate ramps up to elevated tracks—or head under the water of a manmade pond. Riders soar past these scenes pulled straight from Greek and Roman mythology on many of Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park's eight go-kart tracks. Alongside other themed attractions, the racetracks sprawl across the 200-acre year-round resort's four areas: an indoor and outdoors theme park, and an indoor and outdoors water park.

In the outdoor Zeus theme park, screams and laughter echo around the turns of four wooden roller coasters and seven themed go-kart tracks. At the Parthenon indoor theme park, a wild mouse roller coaster pulls passengers through dips and spins, while smaller children learn the basics of government cover-ups in an extraterrestrial-themed ball pit.

The Medusa indoor water park and Neptune outdoor water park contain 44 waterslides that send riders down dark tubes and steep inclines, or spinning around a giant funnel. Indoors, a tubing river runs past decorative Mayan ruins, and a beached pirate ship houses tunnels and waterspouts. Outside, visitors navigate a six-story semi-aquatic fortress, and ride currents in a surf pool. Visitors who can’t soak in all of these park attractions can find overnight lodging in more than 20 resort buildings and a Roman-themed hotel.

From the 10-story peaks of Timber Falls Adventure Park's Hellcat roller coaster, visitors can view the entire family-fun facility before quickly gliding back to the grounds. The Hellcat is one of three high-speed rides that keep adrenaline levels soaring at the facility. The park also hosts a log flume with two steep vertical drops, and a gravitational-force skyscraper ride that sends passengers as high as 160 feet in the air. Between high-speed public-transit simulations, guests can enjoy relaxing features such as the 72-hole miniature golf course. Tall trees and wooden bridges sit between each hole, providing the experience of jungle exploration without the inconvenience of having to hunt down your dinner—a Hot Pocket in a jungle-dweller’s refrigerator.

Forget actors, scripts, or props: Wisconsin Dells Ghost Tours likes its ghosts stripped bare of gimmicks and its encounters backed by bone-chilling authenticity. Its guides spin true tales of eerie happenings, all supported by police reports and historical documents, raising goose bumps as guests rumble through the darkest corners of the Dells on a luxury bus. The 75-minute expeditions visit more than 20 haunted locales, including unmarked burial grounds, houses plagued by spirits, and back alleys populated by dancing zombies. The tour guides open the closets of Newport, Wisconsin Dells, and Lake Delton to reveal skeletons lurking inside, and the tour’s well-researched, heart-quickening stories thrill and educate minds both old and young.