Things To Do in Maryville

Within Fairways and Greens Golf Center’s 25-acre practice and instructional facility, resident aces equip golfers with score-shaving tools and techniques during lessons and club-fitting sessions. With an expert staff that earned a position on Golf Digest's list of America’s 100 Best Clubfitters, Fairways and Greens utilizes a vector launch monitor to deduce which metal sticks best suit each player’s swing, physical attributes, and genetic magnetism.

This international museum is the only facility of its kind, completely dedicated to the evolution of women's basketball and the talented athletes who helped the sport grow. Bounce buffs can learn the history of women's basketball through the museum's exhibits, including multimedia presentations, numerous basketball artifacts, original photographs, scrapbooks, and old uniforms. Guests inspired by the abundant wooden-court knowledge can try their hand on the facility’s basketball courts, featuring hoops of three different heights (representing the past, present, and future of the sport) and a vertical-leap challenge, allowing you to show off your superb ceiling-dusting skills. No trip to this historical vault is complete without investigating the world's largest basketball, 30-feet tall and weighing 10 tons, which sits atop the museum's northern hall and, during winter months, is used as the base of the world’s largest snowman. Children ages 5 and under receive free admission to the museum.

A seasoned purveyor of outdoor sporting equipment, River Sports Outfitters' adventure experts put gear to work on indoor climbing walls and local kayaking excursions. Rock-top scramblers suit up in provided harness and shoes at the climbing gym, lined with vertical slopes that impersonate cliff faces with gritty-textured walls, rocks in many shapes and sizes, and animatronic dancing mountain goats. Climbers of all skill levels can strengthen and stretch muscles on ascents up the tall rope-climbing wall, or free-climb on the shorter bouldering walls, which lose the rope and vertical ascent in favor of low routes that challenge spidery-men to master specific maneuvers and grips.

The noble squires at Sir Goony's Family Fun Center engineer amusement with a sprawling facility dedicated to outdoor recreation. Towering, inflatable slides draw guests' eyes upward at the splash zone, where voyagers shatter the sound barrier in a near-vertical plunge before braking softly in a pool of water mixed with the joyful tears of Isaac Newton's supporters. An enclave of absurd obstacles—including a professorial owl and an irate tree—await to disrupt putts at the Center's two 18-hole miniature-golf courses, which runs alongside scenic water features and other cheerful decor. At Sir Goony's 800-foot go-kart track, racers hug the tire-cushioned rails, weaving in and out of fellow drivers in single or tandem karts. Guests can soothe itchy trigger fingers and don their favorite pair of sequined protective goggles at the paintball course, which promotes fast-paced action with a relatively open field populated by inflatable obstacles that supply minimal cover.

The Emerging Cinemas network presents world-class performing arts, recorded on-scene at internationally recognized theaters and splashes them across the big screen before popcorn-chomping American audiences. Coppélia, choreographed by Patrice Bart, is a comic tale that follows the en pointe follies of a lovesick villager whose fiancée must compete with a life-like dancing automaton to win his affections. Professionally filmed, the performance is captured by multiple cameras with a combination of sweeping angles and detailed close-ups, allowing patrons a rare view of production details blasted through Carmike Cinema's high-definition big screens and surround-sound systems. The rich cinematic experience gives audiences front-row access to each magical movement augmented by a flawless score and Morse code toe taps that convey plot points to dance-illiterate viewers.

Ijams Nature Center is committed to outdoor conservation and recreation, supplying members with rugged nature trails, an eco-friendly learning center, and a wildlife sanctuary spread over 300 acres. The visitor's center reduces energy emissions through passive solar heating, and most of the building's surfaces were constructed using materials made from recycled newspaper, cardboard, and grocery bags. New and permanent exhibits fill this space, such as Ijams Family History—which showcases the traditional preserved birds that highlight their passion for ornithology. Inside the forest exhibit, correct answers to questions light up components inside a giant walk-through tree, and glass cases hold specimens such as a hummingbird nest and snakeskin.

Heading outside, guests enter the raptor enclosure—a sheltered structure and small amphitheater housing a red-tailed hawk and turkey vulture, who read excerpts from their favorite Looney Tunes fan fiction during educational demonstrations. From here, all-ages visitors explore a greenhouse and organic garden. Children can frolic in Jo's Grove—an interactive nature play area replete with hidden spaces and materials for building a nature fort. Hikers and mountain bikers can traverse ten miles of surface trails that wind through mature woodlands, as well as Mead's Quarry and Ross Marble Natural Area.