Top Indoor Activities to Experience in Texas

In Texas, there’s just as much fun to be had inside as there is outside — amp up the action with these fun indoor activities!

Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex

The newly opened Meow Wolf Grapevine is full of imaginative, interactive surprises that have landed the large-scale, immersive art installation on numerous “best of” lists. Dubbed The Unreal Real, Meow Wolf Grapevine is never the same for any two visitors thanks to its many rooms to experience, doors to open, and stories to follow.

The Metroplex’s many stellar museums include the Dallas Museum of Art, a cool oasis with traveling art shows as well as exhibits from the museum’s 25,000-piece collection that spans 5,000 years.

For puzzle-solving fun, crack the code at the Dallas escape room, Escapology, exercise mystery-solving skills to figure out scenarios that include Scooby-Doo, a mansion murder, and finding treasure in a lost city.

See how cool-hard cash is made at the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Fort Worth. The production source of billions of dollars — more than half of U.S. currency in circulation — offers daily free tours that bring you behind the scenes to find out all there is to know about the U.S. monetary system. A highlight: the aerial view from an enclosed walkway that runs above the production floor.

Outdoor water parks are popular, but you can leave the sunscreen at home when you visit indoor water playgrounds like Epic Waters in Grand Prairie or The Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine. Slides, lazy rivers, and watery playscapes make a big splash with the entire family.

Houston

Houston’s iconic downtown skyline soars above a hidden not-so-secret secret: the most extensive pedestrian tunnel system in the U.S. Go underground to learn about H-town history and architecture on the Astroville Underground Tunnel Tour of Downtown Houston. You’ll see Art Deco architecture, the bustling city-beneath-a-city, and some of Houston’s impressive downtown skyscrapers.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science, set in verdant Hermann Park and founded in 1909, offers floors and floors of spell-binding exhibits, films, and interactive displays that bring science to life. Check out excavated bones and life-size dinosaur models, walk among 1,500 live butterflies in the Cockrell Butterfly Center, and immerse yourself in the vastness of space at a planetarium show.

Austin

Indulge your curiosity about Texas lore at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. More than seven-hundred artifacts displayed in engaging exhibits tell the Lone Star State story going back as far as 16,000 years.

The Texas Toy Museum in downtown Austin is an offbeat ode to eighties and nineties toys and arcades. Big, curated displays of LEGO, Barbies, and action figurines bring out cries of “remember this” again and again. The arcade room is chockablock with pinball, console, and electronic arcade classics like PacMan, Galaga, Centipede, and Oregon Trail, set up for unlimited play. 

No matter what you’re itching to do on your next visit to Texas, there are plenty of indoor adventures waiting to be had!

San Antonio

Experience the extraordinary at Ripley's Believe It or Not! San Antonio! Here, you can wander amongst strange curiosities and rare artifacts you won’t find anywhere else — like a life-size figure of the world’s tallest man, Robert Wadlow, who measured 8 feet, 11 inches.

Nearby, Louis Tussaud's Waxworks San Antonio is waiting to be explored. Strike a pose with your favorite superheroes, celebrities, and historical figures — you’ll find so many living legends among these halls of wax figures.

Witte Museum brings together nature, science, and culture with eclectic collections and exhibits at its home in Brackenridge Park. Learn about local flora and fauna with the museum’s natural history collection, or delve into Texas history in the Witte’s Robert J. & Helen C. Kleberg South Texas Heritage Center.