Kansas City and the Missouri Ozarks With Kids: Barbecue, Fountains, Union Station and Float Trips

Kansas City sits on the Missouri side of the state line and it is our side of the country, the one we know best. It has more fountains than Rome, the best barbecue argument in America and a train station with a science museum inside. South of it, the Ozarks have a lake with a castle and rivers you float for days.

Union Station

Science City fills the grand old station with a planetarium, a big kids’ floor and traveling exhibits, and the model railroad in the hall is free. Crown Center across the walkway has the Legoland Discovery Center and Sea Life aquarium for the under tens, the Hallmark visitor center and an ice rink in winter. The Kansas City Streetcar is free and runs from the station to the River Market.

Museums

The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art has giant shuttlecocks on the lawn and it is free, with a kids’ guide. The National WWI Museum and Memorial across the street has a glass bridge over a field of poppies and a tower with a view, and it is one of the best history museums in the country for kids over about eight. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum share a building at 18th and Vine and both are moving and important. The Money Museum at the Fed gives kids a bag of shredded cash.

Barbecue

Burnt ends are the Kansas City thing. Joe’s in a gas station for the Z Man sandwich, Q39, Jack Stack for the sit down version and Arthur Bryant’s for the history. Kids eat the burnt ends and the cheesy corn. The fountains at the Plaza and the Christmas lights there from Thanksgiving.

More

Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun are the theme park and water park pair. The Kansas City Zoo has a polar bear and a sky safari lift. A Royals game at the K with the fountains in the outfield. The Arabia Steamboat Museum in the River Market is a whole sunken riverboat’s cargo, and kids find it strange and wonderful.

Lake of the Ozarks

Two and a half hours south, the lake with more shoreline than California, condos and resorts with docks, and Ha Ha Tonka state park with a castle ruin on a bluff over a spring. The Bagnell Dam strip for go karts and fudge. Bridal Cave. Big Surf water park.

Float trips

The Current and Jacks Fork rivers in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways are spring fed, clear and gentle, and outfitters rent canoes, rafts and tubes for a day or a camping trip. Kids from about five ride in a canoe with a parent. Alley Spring mill and Blue Spring are the stops. The Eleven Point and the Meramec are the other family rivers. Johnson’s Shut Ins state park has natural water slides through the rocks, and Elephant Rocks next door is a field of giant boulders to climb. This is the Missouri summer that families come back to every year.

Planning Missouri with kids? Start with the full Missouri family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.