Wisconsin With Kids Family Travel Guide

It really is dairy country. Wisconsin makes about a quarter of America’s cheese and ranks second in milk production after California. Driving past working farms and small cheese factories is part of the trip, not a detour off it.

The waterpark decision solves itself. Wisconsin Dells calls itself the Waterpark Capital of the World, and with over 220 slides across its resorts, nobody argues. What the kids do all day is not a planning problem here the way it is elsewhere.

A coastline nobody expects from the Midwest. Door County’s 298 miles of Lake Michigan and Green Bay shoreline, cliffs, lighthouses and quiet harbor towns, feels closer to Maine than to anywhere else in this part of the country.

A stadium that actually means something. Lambeau Field has been fan owned since 1923, the only team in major American pro sports set up that way, and a tour there is a different thing from touring any other NFL stadium.

Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) is the airport to use. It sits closer to both Door County and the Dells than flying into Chicago and driving up, and it is usually cheaper than people expect.

Milwaukee and Madison are both under two hours from Chicago. I-94 gets you to Milwaukee in about ninety minutes, and I-90/94 gets you to Madison in about two and a half hours.

Door County is its own drive, about three hours north from Milwaukee up Highway 42 or 57. Once you are on the peninsula you need a car, the towns are strung out along the shoreline with real distance between them.

Wisconsin Dells sits almost exactly between Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis. That is part of why families from three states end up there instead of picking a side of the state.

The Apostle Islands need a boat, not a car. Sea cave kayak tours and cruises leave from Bayfield, all the way up on the Lake Superior side of the state, a trip of its own.

Two ferry routes reach Washington Island from Northport Pier, a thirty minute crossing that runs about 225,000 trips a year. Bring the car or leave it, bikes rent right off the dock on the island.

Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant in Sister Bay really does have goats grazing on its sod roof. It is not a gimmick built for photos, though everyone photographs it anyway, ours included.

A real fish boil is worth planning a dinner around. Whitefish and potatoes go into a kettle boiling outside until it is deliberately overflowed in a burst of flame. Several harbor town restaurants run them most summer nights.

Fifty lighthouses and lights sit along the shoreline, ten of them on the National Register of Historic Places. Cana Island and Eagle Bluff are the two worth the actual detour.

Six state parks fit on one peninsula. Peninsula State Park is the big one, with bike paths, a working lighthouse, and a bluff trail with a real view out over Green Bay.

More than 220 waterslides are spread across the resorts here, and the town’s own claim to be the Waterpark Capital of the World is not one anybody seriously argues with.

Most families book a resort with its own indoor waterpark included, so the real decision is which resort, not whether to also buy a separate day pass somewhere.

The actual dells are real, sandstone cliffs carved by the Wisconsin River, and the boat tours through them predate every waterpark in town by about a hundred years.

Noah’s Ark, the largest outdoor waterpark in the country, covers more than 70 acres with roughly three miles of slides and five million gallons of water in play.

Summer weekends book out resorts months ahead. If you want a specific waterpark and not just any room left in town, plan by early spring.

Milwaukee’s brewery tours are built for a family afternoon, not a bar crawl. Most, including the big Miller tour, run kid friendly daytime slots with a lot of the history saved for the adults.

Lambeau Field is two and a half hours north in Green Bay, but American Family Field and Fiserv Forum put Brewers baseball and Bucks basketball right in Milwaukee itself, no drive required.

Madison’s capitol dome was modeled on the one in Washington DC, and it is one of the only state capitols you can walk straight into and climb, free, any day it’s open.

The Milwaukee Art Museum’s wing shaped sunscreen actually opens and closes over the building twice a day. Worth timing a visit around, even for kids who will skip the galleries.

Bald eagles winter along the Mississippi on Wisconsin’s western edge in numbers big enough that towns like Prairie du Chien run whole eagle watching weekends around them.

Families who want to drive there, not fly there. Wisconsin is a road trip state. If you are within a day’s drive of it, you can be on a beach or in a waterpark by dinner.

Kids who would rather be in the water than looking at it. Between the Dells waterparks and the lakes, this is a swim and slide trip more than a sightseeing one.

Families who want two different trips out of one state. Door County is quiet water and lighthouses. The Dells is waterslides and mini golf. Pick one, or do both a year apart.

Anyone who needs ocean scale water. Lake Michigan is big, but it is not the same trip as a beach vacation. Go to Florida or the Carolinas for that.

Families trying to do Door County and the Dells in the same three day weekend. They are almost four hours apart. Pick a side of the state and give it the time.