Looking for something fun to do with the kids? If so, how about planning a fun day trip to Hershey Pennsylvania. When most people think about visiting Hershey with the kids, they typically think about visiting Hersheypark (the amusement park), but there is so much more to see and do!
We recently took our two small grandchildren down to Hershey on a day trip and they really had a great time! Here's what we did.
We arrived at 10 AM in the morning and our first visit was to
ZooAmerica North American Wildlife Park. This is a small zoo and wildlife park that's connected to Hersheypark. It's open year-round and parking is free. Admission ranges from $9.50 to $11.50 per person with children 2 & under admitted for free.
When visiting ZooAmerica you'll want to allow 1 1/2 to 2 hours in your schedule. On the day we visited, they weren't crowded and we took our leisurely time. We saw a variety of snakes, turtles, owls, birds, American bison, deer, black bears, Canadian Lynx, prairie dogs, an alligator, river otters and other land mammals.
After our visit we headed over to
The Hershey Story Museum located on Chocolate Avenue. The museum is open year-round and admission ranges from $9.00 to $12.50 per person with children 2 & under admitted for free.
When visiting The Hershey Story Museum you'll want to allow 2-3 hours in your schedule. This is a great museum for learning about the history of Milton Hershey and Hershey Chocolate. There are several nice hands-on exhibits & activities for kids to participate in and plenty of activities for adults too! After your done touring the museum, you can grab a bite to eat in the cafe or do a little shopping at the on-site gift shop.
We then headed to the
Echo-Dell Indian Echo Caverns to take a guided tour of the caverns and for the kids to see the few animals that they have in their mini petting zoo. If you're expecting a lot of animals, you'll be disappointed with that. We saw a few goats which were friendly in nature and the kids did get to pet them.
Indian Echo Caverns is open year-round since the caverns maintain a cool (but not freezing cold) temperature year-round. If you have mobility issues, this is NOT that activity for you, since you'll be required to walk down a ton of stairs to reach the cavern entrance. On the day that we visited, there was no wait and we spent a total of 75 minutes there.
To finish up our day we headed to
Adventure Sports in Hershey which is a large entertainment complex. You'll find miniature golf, batting cages, indoor arcade, go-kart racing, laser tag, bumper boats, a playground and on-site cafe & ice cream shop.
On the day that we visited, we spent an hour playing miniature golf, took a ride on the go-karts and then headed inside to the cafe. We found the cafe food to be "okay", but a tad on the pricey side for what it was. With that said, the kids were pretty happy to get some food into their belly. Overall, I would estimate that we spent a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours there, before heading back home.
Wow, what a full day! As a family, we really enjoyed our day trip down to Hershey in Pennsylvania. If you plan on doing all four of the activities listed here, you'll need a full day to complete them in. You can find extensive reviews on each one right here on our travel blog.
1 comment:
There really is a lot to do in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I don't know if a day would be enough for me to fully appreciate and enjoy all the possible activities.
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