Start the day with excitment and leave with smiles on your faces and fond memories.
Here are fun fall activities to do as a family.
All of Fall in One Trip: Riverview Farm. Fill your morning with fall. Kids will love picking the perfect pumpkin in the patch and determining the best apples on the branch. Ride around the orchard on the wagon or explore the small corn maze and its fun artwork. Then finish off the trip with goodies in the farm store and a maple creamee. Riverview Farm is a must do.
Hands-on Fall: Wellwood Orchard. Petting zoo and donuts. That’s all you need to know. Wellwoods is a wonderful fall experience for everyone. Parents will love the relaxing and beautiful fall drive along a backroad to get there. Kids will love the wagon ride to the apples and then petting the animals. Fresh warm donuts and plenty of baked goods in their massive store. And tons of apple varieties. If you’ve never been, you gotta go.
Music, Food, and More: Attend an Annual Fall Festival. Sample chili, listen to music, buy fall goodies, and just savor the smell of fall as you meander. I love the Warner Festival because you can do the Telephone museum and two other museums close by like the Indian Museum and the Nature Discovery Center (never been so not sure if these are toddler friendly, but definitely older kid friendly). Annual Fall Festivals.
Birds, Canopy Walk, and Climbing Adventures: Spend the Day at VINS. The new forest canopy walk will be open in Oct. Explore the forest exhibit. Relax as they scramble up walls at the adventure playscape. Talk to and admire the birds, stay for feeding time or a live program. We loved watching them fly. Great for a picnic under the pavilion too. Not all the trails are open due to the construction of the canopy walk. I didn’t know you could walk to Quechee Gorge from VINS. There’s a trail. You could try it.
Sculpture and Sampling: Explore Artisan Park. Kids will love sampling jam at Blake Hill, watching glass blowing at Simon Pearce (of course I made sure my kids were ready for this experience and not going to topple or touch expensive glass), playing at the play structure outside VT Farmstead Cheese, and exploring the sculptures at the Path of Life Sculptures Garden. Pictures here.
Meander and Marvel: Visit St. Gaudens. I love to take my kids here. There’s expansive lawns from them to roam around and so much to see. They can marvel at the massive sculptures, be enthralled by the carriages, and be enamored by the bronze turtles in the lily water feature. Take a walk, have a picnic. And of course take fall pictures of the mountains.
Step Back in Time at the Shaker Museum. My sons loved the school room. Sit in a little desk. See what kids wore to school. Look at old machinery and walk around the big buildings. This is great for older kids because there’s a lot of reading of fun facts. I just liked to walk the grounds with my little ones. More about it here.
Do a Scavenger Hunt and Take a Fall Walk. There are plenty of toddler friendly and older kid friendly hikes. Giles Mtn. is great in the fall. Quick, lots of stairs, and a beautiful view at the top of the fire tower (which you don’t have to go up all the way for the view). All the walks I currently have on my site are ones I did with my boys (either with one or both and they’re 1 and 3). They’re thirty minutes and under (except Boston Lot Lake), easy, and a beautiful way to explore fall with them. I’m going to do a scavenger hunt with mine the next time we go. Valley Quests are great too. I haven’t tried them yet.
Frisbee Fun in the Woods: Play Disc Golf. Bring a frisbee and drive over to the Newport Town Forest to play disc golf. Or you can just wander the woods like I did.
Have a blast at the Adventure Park in Sunapee. Your kids will love the adventure park at Sunapee. I can’t wait to take my kids here. Mine for gold, play mini golf, try the climbing wall and jump into the air bag. Older kids will love the obstacle course, mtn. biking, and disc golf.
Spend the Afternoon at a Park. Lawn games and Paradise Park. Bring the family and some food. Here are lawn games you could play and where you could play them.
Smile and Be Surprised: See the Plainfield Pumpkin People. Giggle and delight in the Plainfield Pumpkin People. This is on my gotta-do fall list each year in October. They’re out and ready for your enjoyment. See my previous adventures here.
Sample, Slide, and See Farm Animals: Spend the Day in Woodstock. Right off the green in Woodstock is a road on the right where the elementary school is. Park in the parking lot and walk along the side of the building to the playground and you’ll find a slide built into the ground and a tree house. After head to Billings to pet the animals, see some demonstrations and maybe even take a walk across the street at the Rockefeller Historic Park. Finish the afternoon with enjoying the back roads as you sample cheeses and jams, pet the rabbits, and take some beautiful fall photos at Sugarbush.
Let them Imagine: Explore Elizabeth Park. This is an amazing playground-the biggest I’ve ever seen. Bring a picnic and some friends and let them just have a ball.
Experience History, See Demonstrations, and Talk to Experts: Spend Some Time at Fort #4. Volunteers in period dress love to answer your questions. See traditional crafts, skills, and how life was different from men and women back then. Bring ear plugs and see a battle. I love the marching music they play just before. A truly educational and fun experience at Fort #4.
Explore the Many Halloween Activities with the kids. Wagon rides, games, goodies, and more. Some places have kid friendly haunted houses too if you have older kids. We love the activities on the green in Lebanon. This is a list of ideas from a previous year I’ll update it for 2019.
I hope you fill your fall with wonder, joy, and many memories.
