The 10 best things to do in Charlotte with kids

Started by an industrious teacher in 1947, Discovery Place’s four museums now serve three-quarters of a million visitors a year. The polar opposite of a stuffy museum where security guards bark at anyone who gets too close to the art, Discovery Place encourages kids, and their adult companions, to get hands-on with the exhibits. Learning is the end goal, but the museum pulls it off by hooking them in with imagination-friendly topics (Marvel superheroes, skeletons, and sea creatures to name a few faves). There's also a massive IMAX theater, educational programs and summer camps to keep the kids literally busy for days.

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The U.S. National Whitewater Center might be famous for its gnarly rapids that challenge even the best kayakers, but the park also hosts 24 activities for children. That begins with the stuff even the littlest ones can participate in, like group hikes and a bike cap coloring station. From there, the more adventurous kiddos can graduate to mountain biking, rock climbing, zip lines and, of course, water sports that’ll get them ready for that Olympic gold.

The amusement park outside Charlotte knows how to hook them early by offering free tickets for children 3 to 5 years old. Then it’s on to Camp Snoopy, where the Wilderness Run will ease them into rollercoasters with a chill 6-mph top speed. From there it’s the Woodstock Express coaster, where they only have to be 40 inches tall (with an adult coming along). That’s just the beginning, of course, as the older kids work up the bravery to the Fury 325, with its fastball-like top speed of 95mph.

With two locations on the north and south ends of the metro, Sky Zone isn’t far from most Charlotteans, which is good for those who have offspring with boundless energy. Avoid a day of pre-teen angst with several games and play areas, including freestyle jumps on a series of padded trampolines, airborne dodgeball and a ninja warrior course. Little ones and their parents can also burn off that sugar energy in the toddler zone.

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A partnership between the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte created a 102,000-square-foot facility that earned a ranking as the country's number-one children's library. There's a dedicated library space for kids under 11, another for teens, a production studio and two theaters, with a professional theater company on site.

The Schiele Museum's natural history exhibits and planetarium are already regular destinations for field trips and weekend outings with the kids. But it’s the Dino Safari section that’s a crowd-pleaser for those obsessed with ancient giant reptiles (AKA, every single child ever). Full-bodied models of massive beasts from the Mesozoic Era take visitors to the time of the dinosaurs. There are also displays of fossils and casts from the museum's collection that show how paleontologists unearth clues from the time when dinosaurs roamed.

Sea Life's location in the Concord Mills mall is as close as you can get to swimming with fish without actually getting wet. A glass tunnel burrows under and through an aquarium full of 1,000 creatures, feeling like a journey into an underwater world. A touch pool allows visitors to get friendly with sea stars and urchins. For those with short attention spans, the good news is that the entire thing can be conquered in under an hour.

It's not often you get to feed a giraffe through your sunroof, but at the Lazy 5 Ranch, you can feed animals directly from your car. Essentially a drive-through zoo, the park is home to 750 animals from six continents, some of which visitors are encouraged to feed as they pass through.

The 1,460 acres of the Latta Nature Preserve are just 20 minutes from Uptown Charlotte, and so a journey down the trails or across the lake already feels like an adventure. While there, stop into Quest, a 13,000-square-foot education center that teaches about the need to preserve native land. If all that learning gets boring, there are fishing poles and a picnic area on the patio.

Part drive-through zoo, part animal sanctuary you can explore by foot, Zootastic Park houses exotic animals including lions, tigers, kangaroos and monkeys. While all that sounds fine for a Saturday morning, go all-in with the hour-long Animal Encounters, where it’s you and a baby animal cuddling in a private room; pick from animals like a two-toed-sloth, kangaroo, or a Joe Pesci-faced-kinkajou.