When traveling, we often seek out Children’s Museums in the towns that we are passing through. They are the perfect place for kids to shake off some energy, connect with others and learn new things! Richmond is a little over 1 hour in the car for us. Every so often, we drive down there to spend a few hours. We pick a spot for lunch, then visit a nearby attraction. On a recent trip, we took the opportunity to discover the Children’s Museum of Richmond and it did not disappoint!
One of the best things about the Children’s Museum of Richmond is that there are 4 of them in Central Virginia and they are all a bit different. You can go to their website to see what type of exhibits each location has to offer!
The 4 locations are:
Downtown Richmond (city center)
Short Pump (North East of the city)
Chesterfield (South of the city)
Fredericksburg (well North of Richmond)
Each person (1-59) has an admission fee of $9, Seniors (60+) are $8 and Under 1 year old is free! If you are local to Richmond or Fredericksburg, it may be in your best interest to check out their membership options here!
We chose to visit Short Pump but each museum has art workshops, family engagement days, and special events throughout the year. On select days, they offer free admission to first-responders, military, and families with challenges or disabilities. Carmax presents $1 Family Night on the 2nd Friday of each month at the Downtown Richmond location!
The Short Pump location is located inside the Town Center Guest Services building. The wide-open floor plan makes it easy to see all of the exhibits they have to offer. They have partnerships with many well-known businesses, like Wegmans and Carmax, to create an inspiring environment for kids of all ages to learn through play.
Of course, my boys ran straight to the Carmax Service Station. They could add hoses and other parts to the car they had inside the shop. They could climb inside of it, add numbers to the outside and make-believe they were race car drivers for a while! Asher spent most of his time at this station and met some nice kids to play with.
The next stop was Wegmans! Brooks loves grocery shopping with me. Our local grocery store just got those small carts for customers in training. He felt right at home, grabbed a cart and started shopping! They had a place to scan the groceries which was exciting for him too! Kyle and I had a place to sit down inside of the exhibit to watch them play.
They had quite a variety of different things for the kids to do. There was a Silver Diner exhibit, a Dino Dig Pit, a Farming section with a cool tractor that they can sit on, and so much more! I am thoroughly looking forward to taking them to the other Richmond locations as well.
Another highlight of the Short Pump Children’s Museum is the location. There is a large parking lot for the town center and so many shops and places to eat all in one place! There is a train that you can ride called the Short Pump Express. You buy tickets inside the Guest Services building and you can board the train just outside of the Children’s Museum. It takes you for a ride around the town center and looks like so much fun!
After visiting the Children’s Museum, we stopped next door for some gelato from Frost. This was our first time having gelato and it was delicious! If you want to spend an afternoon in Richmond, there are so many wonderful places to see. One of our other favorite places to visit is the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden… read about it here!
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What a perfect place for kids and I love the fact that you can grab food to eat and grocery shops nearby. It’s all about the location. Looks like a perfect place for the family!
I agree! The location of this one is awesome! 🙂 It is easy to spend an entire day in the general vicinity!
I love Children’s Museums! This one looks like a blast!
Great idea for entertaining the kiddos…and maybe even yourself!
This looks so fun, and what a great idea to check out children’s museums when you travel. I hadn’t thought of that for our kiddo. We’ve been to the Children’s Museum in Philadelphia, and our little one had a blast!
We will be heading up to Philly in mid December. I will have to check it out!
This looks like a fun place to take the kids. I love interactive museums. Thank you for this post!
Looks like a great place for the whole family!! Next time I am in town this is a must-go-to for me! Thanks, I love museums!
I think getting your kids hooked on museums at an early age is the way to go. Then they are more likely to love them as adults too!
Children’s museums are fun for “kids” of all ages 🙂
Cool review. love this little museum. I’m sure my son would have enjoyed it!
I don’t have kids, but I might just go for myself lol! Looks like a lot of fun.
I love visiting the children’s museums of different towns. It’s one of my favorite things. This looks like a fun one!
Now THAT is a children’s museum! I love the Carmax service station. I would have spent some time there myself!
Is it wrong that that gelato is what captured my attention here? 🤤
ha! I threw it in there just for the gelato fans like yourself!! 🙂
Our family loves a good children’s museum. This one looks so fun. Thanks for sharing.
Fun! We’ll have to check this one out! I feel spoiled as we live next to the national museum of play in Rochester, NY 🙂
Sounds awesome! I will have to check it out when we head up to NY!!
Were going to be there in a month. I’ll be sure to check it out!
I love children’s museums! They are great for the kids and parents alike! This one looks like a winner too!
This is amazing for kids! I love places that are like this and the fact that you’re able to get a sweet treat right next door.
I love children’s museums! I used to take my kids to one in California when we lived there. Never gets old 🙂
When my kids were little, their favorite part of our children’s museum was the shopping area. It is funny how they enjoyed it so much.
We also seek out children’s museums when traveling. This one looks so fun! My boys would definitely be attracted to the car section like yours! I pinned your article so I can revisit when we plan to be up that way. Thanks for sharing!
That children’s museum looks amazing! We love going to different ones around the country with our museum pass we can get in free!
Love that tradition of visiting museums!
This looks PERFECT for my five-year-old. She loves hands-on experiences and pretend play. It’ll be a great choice during the cooler months especially.
These sorts of children’s museums are awesome! Tha is for showing us this one!
We also love checking out Children’s Museums while traveling. Helps kids get the wiggles out! This one in Richmond looks like a great option!
I loved taking my kids to these kinds of places!
Museums are the best and the more you visit the more they learn! There are so many fun ways to learn together as a family!
Wow what a fun place for kids! Mine would have loved spending hours there as youngsters.
This place looks SO. COOL! I’d love to take my grandkids here if we find ourselves in the area.
Oh my goodness that looks like so much fun…. even for those kids at heart…. like me.