Things to Do in Santa Fe, New Mexico with Kids and Teens: City of Many Museums

Santa Fe, New Mexico sits at over 7000 feet in elevation, keeping its summer temperatures more reasonable than the ones associated with other cities in the southwest. The average high in June is in the low 80s, which is one of the major reasons it earned a spot on our summer itinerary. I live in Georgia, and my rule for summer travel is “go somewhere cooler than Georgia.” So we were, I have to admit, a bit bummed watching the forecast as our Santa Fe dates approached and realizing that we would be encountering near record high temperatures in the mid to upper 90s instead of the pleasant days and cool evenings we were promised. The surrounding region was even worse off; we’d originally planned to be in Tucumcari, NM for a couple of nights before Santa Fe, but the highs were going to over 100 there, so we got to Santa Fe earlier than planned instead to shave off those few very important degrees. And so, the subtitle of my post here–about all those museums–became very important. We abandoned a lot of plans for outdoor activities in the area in favor of seeking out shelter and air conditioning.

Here are the kids not in the air conditioning, looking very hot:

For a relatively small city, Santa Fe has an absurd number of museums. Population-wise, it’s actually pretty similar to my own city, a suburb of Atlanta, but I don’t think my city has a single art museum, much less a million art museums, like Santa Fe. Some might look at the city of a million art museums and think it’s more suited for adult visitors than for kids, but we spent over a week there and found plenty to entertain our entire crowd, which consisted of a 9 year old up through said 9 year old’s grandparents. A lot of it was art museums. But some of it was not! (also there were a couple of great day trips, which I’ll get to in another post). Here’s what we did.

Incidentally, most of the museums we went to participate in some sort of reciprocal program with other museums around the country. We carefully planned our local museum memberships over the past year to make sure we could take advantage of that. Otherwise admission costs could add up pretty quickly, particularly for a family.

New Mexico History Museum

This extensive museum takes you, in chronological order, through the history of the state. It also encompasses the Palace of the Governors, perhaps most well known for the many Native American artisans who sell all manner of goods under its portal (that part’s accessible without going into the museum). We only managed to get through the first half of New Mexico history before we ran out of steam.

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The artist Georgia O’Keeffe famously lived outside of Santa Fe later in her life and drew inspiration from the desert landscapes, so it’s entirely fitting that her museum is in Santa Fe. Yet I think what I liked most about the museum was the chance to get a full overview of O’Keeffe’s work, which features a lot more variation in style and subject matter than I’d ever seen before. It’s a pretty small museum; you should be able to go through it in an hour or so. Which was a nice size for Abe, then 9. We also read a kids’ book about Georgia O’Keeffe before we went to give the whole thing some context for him.

I believe this was a forgot the real camera kind of day (or maybe cameras weren’t allowed inside? I can’t remember), but here’s Milo looking at art and then most of our group (including Dave’s sister Amy and family) outside the museum with Georgia O’Keeffe herself looking on.

Santa Fe Children’s Museum

We took Abe to the Santa Fe Children’s Museum while the older kids went with the rest of our group to the New Mexico Museum of Art (which they enjoyed). This is a small museum, and Abe, at 9 1/2 was already a little too old for much of it. But it was a nice way to pass a couple of hours.

My favorite part was the extensive outdoor area, but, unfortunately, it was so hot that day that it was tough to enjoy the outdoors. But there are lots of garden areas and creative play spaces out there.

Museum of International Folk Art

The Museum of International Folk Art was a big hit all around and made several top 10 lists for the year. The big kids went off to explore on their own at first and very much enjoyed an exhibit on ghosts and demons of Japan (which will be there through September 2023). Dave and I explored with Abe while they did that and were pleased to find a number of hands-on, kid-friendly activities. There’s an adorable play area:

And they had this weaving activity set up, where Abe spent a LOT of time:

Dave and I took turns checking out nearby exhibits while Abe was working on that. Like the one on Scandinavian dress. There’s a whole lot more to Scandinavian clothing (both aesthetically and politically and culturally) than I had ever suspected!

Perhaps the biggest draw here is the Girard collection, a difficult to describe collection of over 100,000 objects arranged into all sorts of dioramas, tableaux, displays of all sorts and set up in a huge space. It’s colorful, whimsical, quirky, and endlessly enjoying to take in. AND! There are a several excellent themed scavenger hunts available. We did the one on horses; we picked it up with Abe in mind, but it was both challenging and fun enough for the whole family to work on.

El Rancho de las Golondrinas

El Rancho de las Golondrinas is a living history museum covering life in New Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries. I love a good living history museum, and this one also happened to be located very near our campground, so it was one of our few big outdoor activities during our hot week. There was a lavender festival going on while we were there, but a quick glance at the calendar revealed that there’s nearly always some sort of festival going on in season. It meant for bigger crowds, I imagine, but also probably more staffing and activities available. There were booths set up selling assorted crafts and, you know, lavender and stuff and a few food trucks, but most of the 200 acre site is open for exploring as usual.

There are lots of historic buildings to check out. The first one was an extensive house/farm with an open courtyard and nice light for pictures, so I took a lot:

There were lots of interpreters around to explain stuff:

We were told that it’s really rare to see the mill in operation these days, so…lucky us!

The place is huge; it takes a long time to cover it all, so allow a few hours. There’s a ton of open space, so it’s a good place for kids to run around or for cousins to climb trees and stuff:

Plaza and Downtown

Make sure to allow some time just for wandering around the Plaza and downtown area. There are lots of shops, art, beautiful buildings, street entertainers, food stands, artisan venders, etc. Again, even better when it’s not a million degrees outside I imagine!

Maybe you would like to buy a New Mexico flag sticker for your van while you’re there?

There are a number of buildings one can tour downtown, too. We tried to go in this church, but it was closed for a wedding, so we just listened to the band for a little while instead:

Meow Wolf

I almost forgot to talk about Meow Wolf! Even though it was very much a highlight of our stop in Santa Fe and, indeed, of our entire trip. How does one describe Meow Wolf? One cannot really do it justice in words. And probably not in pictures, either, but they don’t let you bring in real cameras so I didn’t even get much of a chance to try.

Meow Wolf is an immersive, interactive art installation that meanders all over a sprawling indoor space in Santa Fe. There’s a storyline involving aliens and space portals and disappearing kids…but actually following the storyline might prove too much for a one-time visit (it was for us. The older kids tried to read everything about it at first, but quickly became overwhelmed). But you’ll get PLENTY out of the experience just wandering through the exhibit, looking at all the fascinating weirdness, climbing through tunnels, discovering new areas just when you were sure you’d already seen everything. Here is my one picture of inside:

If you’re interested in more, there are plenty of videos on YouTube and pictures all over the place…but there’s something to be said for going into the experience without much idea of what to expect, too, so I’ll leave it at that…just adding that it’s expensive but well worth it and also that it’s very much a sensory overload type of experience, so keep that in mind if you’re prone to sensory overload. Which I am, and I found around two hours to be my limit.

At this point I should probably talk about all the great food we ate in Santa Fe, but I don’t think we did the best job of eating at restaurants that gave us a real Santa Fe type of dining experience. We had a big group and that always makes things tricky. We did eat at Hidden Mountain Brewing twice, though, and really enjoyed it.

Next up: Bandolier National Monument and Los Alamos!

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