4 Family Friendly things to do in Mesa, Arizona

Sharing is caring!

This visit was Hosted by  Mesa Tourism. However, the views and opinions expressed are entirely my own. You can read my full disclosure here.)

Looking for fun things to do with your family in Mesa?

Recently my family visited Mesa for a family wedding. While my husband had been to Mesa before when he was younger to visit his family who lived there, this was my first visit (as well as my kids) to the South West.

While in Mesa we decided to make the most of our time and whenever we weren't doing family wedding stuff we went out to explore. I had no idea how much there actually was to do in Mesa before this trip. Thankfully the Mesa Tourism was ready to make great suggestions for what our family should check out on our limited time there. Here are our top 4 things we did on our recent visit to Mesa:

Museums:

There are a lot of Museums in the Pheonix, Mesa, Scottsdale area. (Have I mentioned HOW MUCH I LOVE MUSEUMS!!!) While visiting Mesa we went and spent several hours at their Natural History Museum and the KIDS LOVED IT!

I thought it was really fun how outside on the sidewalk there were Dinosaur footprints in the Cement leading up to the front door where they had a large Dinosaur waiting to invite you inside. They happily jumped from footprint to footprint as we walked from where we parked to the entrance.

Inside there was soo many fun things to see and do. They really did a great job making this experience as interactive for kids a possible really pulling them into each exhibit.

The workers were so helpful in guiding us around. The first exhibit they directed us to was the Weld west on TV where my kids got to stand in a Greenroom corner and see themselves on tv. My kids adored this.

Next, we check out the dinosaurs (where they even had a hidden slide for the kids to enjoy. After the Dinosaurs, we went outside and panned for Gold then walked through an old Spanish mine and prison before learning more about the native Americans that once were the main inhabitants of the Mesa area.

The rest of the Museums went by in a blur (I think there were more Dinosaurs, weather and more. We spent a few hours there and still had to drag our kids away at the end they were having so much fun.  If you are visiting Mesa with kids I highly recommend checking out this awesome museum in downtown Mesa!

The Foodie Trail

Did you know that Mesa has a foodie trail with farms and orchards and such throughout Mesa and the surrounding area? We only had time to visit one for this visit so we chose the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I am not a huge fan of olives in general (my daughter is the only one in our family who likes to just eat them.) but I love to cook with olive oil.

With 7,000 Olive Trees in 16 different varieties, the Queen Creek Olive Mill is quite impressive. We took our kids on their Olive 101 tour where we learned all about how Olives are grown, harvested and processed.

**Did you know that there is no such thing as a natural black olive? We learned that olives actually range in color between green and dark purple all of which have a light green inside. So how do you get those pure black olives? Lye, Yeah that's right. Those olives are soaked in lye. Ugggg.

After the tour, I bought some freshly made bread loaf and we sat down to do some olive oil tasting. We fell in love with the Roasted Garlic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It was sooo good we just had to buy a bottle.  What a delicious way to end our day. Next time we visit the Mesa area I totally want to visit some more local farms.

Explore Downtown

On our last evening in Mesa we spent over an hour just walking up and down  Main street. I loved participating in a time-honored tradition of window shopping (since many of the shops had just barely closed by the time started our evening exploration.).  I look forward to going back during the day this time so I can explore inside.

Our kids loved all the amazing statues found up and down Main street. They just had to stop and have us take a picture of them with each one. I probably shouldn't have let them climb on the statues but they were just sooo cute I couldn't help myself.

My husband loved reading the inscription on each statue commemorated a founder, or important Mesa personage (or embodied another aspect of the Family Center of Mesa as part of their beautification project.

Eat Local

There are many yummy places to eat in the Mesa area.  They even have a few unique places to eat. Like Organ Stop Pizza. We spent hours there one night because the food and entertainment were so amazing.

You can read up more about our experience at the Organ Stop Pizza in my review Here.

If you are looking for more fun things to do in Mesa they even have an old Ghost Town. We again got there after they had closed (since we were so busy during the day with all the wedding activities for our cousin.) but we did have a ton of fun walking around the old buildings and even taking some pictures.

There was definitely a lot of fun for our family in the Mesa Area. I hope we can make it back this next year.  Then we could check out all the things we weren't able to get to this last visit (and maybe revisit those places we loved during our last visit.)

If you liked this post about Family Travel in Arizona then make sure to check out these: (click on the photo to go to the posts)