# Things to do in San Jose with kids Written 2026-09-25 by Play Day. The Discovery Museum, Happy Hollow, real mummies and a farm full of peacocks: San Jose, California with kids, sorted by age, with the days each place is actually open. Where do you go in San Jose? Honestly, four places cover most of it: the Children's Discovery Museum for anyone under about eight, The Tech Interactive for the kids above that, Happy Hollow Park & Zoo for a whole day, and the mummies at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum for the Egypt kid. Around them sit free places that are way better than they need to be (History Park on a weekend, Emma Prusch Farm Park, Alum Rock's sulphur springs). Here's what trips people up in San Jose: the calendar. The Egyptian Museum is only open Friday to Sunday, the Rotary PlayGarden Thursday to Sunday, and History Park's buildings and trolley only on weekends. Build a Tuesday around any of them and you'll be staring at a locked door. So this page does what the tourism lists don't bother to. It tells you which age each place actually suits, which days to go and what tends to go wrong, then covers the entry fee, restrooms, changing tables and stroller access for each one. When the answer is no, we say no. ## How we picked These are the places we'd send a friend with a four-year-old and a nine-year-old. The facts under each place come from its own site and its Play Day listing. If a fact is missing, we couldn't confirm it (not that the answer is no). We skipped anything that's a long drive for what you get, plus a few good ones that aren't in the directory yet (they get a shout-out further down). ## Museums, the zoo and bigger days out Downtown's two museums are just a few blocks apart, and Happy Hollow and History Park share Kelley Park, so most days you only have to find parking once. ### [Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose](https://ourplayday.com/places/children-s-discovery-museum-of-san-jose-san-jose) Area: Downtown San Jose It's the big purple building on Woz Way, and everyone local just calls it the Purple Museum. With a toddler, this is the best morning in the city, full stop. Little Water Ways has troughs and fountains at exactly their height, there's a full-size fire engine and paramedic rig to climb into, and the Rainbow Food Truck has them sorting play produce by color with incredibly serious faces. Older preschoolers make a beeline for the mammoth dig and the air pipes that shoot fluff balls overhead. Bill's Backyard, the outdoor half-acre with the rope bridge, lookout tower and cement slides, comes with your ticket. Visits run in morning and afternoon sessions with a cleaning break in between. Weekend sessions go fast, so book one. Tip: Strollers are only allowed for kids who can't walk yet, so if your four-year-old runs out of steam, they're riding on your hip. Pack a change of clothes for the water (you'll need it). - Free entry: No - Reservations: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [The Tech Interactive](https://ourplayday.com/places/the-tech-interactive-san-jose) Area: Downtown San Jose Three floors of robotics, design challenges and stuff to build and test, all connected by ramps and elevators. It really clicks from about five. A toddler will happily press buttons for twenty minutes and then ask to leave. Every ticket includes one IMAX dome film, so pick your showtime when you walk in and plan the galleries around it, not the other way around. It's the priciest museum morning in town, which is exactly why you go early and stay long. Opening time and school-year weekdays are the quietest, and the museum lends out sensory backpacks for kids who find the noise too much. Got a toddler and an older kid? Split up. One adult here, one at the Discovery Museum a few minutes away, and meet for lunch. Tip: The nursing room is on the lower level. - Free entry: No - Reservations: Yes - Restroom: Yes - Changing table: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: Ages 5 and up ### [Happy Hollow Park & Zoo](https://ourplayday.com/places/happy-hollow-park-zoo-san-jose) Area: Kelley Park A small zoo, a string of kiddie rides, a puppet theater and a contact yard with goats, all in one park that San Jose kids have been getting taken to since 1961. It's built for roughly two to eight, and in that range it's a whole day: animals, a ride, a snack, another ride, repeat. Under-twos get in free. Parking costs extra, which is the part everyone grumbles about. The Picnic Basket sells kid food, and bringing your own picnic is totally fine. A ten-year-old will be over it in two hours. If that's your crew, walk across Kelley Park to History Park on a weekend afternoon and make it a double. Tip: You can rent strollers in the Explore & More shop, first come first served. - Free entry: No - Restroom: Yes - Changing table: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: Ages 5 and up ### [Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum](https://ourplayday.com/places/rosicrucian-egyptian-museum-san-jose) Area: Rose Garden Real mummies (animal ones too) and a replica tomb you walk through in the half-dark, in a museum that looks like a temple. It's the largest Egyptian collection on display in western North America, and for a six-to-twelve-year-old deep in an Egypt phase, nothing else in the Bay Area comes close. Very little kids can find the tomb a bit much, though. It's open Friday, Saturday and Sunday only. If you remember one thing, make it that, because it rules the place out for a weekday school-break trip. Kids six and under are free, and the ticket desk takes cards only. The galleries spread over several levels with stairs, so bring a carrier instead of a stroller for a baby. And let everyone run around the Egyptian-style gardens outside first. - Free entry: No - Reservations: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: Ages 5 and up ### [History Park at Kelley Park](https://ourplayday.com/places/history-park-at-kelley-park-san-jose) Area: Kelley Park A little village of old and rebuilt San Jose buildings along flat, paved streets: a print shop, a one-room schoolhouse, a firehouse, even a replica of the electric light tower that used to stand over downtown. Entry is free, and so is parking off Phelan Avenue. Go on a Saturday or Sunday. That's when the buildings open, the historic trolley runs and O'Brien's ice cream parlor is scooping, and those three things are the whole outing. On a weekday the grounds are open and nothing else is, so you get a nice stroller walk and not much more. Since it's paved and level everywhere, it's one of the easiest spots in the city to let a brand-new walker loose. - Free entry: Yes - Restroom: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Winchester Mystery House](https://ourplayday.com/places/winchester-mystery-house-san-jose) Area: West San Jose Sarah Winchester's house of stairs that dead-end at the ceiling and doors that open onto walls. The guided Mansion Tour takes about an hour through 110 of the 160 rooms, and the house has 47 staircases. That pretty much tells you how it goes with a small kid. It's best for about seven to thirteen, especially kids who like things a little spooky. Four and under go free, but an hour in a guided line is a very long hour for a four-year-old. Adult tickets are some of the priciest in town. The self-guided Sarah Winchester Garden tour comes with a mansion ticket and is the easy part with a baby. For lunch, Falafel's Drive-In is five minutes away. Tip: Book a tour time online, because weekend slots sell out. - Free entry: No - Reservations: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: Ages 5 and up ### [LEGOLAND Discovery Center Bay Area](https://ourplayday.com/places/legoland-discovery-center-bay-area-milpitas) Area: Milpitas It's indoors at the Great Mall, so it's your answer for a rainy day or a 95-degree one. You get two small LEGO rides, a 4D cinema, ramps for building and racing cars, a Master Builder workshop and Miniland, the Bay Area rebuilt in bricks (which the grownups tend to like way more than they expected). Every visit needs a timed entry, and booking ahead is cheaper than paying at the door. Adults can't get in without a kid, except on adult nights. No outside food beyond baby food and allergy needs, but there's a café inside. It's aimed at three to ten and it's about the size of a big store, so older kids finish fast. Watch the add-ons at the end, because that's where the bill creeps up. - Free entry: No - Reservations: Yes - Changing table: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [California's Great America](https://ourplayday.com/places/california-s-great-america-santa-clara) Area: Santa Clara More than fifty rides, and most of them don't matter if your kids are under eight. For them, the day is Planet Snoopy, the Peanuts area, where the Family Care Center handles baby changing, stroller rental and lost kids. In summer the South Bay Shores water park is included with admission, so pack swimsuits. Under-twos are free, and in recent seasons the park has offered a free season pass for three- to five-year-olds, so look for that before you pay for a preschooler. Summer means lines, heat and a hefty parking bill. Staying at the Santa Clara Marriott or Hyatt House lets you head back to the hotel pool at midday, which is honestly how you survive it. - Free entry: No - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad & W.E. 'Bill' Mason Carousel](https://ourplayday.com/places/billy-jones-wildcat-railroad-w-e-bill-mason-carousel-los-gatos) Area: Los Gatos A volunteer-run miniature steam railroad that loops out of Oak Meadow Park and along Vasona Lake, with an antique carousel right next to the station. Rides cost pocket change, under-threes ride free with a paying adult, and tickets never expire, so the leftovers in your pocket still work next year. It runs on weekends all year and on weekdays only in summer. Tickets are sold at the booth and nowhere else, and on a sunny Saturday that line is the longest part of your visit. Oak Meadow has its own playground and Vasona's pedal boats are a short walk away, so this easily turns into a full day out from downtown San Jose, about twenty minutes away. Tip: The Snack Shack grills hot dogs and burgers, but it opens later than the rides do. - Free entry: No - Reservations: No - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ## Parks, playgrounds and a farm The free half of the list. County parks charge for parking, not entry, and you can borrow a free day pass from Santa Clara County libraries. ### [Emma Prusch Farm Park](https://ourplayday.com/places/emma-prusch-farm-park-san-jose) Area: East San Jose Forty-three acres of city farm squeezed between 680, 280 and 101, where chickens and peacocks strut around like they own the place (they kind of do). Bring quarters for the feed machines. The playground is built around a giant hen sitting on a grassy mound, with a raised coop tower to climb, and there's a rare fruit orchard with more than a hundred trees, bananas included. The big barn belongs to 4-H kids who keep their livestock there. It's a working barn, not a petting zoo, so on some visits there isn't much in it. The birds and the playground carry the day anyway. Free to get in, free to park, and the lawns are big enough for a kite. - Free entry: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Rotary PlayGarden](https://ourplayday.com/places/rotary-playgarden-san-jose) Area: Guadalupe Gardens San Jose's first all-inclusive playground, in the Guadalupe Gardens by the river near the airport. Adaptive swings, a merry-go-round that sits level with a wheelchair, kinetic sculptures and sensory panels mean a kid in a wheelchair and a sibling who wants to climb everything both have somewhere to go. A 2023 expansion added more shade and more to climb. It's free, and open Thursday to Sunday only. Think Friday-morning playground, not Monday one. No scooters, skateboards, balloons, kites or dogs inside. There's also a free nature program for two- to six-year-olds that runs out of here. - Free entry: Yes - Restroom: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Hellyer County Park](https://ourplayday.com/places/hellyer-county-park-san-jose) Area: South San Jose The playground here opened in 2017, and it's one of the best in the South Bay. It has a two-tower wooden fort 24 feet tall with an enclosed slide, a log climbing structure, and a splash pad of jets and waterfalls tucked among fake rock, all under old trees and big shade sails. The splash pad runs roughly April to September, so bring swimsuits and towels on any warm day. Cottonwood Lake next door is stocked for fishing, and the Coyote Creek Trail runs right through if you want a flat bike ride. It's off 101 in south San Jose and doesn't pair with anything downtown, so give it a morning of its own. Summer weekend afternoons around the splash pad get busy. - Free entry: Yes - Restroom: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Almaden Lake Regional Park](https://ourplayday.com/places/almaden-lake-regional-park-san-jose) Area: South San Jose The Playground of Possibilities is new and inclusive: a tall, fast slide, a globe spinner, and baby, regular and harnessed swings over soft surfacing. The main structure is for bigger kids, while toddlers get a mound slide, a frog to climb and a bouncer. There's zero shade over the new playground, so in summer it's a morning spot. The lake loop is flat and paved (great for strollers and scooters), and there are restrooms on both sides of the park. You'll pay a parking fee at the main lot by the playground. - Free entry: Yes - Restroom: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Vasona Lake County Park](https://ourplayday.com/places/vasona-lake-county-park-los-gatos) Area: Los Gatos The county's busiest park, and on a warm weekend you'll see why. Wide lawns, a big playground, and pedal boats, kayaks and paddleboards for rent on the lake from early spring into early fall. The Los Gatos Creek Trail runs through, and it's flat enough for a kid on a balance bike. It shares a fence line with Oak Meadow Park, so the Billy Jones railroad and carousel are a short walk, and the little train runs right along the edge of the lake. Put the two together and you've got the easiest full day on this list. Parking is charged all year and the lots fill up on warm weekends. Get there before eleven. - Free entry: No - Restroom: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Alum Rock Park](https://ourplayday.com/places/alum-rock-park-san-jose) Area: Alum Rock California's oldest city park, dating to 1872: a creek canyon in the eastern foothills that was a spa resort a century ago. The Mineral Springs loop takes you past stone grottos and springs that smell like sulphur, which kids find endlessly hilarious. Down on the valley floor you've got a playground, picnic lawns, restrooms and barbecue pits. The Youth Science Institute runs a small nature center inside the park with live animals, open Wednesday to Sunday afternoons, and we'd plan the visit around it. The road in is narrow and winding, and the trails that climb out of the valley get steep fast for small legs, so stay low with little ones. Parking inside the park costs money, but the lots near the entrance are free. - Free entry: Yes - Restroom: Yes - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ## Where to eat with kids ### [San Pedro Square Market](https://ourplayday.com/places/san-pedro-square-market-san-jose) Area: Downtown San Jose A food hall with twenty-odd counters around a big open-air courtyard, and it solves the eternal lunch standoff: everyone orders what they want and still sits at the same long table. Pizza Bocca Lupo's wood-fired pies are the safe bet for kids, and there are also tacos, sushi, hot dogs and Latin plates. The Discovery Museum doesn't allow food inside, so this is the obvious lunch break, a short walk away. The garage next door validates two hours. Thursday to Saturday evenings there's free live music, and nobody will notice how loud your kid is. After about eight on weekends, though, it turns into downtown's bar scene. That's your cue. - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Original Joe's San Jose](https://ourplayday.com/places/original-joe-s-san-jose-san-jose) Area: Downtown San Jose Red-sauce Italian-American on First Street since 1956, with deep booths that fit five of you and waiters who have seen it all. There's a kids' menu, but the portions are so big that one plate of pasta will feed two kids, which is the smarter move. It serves all day, so it's the easy early dinner after The Tech or the Discovery Museum, both a few blocks away. Look at the SAP Center schedule before you go. On a Sharks night the room fills with jerseys before puck drop, and an early table is the difference between a relaxed dinner and a long wait. - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Falafel's Drive-In](https://ourplayday.com/places/falafel-s-drive-in-san-jose) Area: West San Jose Order at the window, then eat at picnic tables under murals of old San Jose. The Nijmeh family opened it on Stevens Creek Boulevard in 1966, and a falafel sandwich with a banana milkshake has been the order ever since. Kids usually skip the falafel and go straight for the shake, plus the hummus with pita and veggies for dipping. It's been on TV and the lunch line shows it, but it moves fast. No high chairs and no kids' menu (it's picnic-table eating), so bring a clip-on seat for a baby. It's five minutes from the Winchester Mystery House and Valley Fair. - Changing table: No - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Bill's Cafe (Willow Glen)](https://ourplayday.com/places/bill-s-cafe-willow-glen-san-jose) Area: Willow Glen A San Jose breakfast chain since 1977, and the Willow Street location is the neighborhood's Saturday-morning ritual. Kids' pancakes come as four little ones from the house recipe, with a chocolate version for the kid who's been really good (or is about to be). Crayons show up with the menus. Breakfast and lunch only. Weekend mornings mean a wait, but on a weekday you walk right in. Afterward, stroll down Lincoln Avenue, Willow Glen's main street, where Willow Glen Creamery does frozen yogurt and ice cream for anyone who missed out on the chocolate pancakes. - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Din Tai Fung (Valley Fair)](https://ourplayday.com/places/din-tai-fung-valley-fair-santa-clara) Area: Santa Clara Kids plant themselves at the glass and watch the cooks pleat soup dumplings, which buys you most of the wait. Pork xiao long bao and fried rice are what they actually end up eating. There's no kids' menu, but staff bring special kids' plates, high chairs come on request, and every restroom has a changing table. Walk-in waits of an hour or more are normal at peak times. Either show up at opening or book: reservations open on the website 30 days ahead at midnight, and your whole party has to be there within 15 minutes or the table's gone. It's inside Westfield Valley Fair, so if you do end up waiting, the mall soaks it up. - Changing table: Yes ## Where to stay with kids Downtown if you want to walk to the museums, Santa Clara or North San Jose for Great America, and Milpitas for LEGOLAND and a suite. ### [Signia by Hilton San Jose](https://ourplayday.com/places/signia-by-hilton-san-jose-san-jose) Area: Downtown San Jose The downtown high-rise next to the convention center, and the pick if you'd rather not move the car all weekend. The Tech, the Children's Discovery Museum, San Pedro Square Market and Original Joe's are all a walk from the front door, and the airport is about ten minutes' drive. There's a rooftop pool for late afternoons, cribs and connecting rooms, and a fridge in the room. The grownups get a Nespresso machine and a kettle, plus two restaurants downstairs for the night nobody wants to go out. It's a convention hotel and it's priced like one, with paid parking. During a big convention week the lobby is wall-to-wall lanyards, so glance at the convention calendar before you pick dates. - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Santa Clara Marriott](https://ourplayday.com/places/santa-clara-marriott-santa-clara) Area: Santa Clara Your Great America base. The park is about a mile away, Levi's Stadium is walkable, and the hotel claims the largest hotel pool in Silicon Valley, with cabanas and a hot tub. That pool is what makes the midday break from the park actually work. Ask for connecting rooms if you have more than two kids, and cribs are available. On weekdays it's a business hotel, on summer weekends it's a family hotel, and you can tell by the pool. The downside is the setting. It's office parks in every direction, so dinner means getting back in the car. - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Embassy Suites by Hilton Milpitas Silicon Valley](https://ourplayday.com/places/embassy-suites-by-hilton-milpitas-silicon-valley-milpitas) Area: Milpitas Two-room suites, so the kids sleep behind a door and the adults aren't sitting in the dark at eight o'clock. Breakfast is included, and so is the evening reception with snacks, which covers that tricky hour before dinner. The pool is indoors, so swimming works even in January. The hotel is off I-680 near the Great Mall, a few minutes from LEGOLAND Discovery Center and about fifteen from downtown San Jose. Reviews mention the building is showing its age. If you mostly need space and a pool, that matters a lot less than the door between the rooms. - Wheelchair access: Yes - Ages: All ages ### [Hyatt House San Jose](https://ourplayday.com/places/hyatt-house-san-jose-san-jose) Area: North San Jose An all-suite hotel in North San Jose, and the one for a longer stay or a kid who eats exactly four things. Ask for a suite with the full kitchen and living area. Breakfast is included, and the outdoor pool is heated all year. Great America and Levi's Stadium are a short drive, and the airport is under four miles away, which is a lifesaver with a late arrival and a sleeping kid. It's surrounded by tech campuses: quiet at night, with nothing to walk to. ## Which days to go where Friday to Sunday: the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. Thursday to Sunday: the Rotary PlayGarden. Saturday and Sunday: History Park's buildings, trolley and ice cream parlor, plus the Billy Jones railroad outside summer. Wednesday to Sunday: the Youth Science Institute in Alum Rock Park. So what's left for Monday and Tuesday? The Discovery Museum, The Tech, Happy Hollow, Emma Prusch and the county parks. ## If it rains, or if it is 95 degrees Indoors: LEGOLAND Discovery Center, The Tech, the Children's Discovery Museum, and the Egyptian Museum if it happens to be a Friday or a weekend. For heat, the Hellyer splash pad runs from spring to September, and South Bay Shores comes with a Great America ticket in summer. Raging Waters at Lake Cunningham Regional Park in east San Jose is the South Bay's water park. It's not on Play Day yet, and neither is the carousel at Arena Green in Guadalupe River Park, downtown by SAP Center. ## Parking Happy Hollow makes you pay for parking on top of admission, the county parks (Hellyer, Vasona) charge per car, and Alum Rock charges inside but has free lots by the entrance. History Park and Emma Prusch are free. Downtown, the garage by San Pedro Square validates, and the Discovery Museum has a paid lot right across the street. ## Questions ### What is there to do in San Jose with toddlers? Start with the Children's Discovery Museum, for the toddler-height water tables and the fire engine (just know strollers are only allowed for kids who can't walk yet). Happy Hollow Park & Zoo is free for under-twos and sized for two to eight. Emma Prusch Farm Park is free, with chickens and peacocks roaming around and a giant-hen playground, and History Park's flat paved streets are perfect for a new walker on the weekend. ### What are free things to do in San Jose with kids? History Park (free, and best on a weekend when the buildings and trolley are running), Emma Prusch Farm Park (free entry and free parking), the Rotary PlayGarden (free, Thursday to Sunday) and Alum Rock Park, where entry is free and the lots near the entrance cost nothing. Hellyer and Vasona only charge for parking, and you can borrow a free parking pass from Santa Clara County libraries. ### Is The Tech Interactive or the Children's Discovery Museum better for my kid? The Discovery Museum is built for about one to eight, with water play, pretend play, a mammoth dig and an outdoor backyard. The Tech is for about five and up, with robotics, design challenges and an IMAX film included, and it costs nearly twice as much. They're a few minutes apart downtown, so if you've got one of each, split up. ### Is the Winchester Mystery House OK for kids? Yes, for about seven to thirteen, especially kids who like a little spooky. The guided mansion tour runs about an hour, in a house with 47 staircases. Four and under go free, five to twelve need a ticket, and the self-guided garden tour is the easy part with a baby. ### What can kids do in San Jose on a rainy day? LEGOLAND Discovery Center at the Great Mall in Milpitas (book a timed entry, and adults need a kid with them), The Tech Interactive and the Children's Discovery Museum downtown, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, which is open Friday to Sunday only and free for six and under. ### Where should families stay in San Jose? Signia by Hilton downtown if you want to walk to the museums, and it has a rooftop pool. Near Great America, the Santa Clara Marriott for its big pool, or Hyatt House San Jose-Silicon Valley for suites with kitchens and breakfast included. Near LEGOLAND, Embassy Suites Milpitas has two-room suites, breakfast, an evening reception and an indoor pool. Page: https://ourplayday.com/guides/united-states/california/san-jose/things-to-do-with-kids