Playgrounds and things to do with kids in Healdsburg (4)

Healdsburg's neighborhood park on Heron Drive: playground, courts, and open field near the river trail system - the local's alternative to the Plaza.

Healdsburg's gazebo square: no play structure, but a leafy lawn for cartwheels, benches for a bakery picnic, and the town's shops and ice cream on all four sides - the stretch-your-legs stop upvalley.

Healdsburg's Russian River swim beach: in summer a seasonal dam creates a calm, lifeguarded swimming lagoon right in town - generations of local kids learned to swim here.

A redwood-ringed lake west of Windsor: a seasonal lifeguarded swim area, flat trail loop around the lake, and picnic groves - the summer swimming hole that isn't the river.