fun field trips to go on

Christian Homeschool Resources & Homeschooling Advice

• BROWSE TOPICS X
• Devotionals
• Newsletters

50 Fun & Educational Field Trip Ideas

• Katie Layne Contributing Writer
• Updated Aug 29, 2023

Homeschool Field Trips

Sometimes our homeschooling needs "something," some spark, something new and different, something that doesn't necessarily involve pencils and paper, something that gets our bodies moving and our spirits refreshed. Sometimes, we need a field trip!

Field trips can be used for wide and varied purposes. Sometimes a field trip is just what is needed to kick off a unit study or to pull everything together at the end of a period of study. Field trips can spark interest in various topics, fields of work, or study, which may lead to our students making a new invention or getting interested in a field that may one day become their life's work.

Get our awesome PDF of the Ultimate Field Trip Bucket List to print out and check off the ones you do!

Have you ever wondered why so many public school classes take field trips in the spring? Could the students and teachers be tired of being cooped up all year in a classroom and just want to get out and about in the fresh air? Oftentimes, the field trips are not even what you could consider "educational," but nonetheless, everyone in the class gets on a school bus, and off they go for the day. Therefore, I believe we can add one more purpose for field trips to our list above--fun! Field trips can be taken just for the fun of it.

If you are going to tour a facility that is not normally open to the public, or anywhere else that you will require a tour guide, be sure to call ahead to set up a time for your tour and find out if they have any special instructions for you.

Here are 50 awesome field trip ideas! 

1. Manufacturing facility . This would include any factory where cars, equipment, tools, toys, packaging or anything else is manufactured. The mechanized equipment and assembly lines are fascinating to watch and it is interesting to learn which raw materials are used and how they are used to make the final product.

2.  Farm. This could be a "specialty" farm that grows some specialty crop, a dairy farm, a farm that grows more ordinary crops such as wheat or corn, maple syrup farm, apple orchard or anyplace where food is grown. Think about the best time of year to visit each type of farm based on what operations may be going on at the time-planting, harvesting, cider making, sap gathering, etc.

3. Fire Department. Learn a bit about fire safety, how firemen fight fires, the gear they wear, and how they live.

4. Daily Newspaper . See the huge rolls of paper used and how the printing process works.

5. Post Office . When we toured our local post office, we were told to bring along postcards addressed to ourselves and were able to watch the postal workers process our own cards, which we then received at home in the mail a day later.

7. Military or National Guard Installation. Learn about what their duties are, what gear they use, what training they receive, and what types of situations they respond to.

8. A State or National Park . Learn about nature, plants and animals of the area. (Note: In these types of parks - as well as in the other science-oriented places listed in this article - the theory of evolution is usually presented as fact. This can provide a good opportunity for your family to study the Biblical account of creation and the scientific basis for the Christian viewpoint.)

9. Museum. There are large, well-known museums, but there are often small, little-known museums around as well that are quite interesting to visit. Check around your area to see what is available. Again, be prepared for evolutionary content. In addition, some museums (particularly art museums) may contain displays that don't fit your family's standards. Use appropriate parental caution when planning a field trip to these types of places.

10. Lock and Dam. Often there is a display area showing the history of the area and displays where you can learn how a lock and dam works. Plan your visit around a time when a ship or ships are due to pass through.

11. Pioneer Day Events. Many places across the country have special festivals or events where the lifestyle of the pioneers is the main focus. Here you can see pioneer craftsmen, equipment, cabins, clothing, animals and "experience" life as it was in our earlier history.

12. Jewelers Shop . Find a jeweler in your area that creates or repairs jewelry and plan a visit to see the tools and skills used.

13. State Capitol . Visit when congress is in session and sit in the visitor's gallery for awhile. Tour the building looking especially for pictures or plaques commemorating our Godly heritage. As you pass through the halls, pray for our leaders!

14. Lumber Mill. See how lumber is milled and hauled.

15. Ceramics Shop . Learn about the craft and how a kiln works.

16. Veterinarian . Learn about the profession and pet care.

17. Library. Learn about the Dewey Decimal System and how to use it. Learn to use the card catalog or computerized cataloging system your library uses.

19. Bank . Visit a local bank or credit union to learn about the different types of accounts and services they offer. This is a great way to follow-up #18 above. If your children don't already have savings accounts, this may be a great time to open one!

20. Recycling Center . Learn about what they recycle, how they do it and what their end products are used for.

21.  4-H Fair. See the different projects 4-H kids are involved in, from crops and animals, to baking, crafts and more.

22. Zoo . I've always enjoyed trips to the zoo! A word of caution, however: You may want to avoid the zoo during the spring season when many animals are "active" in ways you may not want to view as a family.

23. Old Cemetery . Make rubbings of old markers. Find the oldest marker. Look for interesting names and dates.

24. Planetarium . Watch out for evolutionary content here as well.

25. Local TV Station . Plan your trip to coincide with the News program. A trip to the TV Station ties in nicely with a unit study on weather, especially if you can talk with the weatherman and learn more about his job.

26. Dental Lab . See the different tools and methods used to make or fix teeth or dental appliances.

27.  Botanical Garden . This is a great opportunity to see a wide variety of plants.

28. Power Company. Learn about how power is generated and supplied to your area.

29. Wood Worker's Shop . Learn about the different tools and skills involved in making fine furniture or crafts.

30. Eye Doctor. Learn about eye care, diseases/problems, diagnosis equipment and treatment.

31. Print Shop. See the huge printing presses, trimmers and other equipment in operation.

32. Historical Sites . Most areas of the country have a variety of historical sites. Some are well-known (historical buildings, etc.), while others may just be an obscure marker commemorating some event that happened there. To supplement your historical ramblings, visit the local library to see if you can learn more about the people or time period.

33. Wildlife/Nature Preserve . Learn all about plants and animals native to the area.

34. Blacksmith. Sometimes you can actually find a working smithy shop, other times blacksmithing is part of a special pioneer or old-time event (see #11).

35. Local Bakery. This would be an operation on a much smaller scale than a food processing plant discussed earlier in this list, but can also be very interesting.

37. Pet Store. See a wide variety of pets, learn about their habits and care.

38. Symphony Orchestra. See if you can visit during a rehearsal, then go to the actual performance as well.

39. Historical Society. You can often obtain a wealth of information about your area at a local historical society.

40. Paper Mill. Learn about the paper making process from trees to tissue paper.

41. National Weather Service. Learn about how they predict weather and the science behind weather, what equipment is used, and how the public is informed of the upcoming forecast.

42. Basket Maker. Learn all about the various materials and tools used.

43. Fish Hatchery. Learn about different types of fish and how area lakes and ponds are stocked.

44. County Courthouse . Learn about what goes on in a local courthouse, enjoy the oftentimes beautiful architecture and look for pictures or plaques showing our godly heritage.

45. Nursery or Lawn/Garden Shop. Learn about different plants for your area, plant and soil care, insect control and beneficial insects.

46. Police Station . Learn about what policemen do, K-9 units, technology used, etc.

47. Make your own "old-fashioned day." Go out to a pretty park (or even your own backyard), and try to do everything the "old-fashioned" way. Gather wood and cook over fire, do without electricity, read, play string games like cat's cradles, whittle, sing, use your imagination and travel back in time for a day.

48. Water Treatment Plant. Learn about where your water comes from, how many gallons go through the plant, water purification and testing.

49. Exotic Animal Farm. Look around, there may be a farm in your area raising mink, llamas, ostriches, mini-burros, African pygmy hedgehogs, emus, cockatoos, iguanas, rheas or other unusual animals.

50. Caverns.  Learn about the geological history of your area and have fun exploring the caves!

One last note: don't forget the educational value of family vacations! Even if your family can't take a two-week trip across the country, check out opportunities for day trips within a 2-3 hour driving distance of where you live, or in a neighboring state. We took many such trips during years when we couldn't afford a "real" vacation. It provided an opportunity to see some things beyond our immediate area with much less expense.

I hope I've been able to spark your imagination and give you some new ideas that your family will enjoy. Have a fun (and educational!) summer!

------------------------------

This article was originally published in the May/Jun '05 issue of Home School Enrichment Magazine. For more information, visit http://HomeSchoolEnrichment.com . To request a FREE sample copy, visit http://homeschoolenrichment.com/magazine/request-sample-issue.html .

Recently On Homeschool

Editor's Picks

Popular Today

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Crosswalk App
• California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information
• California - CCPA Notice

FIND THE PERFECT FIELD TRIP

Search by geographic area.

• Hot Springs
• Little Rock
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Statewide / Region
• Daytona Beach
• Fort Lauderdale
• Gainesville
• Jacksonville
• Orlando-Metro
• Palm Beach Metro
• Space Coast
• Tallahassee
• St. Augustine
• St Petersburg-Clearwater
• Atlanta-Metro
• Chicago-Metro
• Springfield
• Central Region
• East Region
• Indianapolis
• North Region
• South Central Region
• South Region
• West Region
• Bowling Green
• Baton Rouge
• New Orleans
• Baltimore-Metro
• The Berkshires
• Boston-Metro
• Cape Cod/Plymouth
• Greater Lowell
• Greater Springfield
• Capital-River Region
• Delta Region
• Gulf Coast Region
• Hills Region
• Pines Region
• Jefferson City
• Kansas City
• Springfield-MO
• Delaware River Region
• Gateway Region NJ
• Greater Atlantic City
• Shore Region
• Skylands Region
• Southern Shore Region
• Capital District Region
• Central New York Region
• Finger Lakes Region
• Hudson Valley Region
• Long Island
• Mohawk Valley Region

New York City

• North Country Region
• Southern Tier Region
• Western New York Region
• Canton Ohio
• Cincinnati Ohio
• Cleveland Ohio
• Columbus Ohio
• Oklahoma City
• Allegheny Mts. & Valleys
• Gettysburg/York
• Harrisburg-Metro
• Lakes & Erie Regions
• Lancaster-Metro
• Lehigh Valley
• Philadelphia Metro
• Pittsburgh & Laurel Highlands
• The Poconos
• Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
• Chattanooga
• East Tennessee
• Middle Tennessee
• The Smokies
• West Tennessee
• Bryan - College Station
• Corpus Christi
• Dallas/Fort Worth
• Panhandle Plains Region
• San Antonio
• Central Virginia
• Chesapeake Bay Region
• Coastal Virginia -Eastern Shore
• Coastal Virginia-Hampton Roads
• Northern Virginia
• Shenandoah Valley
• Southern Virginia
• Southwest Virginia-Blue Ridge Highlands
• Southwest Virginia-Heart of the Appalachia
• Virginia Mountains
• Martinsburg
• Madison Wisconsin

SERVING SCHOOL, SCOUT, CAMP, AND HOMESCHOOL GROUPS FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD THROUGH COLLEGE

You Can Also Find

Featured field trips.

Cathedral Caverns State Park

Forest Glen Camps & Retreats

Wild West City

featured destinations

MASSACHUSETTS

SOUTH CAROLINA

featured field trips

Boone Creek Outdoors

LEGOLAND Discovery Center Chicago

Crab Apple Whitewater

field trip lesson plans

Each month, we raffle a prize to show appreciation for your hard work with students, scouts, and campers. It’s Easy & Just A Click Away

This Month’s Prize is a $50 Amazon Card

SCHOOL ASSEMBLY & OUTREACH PROGRAMS

Dialed Action Sports

Awesome Laser Assemblies

DINOSAURS ROCK® & Other Science Fun

FUNDRAISING FOR FIELD TRIPS

Scholastic Book Fair

Flower Power Fundraising

FieldTripDirectory.com (formerly ClassTrips.com and CampDirectorsResources.com) offers field trip ideas for class trips, scout group trips, camp group field trips, and homeschool group field trips—early childhood through college. Search for class trips by geographic area, distance, and venue name or keyword. Day class trips are divided by curriculum and subject area:

• ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Find art museums, theater, dance, and music concert field trips.
• EARLY CHILDHOOD Find class trips to children’s museums, petting zoos, and kids’ shows.
• HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES View history museums, government & civics, historic sites, living history museums, and multicultural field trip ideas.
• LIFE SKILLS Find team building field trips, health & safety exhibits, and character education experiences.
• SCIENCE & NATURE Find aquariums, botanical gardens, environmental studies & nature centers, farms & mazes, planetariums, science museums, STEAM & STEM field trips, dinosaur exhibits, and zoos.
• RECREATION Find field trip ideas for adventure parks, ropes courses, ziplines, boat excursions, amusement parks, waterparks, kayaking, rafting, tubing, laser tag paintball, roller skating rinks, ice-skating rinks, mini-golf attractions, indoor amusement & recreation centers, and outdoor amusement & recreation centers.

Overnight field trips include trips to NYC, trips to Boston, trips to Philadelphia, trips to Washington, DC, trips to Chicago, trips to Atlanta, trips to Austin, and other historic cities throughout the US. Retreats are available for environmental education, team building, and recreation. We created field trip lesson plans to help teachers, scout leaders, camp counselors, and homeschool parents provide an enriching experience for their groups. We know funds for class trips are limited, so we’ve included grants for field trips that cover admission, transportation, and more. It’s important that students and youth explore new environments, learn about other cultures, and develop an understanding of inclusivity as part of the educational process. People learn in different ways—through hearing, seeing, touching, talking, or doing. Class trips can provide a multi-dimensional learning experience. FieldTripDirectory.com can help you find the right trip for your group. A world of experiences is just a click away at FieldTripDirectory.com.

55 Simple and Memorable Field Trip Ideas

We all know that field trips are fun- we have all been there. But when you are on the side that you have to plan them, it becomes a bit less fun, and a lot more stressful. It does not really need to be, though, because there are so many fun things out there that your middle schoolers will love to do.

In this article, we will give you 29 excellent field trip ideas. And remember, these are just ideas- there are tons more out there! Get creative!

I don’t know what it is about the zoo, but there is just something about the zoo that makes it one of the best places on earth. And this is true for most ages, not just preschoolers. Running around, finding favorite animals, discovering new ones, and learning more about animals that may be endangered is so fun.

Your middle schoolers will think so, too. Many zoos offer free (or at least discounted) admission for field trips, as long as they’re booked in advance. ( Source )

2. Water Park

Visiting a water park is a great way to either say goodbye to warmer weather or to celebrate the return of it. The best thing about many water parks is that they have arcades too, so those who do not like swimming can just try to win the giant plushies and lava lamps that we all envied as children.

3. Art Museum

An art museum is a great way to infuse culture into middle schoolers. Most are old enough to know museum etiquette, and the museum can introduce them to so many different art styles, types of people, and countries. They may come out thinking about art in a completely different way.

4. State and National Parks

If you live by a state or national park, consider yourself incredibly lucky, and then go get in there! This is a great way to expose middle schoolers to nature, and it helps them to love the outdoors if they do not already. State and national parks are beautiful, and they give the perfect opportunity to teach about the importance of taking care of the environment!

5. Movie Theater

You can never go wrong with a movie. All kids like movies. As long as it’s rated G or PG, and you have parental approval, the employees will be ready with popcorn and drinks in excess for your middle schoolers to enjoy.

6. Aquarium

Like the zoo, it is impossible to go wrong with a trip to the aquarium. Many aquariums have rehabilitated animals, which presents a great opportunity to teach about the importance of picking up after ourselves, and not throwing trash in the ocean. It is never too early to help kids become environmentally conscious.

7. Botanical Gardens

Botanical gardens give the wonderful chance to be outside, and it provides a controlled environment to do so. They are beautifully landscaped, and they usually have pretty fountains and waterfalls that provide a really calming atmosphere.

An added bonus: it is easy to reinforce what your middle schoolers have been learning about plants in science classes with what you see!

8. An Actual Theatre

Exposing middle schoolers to the arts should be considered an essential part of their education. And, what’s more, going to plays just makes kids feel mature and important. Maybe it is just because of the way the phrase “going to the theatre” sounds when someone says it with a British accent. If that wasn’t enough, then the fact that education in fine arts is proven to increase students’ self-confidence, self-understanding, communication skills, and cognitive abilities. ( Source )

9. Go on a Hike

This is a good field trip for many reasons. Exercising is an important thing to get in the habit of at a young age, and nature is something that everyone should appreciate. And, as if that was not enough, learning about rocks and rock formations is fascinating, too. This is a great way to combine what you’re teaching in class with what the kids are experiencing in real life.

10. Planetarium

The planetarium is another one of those places that are impossible for someone to not enjoy, even if they are starting to act more and more like a teenager. Besides, middle schoolers will understand the concepts and words used at the planetarium a lot better than elementary schoolers would.

11. Local High School

If there is one thing middle schoolers love, it is that they are going to be in high school soon. Take advantage of that! Take them to high school productions of plays, on tours of the high school they will be going to, and to other high school concerts and athletic events.

12. Local Colleges

While college is still far off for middle schoolers, it’s never too early to give them a good impression of college. Communicate how important a college education can be, and do not forget to mention how fun college life is, either. Get them excited about college before the application process rolls around. The best part about this trip: it’s free!

13. Library

Going to the local library is always a good idea. There is so much to learn (Dewey Decimal System, anybody?), and it is a great way to encourage kids to read. Making this trip coincide with a book report project or readathon might help them to check out books, too!

14. Government Buildings

A government building may be fun to tour. This includes things like the state Capitol building, or maybe even a local government office. There are often tours of the bigger buildings, and these are great opportunities to help students learn more about the government system in our country.

15. Local Festivals

Taking your middle schoolers to local festivals is another great field trip idea. Every town has some sort of interesting festival that they are known for. Take advantage of teaching the kids about the history of their town! Some examples are music festivals, farmers’ markets, local races, and holiday events.

16. Railroad

Local railroads may be hard to come by, but if you are lucky enough to have one in your area, they have tons of history. In addition to this, taking train rides is so much fun. Middle schoolers will love learning about the history of the railroad, taking a ride, and let’s be honest- the concessions on the train will help, too.

17. Local Factories

Going to local factories or businesses is another really great opportunity for middle schoolers. Exposing them to how things work is a great way to help them on the path toward finding out what they want to do in their life. When they see how many types of businesses work, they can better figure out what they like and what they don’t.

18. Amusement Park

Amusement parks are tons of fun. That said, they do require a bit more effort as a field trip. Especially if you are a public school teacher taking 20-30 kids with you, you will need chaperones, permission slips, and plenty of focus, because middle schoolers can wander off.

19. Just a Regular Park

This one is almost effortless, and it is still so much fun. Going to a park, sitting in nature, having a picnic, and then just playing exploring is so good for kids. Getting that time to just relieve stress is key to creating a balanced lifestyle for middle schoolers.

20. Historical Monuments

Historical monuments are there for a reason. They exist to teach us about the people and events that came before us. So why not introduce your middle schoolers to these amazing monuments? They are beautifully built, and being in a historical spot to learn about something that happened before is such a cool experience. What if there is not a monument in your town? There probably is, but if not, a neighboring town will definitely have one.

Caving is such a blast. If you live near a cave, taking middle school students caving would be a fantastic field trip. Before you go, make sure you check the difficulty level of the cave, so that everybody can participate. This is a great way to either introduce or just reinforce what students are learning about rocks, erosion, weathering, and more.

22. Historical Buildings, Homes, or other Sites

This is a great way to learn about specific people that may have had a huge influence on your town, organizations that shaped how your town functioned, or just other historical events that may have caused your town to be built in the first place.

Middle schoolers will love seeing places that appear in books they have read or movies they have seen, and if they are not familiar, they will just enjoy seeing the collection of old things.

23. Local Fire Station

Visiting the local fire station would be a very fun field trip for those who have dreams of being a fireman, but it will also be fun for those who don’t. Kids find it fascinating to learn about the process of it all: seeing the fire station, the fire trucks, and asking the firemen what their typical day looks like is a great way to get them engaged.

24. Local Police Station

It’s the same for the local police station. Not only will kids learn a lot about the government and what police do, but they’ll also learn that they don’t have to be afraid of all police officers. This is a great way to help middle schoolers become more comfortable around police and other emergency personnel. In addition to this, seeing the inside of a police officer’s car is sure to keep middle schoolers occupied: there’s a lot there!

25. Pottery Studio

There are several commercial pottery studios sprinkled around the country that anybody can use. So why not make a field trip out of it? Middle schoolers love working with their hands, and one thing that always makes field trips extra special is a souvenir that they can take home at the end of the day.

26. Fish Hatchery

If you live near a fish hatchery, this would be a really interesting field trip for middle schoolers. It does smell weird, but kids will love seeing the process that they go through in the hatchery. They will get to see a couple of different kinds of fish, and this field trip also gives the added benefit of some outdoor time.

27. Aviation Museum

An aviation museum is another excellent idea for a field trip for middle schoolers. Even if some students are not obsessed with planes and vehicles, the things that one can see at an aviation museum are undeniably fascinating.

Students will get to see several different types of planes, learn about famous pilots and wars, maybe see a rocket, and learn how aviation has changed since it first came into practice.

28. Local Power Plant, Dam, or Locks

This is another information-filled field trip. Though many dams and locks may not have tours, they usually have plenty of signs with blurbs to read that will provide for a lovely, self-guided tour. A lot of power plants will offer tours, though. In these places, middle schoolers will learn so much about modern technology, how things are powered, and more.

29. A Walking Tour of Your Town or City

Obviously, if you live in a big city, this may not be the safest idea, but if you feel you can conduct a safe walking tour of your town or city, do it! Even if they have lived in the town or city for a long time, many middle schoolers may still learn something about the town, and they may find something new to do. Pick a few destinations beforehand so that you can show your students the best-kept secrets of your city.

Remember that these ideas only scratch the surface of possibilities for fun field trips for middle schoolers. Students will appreciate any effort to add variety to their learning, so get creative!

30. Farmers Market

The Farmer’s Market is a great way for students to become involved in the community. Beforehand you can teach them about farming and how important it is to support your local farmers. Then you can take them to the market and let them pick something out or learn about all of the different produce. There are also sometimes animals there that they can pet.

Many communities host Farmer’s markets on Saturdays, so you might need to find out if your local farmer’s market takes place during the week!

31. Animal Shelter

The Animal Shelter is an awesome field trip not only for the kids but for the dogs and cats as well. The animals in animal shelters have often been neglected and abused. All they want is some love, which the kids will gladly give. It may inspire some families to adopt and give the animals a loving home.

32. Recycling Center

Learning about recycling is important. Visiting a Recycling Center might not be the most entertaining for the kids, but they will learn a valuable lesson about the importance of recycling and why we do it. They will also learn how to recycle and what can be reused, from plastic to paper to clothes.

33. A Hospital, Clinic, Dentist’s Office, etc

It is always a great idea to take the children to certain places where they can learn about different professions and what they could be when they grow up. Some kids may be scared of the hospital or doctor, but this way they can learn that doctors and nurses are here to help them.

If you can’t get the hospital to offer a tour, consider a tour of just any local clinic of a medical professional. Perhaps even a parent of a student in the class could offer a tour so that kids can learn about different professions.

Going to the bank may not sound the most fun to elementary school students, but they can learn important information that isn’t being fully taught in schools. Kids can go behind the scenes and possibly get a tour of the vault as well as learn how to write a check and what the purpose of a credit card is.

35. News, TV, or Radio Station

These field trips are fascinating because you can see the behind-the-scenes of the studio that the online viewers or listeners don’t get to see. The children will love to see the cameras and recording equipment, maybe even meet the people that their parents watch on TV every morning. Some kids could decide that this is the career path they want to move towards. The world always needs people to tell stories and report on what’s happening.

36. Local Business

It’s always important to highlight and remember local businesses. Local business owners would love to give back to the community by giving a tour to the students, inspiring them to chase their dreams. You never know which field trip is going to spark interest and help a kid decide what they want to be someday.

37. Restaurant or Bakery

Going to a restaurant or local bakery is something that children will love because they can get a behind-the-scenes tour, as well as some sampling of the food or treats. It will probably end up being one of their favorites since food is involved. Many local businesses will offer tours free of charge. ( Source )

38. Senior Care Facility

Taking the elementary school students to a retirement home is a great opportunity to teach them about the importance of service and learning from their elders. Children can oftentimes be egotistic because their brains aren’t fully developed. Volunteering is a great way to teach them compassion and kindness, and it will make the residents’ day as well.

39. Sporting Game

Sporting games are purely an entertaining field trip, and the students will be very excited. Most areas in the United States have a sports team, but even if you don’t live near a major city, you can find some minor league teams as well. Taking the students to a baseball or soccer game is probably the most common sport for a field trip. ( Source )

40. Theatre

Going to a theatre to see a play is also very exciting and entertaining. Communities almost always have a local theatre putting on a play for all ages to enjoy. You could even take the students to a play at the middle school or high school in the area. Make sure to pick an age-friendly play that they are willing to sit through for a few hours since young kids have a hard time sitting for long periods of time.

Going to the movies is a great indoor winter activity and very exciting for the children. It can get expensive, but there are also oftentimes group rate discounts, especially for schools. Maybe the movie field trip can be at the end of a big test as a reward. Don’t forget to get popcorn!

42. Orchestra

Going to the symphony or orchestra is a very special experience that not every child would normally experience. Classical music is very healthy for the brain. These days, everybody wants to listen to recorded music, but it’s important to instill a love of live music in the newer generations as well.

43. Pumpkin Patch

Fall is always a fun time of the year, and there are so many activities to do! This includes going to the pumpkin patch. Oftentimes, pumpkin patches not only have pumpkins to pick out and carve, but hayrides, mazes, and fun foods to try. My favorite pumpkin patch treats as a kid were apple cider donuts.

Picnics are easy and simple, probably costing zero dollars to the budget. All you have to do is make sure that every student brings a lunch from home and a blanket to sit on. Then all you have to do is take the class outside, set up the blankets, and they can sit with their friends and eat their lunch. Field Trips don’t always have to be big and extravagant.

45. Waterpark

The waterpark could be a great end-of-the-year activity since it needs to be warmer weather to go swimming. This field trip idea would probably need the most organizing, but it will be much worth it when it all comes together and you can celebrate the year together with students, parents, and teachers. This activity is recommended for older elementary school students that know how to swim.

There are endless opportunities for elementary school field trips! These young students are excited and curious about everything. Many of these places are free of charge and are happy to give a tour or experience to the students. Just make sure to plan everything out in advance and find enough chaperones to supervise the kids alongside the teachers. Good Luck! ( Source )

46. Explore a Local Recreation Center

Another great local resource that students can explore is a local recreation center. Finding and understanding available resources in the community is an important skill for kids as they transition to adulthood. A field trip to a recreation center can also emphasize the importance of health and lifelong physical activity to students as they begin to have more control over their lives.

47. Volunteer at a Food Pantry

Field trip education can be about more than just the sciences; giving high school students opportunities to serve in the community can be an important way for young adults to build character.

Many local food pantries would welcome the assistance of a large group of high school students. Taking a field trip day to volunteer at a local food pantry can help students understand more about supply chain management, while simultaneously helping them to build empathy.

48. Visit a Technology Company/Area

Technology is another area experiencing lots of growth. Helping to expose more students to areas like this can help give them direction when they may have none, and can also help fill a societal need.

If possible, arrange for students to take a field trip to a local software company where they can have opportunities to see the background processes of coding, system networks, and other tech phenomena. Showing students something like a server room, or cable management practices could be beneficial as well!

49. Visit the Capitol or Other Government Building

Whether it’s for History class, Political Science, or just to increase students’ social understanding, taking students to visit a capitol building or other government building can be both interesting and thought-provoking. This can be beneficial for all students as citizens, whether they are interested in pursuing education or careers in government or not.

50. Plan a College Visit

With students looking to the future, being able to get them on a university campus can be extremely helpful in guiding them in their decisions. Planning to visit a campus—or multiple campuses—could be a beneficial experience, especially for those on the fence about going.

Many colleges love to welcome high school students for campus visits and tours. Additionally, students may feel more comfortable being able to do a visit with friends and other peers with similar interests. Since Juniors will be thinking about which colleges to apply to, plan these trips preferably during students’ Junior year!

51. Plan a Photography Trip

With the invention of smartphones, and the popularity of Instagram, all students like to be both the photographer and the model. You can provide a field trip for them by taking them somewhere unique to take pictures and teaching them about principles of good photography, like lighting, balance, and the rule of thirds!

Alternatively, you could take them to a studio and allow them to take portraits or shoot other professional pieces, such as jewelry.

52. Plan a Painting Trip

For your more artsy individuals, you could consider planning a day trip to somewhere scenic where they could practice their painting skills. They could practice landscapes, nature scenes, or even portraits in nature.

53. Plan a Geological Trip

Another trip that could be fun is a trip to a location of geological significance. This could be something visual, such as being able to identify different strata on the side of a mountain, or something more tactile, like digging in an area for pieces of archeological or historical significance. It could even be something as simple as comparing rocks and their features depending on the area in which they’re found.

54. Do a Service Project Using Just Serve

We mentioned service in some of the above ideas (food pantry or homeless shelter), but you could also consider planning your own service project! Whether that’s planting trees locally, visiting an old folks’ home to visit with the residents there, or picking up trash.

There’s actually a great free website called Just Serve that allows you to quickly find service project needs for local non-profits. You could probably find something easy.

Allowing students to plan and prepare their own service activity can get them more engaged and help them feel like they can make a difference themselves.

55. Visit an Escape Room — or Any Activity Just for Fun!

Finally, we’d encourage you to be okay with some field trips being just for fun. Let your students go to an escape room, an amusement park, or a pool just for fun. Students need a break sometimes too!

25 Fantastic Field Trip Ideas

Fuel Your Imagination and Planning

Nothing captivates students and youth groups more than the thrill of FIELD TRIPS! These special excursions give kids a chance to encounter new experiences, expand their horizons, cultivate fresh interests, and revel in fun with friends. Below, we’re sharing 25 of our favorite field trip ideas to fuel your imagination and planning.

Terrific Tips for Field Trip Planning 

Wherever you decide to venture, remember these tips to ensure a safe and splendid experience for everyone: 

Align field trips with educational objectives or significant milestones in the school year.

Choose age-appropriate venues and activities, and come prepared with a game plan and instructional materials.

Provide enough chaperones to ensure the safety of all students/group members. ( Pro Tip:   Use SignUp to recruit parent volunteers! )

Follow school/group guidelines for arranging transportation, collecting permission slips, organizing buses, carpooling, etc. 

Communicate expectations for bringing or buying snacks, lunch, and beverages.

For elective and costly field trips, provide  fundraising opportunities  to enable more students to participate.

Educate both children and chaperones on safety measures and emergency procedures.

Fantastic Field Trip Ideas 

Art Museum:  Ignite creative expression and cultivate an appreciation for cultures, history, and identity by visiting a local museum. Many offer curriculum tailored to specific age groups, along with knowledgeable guides and engaging activities for your class or group.

Aquarium:  Dive into the world of ocean life and ecosystem conservation by exploring an oceanarium or aquarium.

Bank : Extend financial literacy lessons with a visit to a main bank branch, offering insights into opening savings accounts, understanding money flow, and even a glimpse into the vault.

Bakery or Candy/Ice Cream Factory : Arrange a tour of a local bakery or industrial food production site to discover the intricacies of food production, complete with delicious samples!

Botanical Garden : Embark on a journey through diverse plant species, learn about local ecosystems, and marvel at the beauty and wonders of nature.

Civil Rights Landmarks : Explore historical sites related to civil rights to enhance students' understanding of the enduring struggle for racial and social equality .

College Campus : Introduce students to the college experience, sparking excitement about higher education and future possibilities.

Cultural Neighborhood Tour : Roam through culturally vibrant neighborhoods to gain insight into various traditions, cuisines, and customs.

Environmental Cleanup Expedition:  Participate in a cleanup event at a local park, lake, or trail promoting environmental awareness and community engagement.

Farm or Dairy:  Gain hands-on knowledge of sustainable agriculture, interact with farm animals, and learn about the farm-to-table process.

Government : Foster civic participation with a tour of local, state or national houses of government, complete with an introduction to elected representatives.

Graveyard : Pay a visit to the resting places of local heroes and significant historical figures to pay respects, and to discover their life stories and the influence they've had on your community.

Historical Reenactment:  Immerse in living history at reenactment events while giving students an experiential understanding of the past.

Local Business/Factory : Take a revealing tour of a prominent local business or factory to learn about their products, manufacturing processes, and community impact.

Nature Photography : Organize a nature photography expedition where students can capture the beauty of the outdoors and showcase their creativity.

Performing Arts Showcase : Attend a theater performance, dance show, or concert to foster an appreciation for the performing arts and encourage creative expression.

Preserve or Park : Explore local green spaces to study wildlife, conduct nature walks, and emphasize the importance of nature conservation.

Pumpkin Patch:  Embrace fall with a visit to the nearby pumpkin patch where students can enjoy hay rides, corn mazes, face painting, and the delight of picking their own pumpkins. 

Science or Innovation Center:  Explore a science or technical innovation center where students can participate in interactive exhibits, conduct science experiments, and learn about exciting future technologies.

Skating : Mark a school year milestone with a party at your local (ice or roller) skating rink, complete with beginner lessons, pizza, and treats.

Stadium or Sports Arena:  Visit the home of your local sports team and get a behind-the-scenes tour of the venue, complete with team autographs. 

Theme Park:  Celebrate hard work with a recreational outing to a local amusement park, water park, or other entertainment center. 

Virtual Reality Tours : Transport students to renowned museums and iconic sites around the world through virtual reality, offering a unique way to explore art and history.

Volunteer Experience : Dedicate a day to community service at a local nonprofit, teaching students the importance of supporting their community and offering insight into nonprofit operations.

Wilderness Surviva l: Collaborate with a local guide or company to arrange a wilderness survival camp that teaches students essential skills like shelter construction, fire-making, foraging for food, water purification, and more.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE...

School Activities Planning Center    

Parent Teacher Conference Planning Center

• Find My SignUp

Help & Resources

• Help Center
• Quick Tip Videos
• Collect Money
• Logos & Buttons
• Company Press Releases
• Team SignUp.com
• Company Fact Sheet [pdf]
• In the News
• Partners & Pages
• Responsible Disclosure Policy
• Responsible Disclosure Hall Of Fame
• Do Not Sell My Personal Information
• Advertise With Us

About SignUp.com

At SignUp.com, we believe that when people get together, great things happen. That’s why parents and teachers, business and community leaders, and friends and coworkers trust our coordination resources and applications to save time and achieve remarkable outcomes. Our simple, intuitive SignUp sheets and scheduling tools make it easy for people to join together and say YES to pitching in, signing up, and helping out. No waiting for approvals and passwords, no software to install—just free, easy scheduling and SignUp tools for everyday heroes. Use SignUp.com for anything including school activities, potlucks, service projects, carnivals and walk-a-thons, class parties, teacher appreciation events, swim meets, tournaments, charity races, office hours, car pool, parent-teacher conference SignUps and more. Automatic reminders help participants keep their commitments, and easy online calendar editing, reporting and messaging saves time and energy, so everyone can do more GOOD!

Bummer! An error has occurred on this page. We have sent an error report back to the geeks.

Possible recovery paths:

• You may be able to refresh the page and continue.
• Is it a repeated error? Please email Support with the details.

Bummer! An error has occurred on this page. Unfortunately you are using an unsupported browser. SignUp.com is not able to support technology this old.

• You should upgrade as soon as possible . It's free!

• Skip to main content

Early Bird Sale on science courses is ENDING SOON (April 18th)! Register NOW and start your course later...

• Search this website

Intoxicated On Life

Pursuing a Healthy Home Life

59 Fun and Educational Field Trips

Annette Breedlove Leave a Comment This Post Contains Affiliate Links

One of the things I most looked forward to when we began homeschooling was taking educational field trips. I could literally plan a field trip (or two) every week and be happy.

However, I know that we do need to actually accomplish school work aside from field trips. I mean…looking at historical handwriting doesn’t exactly teach you how to write, ya know? Nevertheless, I have compiled a list of fun and educational field trips that can be added to any homeschool.

While I would love to take field trips every week, its simply not possible with our family schedule. So, I try to plan big field trips that will coincide with our studies and work in shorter, half-day (or less) field trips as we can do them.

So far, this has been a great way to not only add in some additional learning opportunities, but also give us some much needed breaks in our studies.

59 Fun and Educational Field Trips

• Zoo – Who doesn’t love a trip to the zoo! Be sure to print off some scavenger hunts or fun printables to take with you too. Click here to get some tips on making your zoo trip fun and educational (for kids AND teens) .
• Children’s and Science Museum – Science museums are a great way to let kids explore the world of science on their level, as well as do some fun, hands-on learning.
• State and National Parks – State and National parks are a not only a great way to see the country, but to learn more about nature and the history of a state/area.
• Nature Walks – Take a nature walk in your area to collect leaves, study trees or look for animal tracks.
• Aquarium – Aquariums are a wonderful way to explore the world of the ocean. Many aquariums offer hands-on activities for kids to learn and explore different types of aquatic life.
• Planetarium – Want to know what its like to be in space? Take a trip to the planetarium and learn more about the stars and our vast universe. Click here to get more tips on how to make astronomy fun to learn.
• Laboratory Tour – Some local laboratories may offer tours of their facilities where kids can learn about chemical reactions, pharmaceuticals and more.
• Arboretum – This is a great way to learn more about botany and the world of plants.
• Greenhouse – Learn more about how and why a greenhouse works by taking a tour.
• Camp Out – Take a camp out to learn more about building fires, cooking meals over an open fire and all of nature that surrounds you.
• Cave – Tour a cave to learn more about how they are formed and the different parts of a cave.
• Observatory – If you live near an observatory, it is a great way to see stars and planets on a greater scale.
• Lock & Dam – Most lock & dams may not have tours, but they do often have plaques around that tell you how things work and allow you to tour at your own pace.

History and Government

• Historical Site – Visit any historical sites in your area to learn more about your state and local community. Check out our photos of our adventure to Williamsburg .
• State Capitol Tour – Many states have a State Homeschool Day, when you can tour the state capitol and visit with your local representative. Take advantage of that opportunity to show your support for homeschooling and your representatives.
• Old Cemetary – It may seem a little creepy, but visiting an old cemetary can give quite a bit of historical background to your area. Take some grave rubbings to study later!
• Archaelogical sites – There are many archaelogical sites around the United States, most of which are Native American. Plan to visit them on a family vacation or as a day trip if you live close enough.
• Presidential birthplaces – This is one to put on your bucket-list. Visit some of the presidential birthplaces, as part of your U.S. History studies.
• Local Fire Station – A quick phone call to your local fire station will usually get you a tour. Be forewarned, they will leave you if they get a call.
• Local Police Station – Some police stations may offer tours of their facility and city jail, if you just ask.
• Historic Trails – Take a walk in the shoes of history by visiting historical trails.
• Post Office Tour – Learn how the postal system works, mail is sorted and sent out to the correct address by taking a tour of your local post office.
• Historical Reenactment – If you live near where historical reenactments take place, go! If you don’t, plan a trip at some point. Its a great way to make history come to life for your kids.
• Theater – Get group discounts to a local/community or city theater to learn more about plays and acting.
• Museum  – Learn more about past and even upcoming artists at a museum.
• Art Studio – Some art studios will allow you to observe an artist or even take a class.
• Local Festivals – Most states have numerous local festivals that you can visit. They are a great way to hear music, see arts & crafts and learn some local history. Some even have pioneer days, where people dress up in period costumes for the occasion.
• Orchestra or Concert – Many college or community/city orchestras will offer discounts to school groups. This is a great introduction to music for children.
• Photography – Have kids take their own photos to learn about lighting, focus and more.
• Pottery Studio – Learn how a kiln works and possibly make your own small piece of pottery.
• Visit sites famous authors wrote about – Do your kids love to read? Learn more about the places their favorite author(s) wrote about with a fun tour.
• Michael’s  – most stores offer craft classes for adults and children, you just need to enroll
• Lowe’s   or Home Depot – These stores also offer classes for children. Check their schedules to see what you can build!
• Jewelry Store – Kids can learn how gold is soldered, rings are resized, about different metals and possibly even about designing their own jewelry.

• Tour a local factory – This could be a car, toy, bread or any other manufacturing plant that allows tours.
• Railway station/Train Ride – Learn about the railway system or take a train ride to see how people used to (and some still do) travel across the country. This would be great opportunity to learn the history of the train.
• Farm – There are many different types of farms to learn about. Visit a local farmer to learn about planting and/or harvesting, raising animals (dairy farm, chicken farm) or just how a small, local farm works.
• Aviation Museum – If you live near an aviation museum, I highly recommend visiting. Combine it with some studies of pioneer aviators and how the industry has changed.
• Fish hatchery – This is a great way to learn how fish are fed and reproduced to be given to fish farms to continue their growth for the fish industry.
• Bakery/Donut Shop – If you live near a Krispy Kreme, they do offer tours for small groups. Otherwise, check with your local bakery. This is a fun way for kids to learn how cakes and pastries are made. (KK allows kids to decorate their own donuts too!)
• Recycling Plant – This a great trip around Earth Day to teach kids how the recycling process works and why its important.
• Local Orchard or Farm – We used to live near a couple of orchards/farms that allowed families and groups to come and pick pumpkins, apples, pears, etc. Often times you can coordinate tours for larger groups, like a homeschool group or co-op.
• Local Power Plant – Have your kids ever wondered where electricity comes from? This is a great way to teach them first hand.
• Lumber Mill – Lumber mills are a great way to teach kids how the wood industry works. And if you’re lucky like us, they might even have a logging company to show kids how they cut down trees.
• Nursery – Take a tour of your local nursery to find out what plants are native to your area, what plants thrive in your climate and how to care for them.
• Ghost Towns – There are more ghost towns around than you think, especially if you live in an older state and rural area. They are full of history and wonder. It can make for some great exploring and even fantastic creative writing prompts.
• Historic homes tour – Take a tour of historic homes in and around your town. Its a great way to learn more about where you live and how it became what you see today.
• Tour of your town by bike or on foot – This is a great way to see and read all those historical plaques in your town, that you drive by so quickly.
• Local animal shelter – Visit a local animal shelter to find out more about what they do and how you can you help (even if you’re not interested in adopting a pet).
• Visit a local entrepreneur – If your town has someone that has grown a business from the ground up, they may be willing to speak to kids about how to grow a business or give them some tips in starting their own. This is a great activity for older students wanting to start their own business.
• Water Treatment Facility – Learn more about where your water comes from and how its cleaned when you tour your local water treatment facility.
• Local Newspaper – Find out how the journalism world works with a tour of a local newspaper.
• Veterinarian – Children can learn what a vet does and why it is important to have your pets checked regularly with a tour of a veterinarian’s office.
• Library Tour – Most homeschoolers are more familiar with their local library than anything else. However, have they learned how the dewey decimal system works or why its used? Ask for a tour of your local library for them to learn more!
• Bank – Touring a bank is a great way to learn about financing, money and how banks work.
• County Courthouse – Take a tour of your county courthouse to learn more about the offices held there, tour a court room and talk to a judge to find out more about what they do.
• Local TV station – If you live in a large enough city (or even close to one) that has its own television station, coordinate a tour to learn more about how the world of television news works.
• Print shop – Visit a local print shop to see how they print not only small items (copies for offices), but large banners and the different techniques and signage they might use.
• 4-H Fair – Visiting your local 4-H Fair is not only a great way to support local kids, but also a great time to teach your own kids about farm animals and how they are cared for and raised.

What fun and educational Homeschool Field Trips have you taken?

More Homeschooling Tips:

• Summer Stargazing for Families (A fun, free 8 week course)
• 12 Ideas for a Purposeful Summer with the Kids
• 100+ Memory Tools for Homeschoolers
• The Ultimate List of Resources for Memorizing Science Facts
• The Ultimate List of History & Geography Memory Tools

About Annette Breedlove

Annette has been married to her husband and best friend for 10 years. They are raising their four children to follow the Lord’s will, no matter what.

Do you love what you just read?

Be sure to subscribe so we can send you free email updates and resources for raising strong families.

You May Also Like These

Reader Interactions

Leave a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Did you know we offer engaging, hands-on science courses?

Journey homeschool academy’s courses practically teach themselves using expert-led online videos and hands-on activities—making science engaging and fun.

LEARN MORE >

BOOKS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!

Christian Humility (Philippians 2:1-18) Mastery Workbooks

$10.00-$17.00

Christian Humility (Philippians 2:1-18) Intermediate Workbooks

$15.00-$21.00

Christian Humility (Philippians 2:1-18) Junior Workbooks

$19.00-$27.00

The Heart of Humility: Teaching Your Kids to Put Other’s First

Join us on our journey.

We're Luke and Trisha and we believe you can honor God in all areas of your family’s life—nurturing your children's bodies, cultivating their minds, and inspiring their souls.

More About Us

42 Virtual Field Trips for Kids to Get Them Learning About the World

Kids can go from Ellis Island to Mars without leaving the couch.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

With rates of COVID-19 on the rise again, parents are preparing for the possibility of another round of stay-at-home orders. Or, even if the official word to stay indoors isn't coming down from local governments, careful families might be planning for a winter at home, just to be safe.

These virtual field trips for kids will have them gazing at world-class art, learning about history, discovering science, and even checking out what it's like in outer space. No matter their interests, be it history, art or science, you'll be able to take a "trip" to match.

Of course, these are still screen experiences. If you want to make the most out of a virtual field trip, try to get your kids to continue to engage with the material even after they've turned off their devices with a fun learning activity . Depending on their age, they could either draw what they most remember or what their favorite part of the "trip" was, or write out a couple of facts that they've learned. If you plan on doing many of these, you can even create a binder to act as a log for your virtual explorer.

Tour collections and learn about the history of art and artifacts with these online museum experiences.

• American Museum of Natural History : Brian Selznick, author of Wonderstruck , leads a virtual tour of the museum, meeting field experts along the way.
• British Museum : This cool, interactive site lets kids browse the museum collection by time period, not by room, so kids can focus in on the era they're most interested in.
• Colonial Williamsburg : Eight different webcams let viewers peek in on what's happening at places like Merchants' Square or Raleigh Tavern.
• Frida Kahlo Museum : You might not be able to get to Mexico City, Mexico, but you can still explore the work of artist Frida Kahlo and imagine her life in the "Casa Azul" (Blue House).
• Historic Hudson Valley : This site offers many history-themed online experiences for kids, from " Traders and Raiders ," which looks at the history of pirates in the greater New York Area, to " People Not Property ," which teaches kids about slavery. There are also lots of ideas for at-home historical activities, like cooking with cornmeal or " tinsmithing " at home with aluminum foil.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art : The #MetKids site is geared for little ones, and lets them explore a cute, illustrated map to find treasures in the museum's collection.
• Musée du Louvre : The world-famous museum offers virtual tours by subject, from the body in art to Egyptian antiquities.
• Museum of Science : The #MOSatHome page offers virtual looks at the Boston museum's exhibits and hosts daily livestreams and webinars.
• National Baseball Hall of Fame : Browse through the collection of photographs, memorabilia and more to learn more about America's national pastime. The museum also offers virtual programming on its YouTube page .
• National Constitution Center : Explore exhibitions about constitutional conflicts through the years, including "Hamilton: The Constitutional Clashes That Shaped a Nation." For a fee groups can also participate in live, virtual guided tours for up to 300 people.
• National Gallery of Art : The National Gallery has 50 video tours specifically geared towards kids, focusing on a work and the people, places, and scenes surrounding its creation.
• National Museum of Computing : Located in Bletchley Park in the U.K., home of the famous WWII codebreakers like Alan Turing, this museum offers a virtual tour that takes visitors through the history of computers.
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History : You can bookmark this one to visit over and over, since it offers virtual version of every exhibition in the museum.
• The Vatican Museum : You can get 360 looks at nine rooms in the Vatican — including the magnificent Sistine Chapel.

See how food grows, is harvested, and gets to your table with these farm tours.

• American Egg Board : The Egg Board has virtual tours of different egg farms, and many of them let you choose different videos for elementary and middle school students.
• Bonnie Plants : Home Depot takes kids on a multi-part virtual field trip to this grower, hoping to inspire kids to get into gardening themselves.
• Bright Farms : A farm grower in Irvington, NY shows kids how food goes from the field (in this case, an indoor grower) to the grocery store. There's even a quiz at the end!
• Farm Food 360 : Kids can see 11 different sorts of farm and food plants, including dairy cow farms, egg processing facilities and an apple orchard.

You might not be able to go on your sightseeing vacation at the moment, but these virtual landmark tours are the next best thing.

• Buckingham Palace : Go room-by-room and see all of the amazing historical objects in the palace.
• Ellis Island : See the island the way the 12 million immigrants did between 1892 and 1954 through a virtual tour with lots of first-hand stories.
• Washington, DC : Pick and choose from more than 24 landmarks in our nation's capital, including the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court — even that National Zoo! The tours are given by Richard Kurin, Ph.D., Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large, and feature videos, quizzes, reader polls and interactive maps.
• Mount Rushmore : The virtual tour of Mount Rushmore was created through 3D scans of the mountain.
• Mount Vernon : Take a look inside George Washington's home the same way you would click through Street View on a Google Map.
• Plimoth Plantation : Take a tour of the site of the first Thanksgiving, and learn the history behind the event.
• The White House : President Obama narrates a tour of "The People's House," and you can scroll around and click on points of interest.

Zoos and Aquariums

These zoos and aquariums have live cams where kid can check in with the animals.

• Atlanta Zoo
• Cincinnati Zoo
• Georgia Aquarium
• Houston Zoo
• Reid Park Zoo
• Shedd Aquarium
• San Diego Zoo
• Monterey Bay Aquarium
• National Aquarium

Even More Fun

From a candy factory to the surface of Mars, these tours take kids to places that aren't available to them even in normal times.

• Discovery Education : The site hosts virtual field trips for kids, from engineering plants that make the cars of the future to a lab that researches nuclear energy.
• Johnson Space Center : Boeing leads the tour through the Houston, Texas facility, covering the history — and future — of aerospace innovation.
• M&Ms Factory Tour : The Food Network hosts a virtual tour of the M&Ms factory and shows how the delicious candy gets made.
• Outer Space Tours: Kids can see the real surface of Mars , courtesy of the Curiosity rover. NASA also does virtual tours of the Moon , along with the International Space Station .
• Recycling Simplified : Take kids on a tour of a modern-day recycling center or landfill, and teach them about environmental sustainability.
• Sơn Đoòng : National Geographic offers a 360-degree tour of the world's largest cave, situated in Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam. You can even hear the water as it runs over the rocks.

@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-o9j0dn:before{margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-right:0.625rem;color:#ffffff;width:1.25rem;bottom:-0.2rem;height:1.25rem;content:'_';display:inline-block;position:relative;line-height:1;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}} Parenting Tips & Advice

90 Thoughtful and Funny Quotes About Family

New Research Reveals "Grandma Brain" Is Very Real

40 Super Fun Things to Do at a Sleepover

Heartwarming Quotes for Kids

The Easter Bunny's Magic Is Real

Here's What You Really Need When You Give Birth

110 Belíssimo Italian Baby Names to Consider

Why Is Summer Child Care So Hard to Find?

The 10 Most Popular Baby Names from the 1980s

105 Beautiful Irish Girl Names for Your New Baby

125 Unique Irish Boy Names for Your Little Guy

• For HR & Businesses
• For K-12 Educators
• For Universities & Colleges
• For Tourism
• For Events & Conferences
• For Non-Profits
• For Experience Facilitators
• Lessons from the Chase
• Reviews from Participants
• Company Updates
• Goosechase in the News
• Go to Goosechase.com

Use These Field Trip Ideas to Create Outings That are Educational and Fun

Ahh, field trips. Remember those great adventures from your not-so-distant past? School days and classroom sessions felt a little ho-hum compared to the excitement of everyone in your class piling on a bus and heading out to learn in the real world.

While you felt very much like a kid in the classroom, you felt totally adult out in public on a field trip. You felt EXTRA good about being in charge of keeping your class’ lines straight or buddy system intact - the responsibility felt good! Away from the walls of your typical classroom and immersed in the new environment of a field trip, you felt your potential skyrocket. Maybe field trips are what kick-started your love for travel, or fascination with museums?

Field trips were certainly that catalyst for us. A team-wide survey here at Goosechase found that field trips ranked amongst the best memories of our elementary and high school years. We doubt that’s changed much for today’s students, who spend more time in front of a screen for school than we ever did.

As fully grown adults, we can appreciate all the hard work, sweat, and tears that go into planning and executing a fun, educational, memorable, and of course, safe field trip. Can we help you tick those boxes? Check out these fun field trip ideas that both students and teachers will enjoy (and maybe even a few parents, too - can’t forget about those essential volunteers!).

Field Trips Are a Great Way to Engage Students in Learning

Schools are a terrific place for active learning , but every once in a while, you have to “go to the source,” so to speak, and challenge your students to learn through adventures. Field trips are a great opportunity to experience life outside the classroom.

We’re not surprised that the NEA ( National Education Association ) says educational field trips contribute to better student outcomes in school and beyond. Carylann Assante, executive director for Student & Youth Travel Association (SYTA), believes that:

Today’s students are visual learners, and a field trip lets them touch, feel and listen to what they’re learning about, which helps them build on classroom instruction, gain a better understanding of topics, build cultural understanding and tolerance, and expose them to worlds outside their own.

In a piece on student engagement strategies , the George Lucas Educational Foundation seconds the idea that field trips are worth the effort. The article reveals that culturally-enriching trips can boost grades, while decreasing absences and behavioral infractions – results we’d say are worth every effort!

While we agree wholeheartedly with what the experts have to say, we didn’t really have to do all that scholastic research to prove what we already know is true. Field trips are an oft-cited “favorite memory” from school. Now that we are adults, though, we can really understand just how much time and effort it takes to plan and coordinate a meaningful field trip. We want to make it easier for today’s teachers, so their students can have great field trip experiences, too.

Fun Field Trip Ideas

Field trips or tours don't need to be elaborate productions to have a big impact on your students. Even a trip to a local business or an excursion around the school yard or a nearby park can pack a punch. Here are some fun field trip ideas for children of all ages that are both engaging and stimulating:

• Artist for a Day: In an age when many schools are trimming the art budget, you can contact a local art school or museum to put together an “Artist For a Day” field trip. Ask them to explain what art is, and give your students a chance to practice some of their observational skills by discussing paintings or sculptures. Have students create their own masterpieces, which you can then assemble into an art exhibit at school.
• Study Science: Look at the resources in your local community . Many areas have an aquarium, zoo, planetarium, or botanical gardens that would be thrilled to provide tours for your students. Adapt our Goosechase aquarium experience to get your students even more involved by completing photo, video, and text missions about the different species they encounter. Use our Zoo Adventure to help younger students learn about the different types of animals, or the Biology Zoo Trip for older students. If your area does not have a major science facility, an outdoor field trip to a park or local farm can be the perfect opportunity to connect with nature.
• Historical Sites : Learning about history from books can be dull, but what group of children wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to recreate an actual battle scene? Just about every town has a place where something interesting happened in the past that led to the town’s formation, so why not give your students a chance to get to know more about their hometown? Depending on the site, they may offer tours or have re-enactors who dress in period costume and teach visitors about what life was like in their day. Check out the Gettysburg Field Trip to find ideas for Goosechase missions that match your town’s unique history.
• Fall Fun : Since students head back to school in the fall, visit a pumpkin patch or local farm for a harvest festival . They’ll have a great time learning about where food comes from, where harvested crops go, and they might even learn about healthy eating, too!

Goosechase is here to help create great memories for today’s students with fun and educational field trips. A dynamic learning experience in school can lead to better outcomes in life (and set the scene for powerful bonds and memories), and we think that’s a good thing for everyone!

What is Goosechase EDU?

Goosechase is an online platform that helps educators create and run interactive learning experiences in their classrooms and beyond. Sign up and try creating an Experience, or contact us to learn more about our school and district-wide solutions!

• K-12 Educators

Rebecca Everson

Goosechase EDU Ambassador Program Manager & K-6 Teacher

Recommended for you

Virtual Classroom Scavenger Hunts

Chelsea Hurst: Tips to Run a Large Scale GooseChase

Virtual Scavenger Hunt Mission Ideas for Kids - Volume 2

No results for your search, please try with something else.

Fun and Educational Field Trip Ideas for Kids

Krystal DeVille

Updated on: March 31, 2024

Field trips are a fantastic way to make learning fun and engaging for kids. They provide hands-on experiences and real-world insights that can’t be replicated in a classroom setting. From exploring local history to understanding scientific concepts, field trips can enrich the educational journey of children.

Table of Contents

Local Zoo or Aquarium

A trip to the zoo or aquarium can be a fun and educational experience for kids. They can learn about different animals, their habitats, and conservation efforts. Many zoos and aquariums also offer educational programs and workshops for school groups.

Historical Sites

Visiting historical sites can bring history to life for kids. Whether it’s a battlefield, a colonial village, or a historic home, these sites can provide a tangible connection to the past and make history more engaging.

Science Museums

Science museums are great for hands-on learning. Many have interactive exhibits that allow kids to explore different scientific concepts in a fun and engaging way.

Art Galleries

Art galleries can expose kids to different styles of art and encourage creativity. Some galleries offer workshops and classes for kids, or have interactive exhibits explicitly designed for younger audiences.

Nature Reserves or Parks

A field trip to a nature reserve or park can be a great way to learn about local flora and fauna. Kids can learn about different ecosystems, go on nature walks, or participate in citizen science projects.

Farms or Orchards

Visiting a local farm or orchard can teach kids about where their food comes from. Many offer tours or pick-your-own experiences, and some even have educational programs about agriculture and farming practices.

Planetariums

A trip to a planetarium can be a fun way to learn about astronomy. Kids can learn about different constellations, planets, and other celestial bodies.

Botanical Gardens

Botanical gardens can provide a hands-on learning experience about different types of plants and their habitats. Many also have educational programs and workshops for kids.

Local Businesses

Visiting a local business can be an educational experience for kids. Whether it’s a bakery, a newspaper, or a fire station, kids can learn about different careers and how different businesses operate.

Government Buildings

A trip to a local government building, like a city hall or courthouse, can be a great way to learn about civics. Kids can learn about how local government works and may even have the chance to meet local officials.

Field trips are an essential part of education that provide children with the opportunity to learn in a more interactive and engaging environment. They can help to bring lessons to life, making learning both fun and memorable. Whether it’s a trip to a local zoo or a visit to a historical site, these experiences can enrich a child’s understanding of the world and inspire them to continue learning.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

most recent

Activities and Games , Toy Gift Guides

Best stem subscription boxes for kids: hands-on reviews.

Activities and Games

Magnetic tiles vs traditional blocks: a comparative analysis.

Why Can’t I Sleep? How Insomnia Is Plaguing the World

8 DIY Natural Moisturizers That Will Leave Your Skin Feeling Amazing

47 Influential Black History Month Quotes To Inspire and Empower

Embracing Boho Chic: A Guide to Boho Style for Women

Losing Weight While Nourishing Your Body: A Breakdown of 11 Diet Plans

STEM Education Guide

[email protected] STEM Education Guide 9125 SVL BOX Victorville, CA 92395

Your Compass for STEM Discovery

© 2024 STEM Education Guide

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

FREE Poetry Worksheet Bundle! Perfect for National Poetry Month.

21 of the Best Chicago Field Trip Ideas

The best yellow bus destinations in the Windy City.

In a city with over three million people, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Chicago is a cultural center that is home to some seriously fun field trip destinations. But in a city so big, how do you choose the best spots? Don’t worry; we’ve done the research for you! Whether you are ready to don your armor and defend a mystical kingdom or take a trip back to the Jurassic era, Chicago has something for your and your students. Here are some of the best Chicago field trip ideas:

1. Are you brave enough to peer over the ledge?

On the Skydeck of the Willis Tower, brave students (and teachers!) can walk on a four-foot-wide glass-bottom balcony—103 stories high! Dubbed The Ledge , this is sure to thrill students of all ages! For students who may not love heights so much, there are plenty of other exhibits in the Skydeck, including games such as I Spy on High and scavenger hunts.

2. From farm to factory: How is ice cream made?

Oberweis is a popular dairy and ice cream shop in the Midwest, so most of your students have probably already tasted this deliciousness, but how many kids get to brag that they saw how their favorite ice cream is made! Visit the Oberweis factory at 951 Ice Cream Dr., Sweet One, North Aurora (cute, right?) and let your students see the behind-the-scenes workings of a real factory.

3. Travel back to the time of King Arthur.

A beautiful princess, daring jousting matches, and a feast fit for a king? Yes, please! A trip to Medieval Times is exciting for any student; there is a little something for everyone! When you book a field trip with a matinee show, your class will get even more: an educational presentation after your 90-minute show and a four-course luncheon. What a fun way to bring history to life!

4. Learn and play at the Chicago Children’s Museum.

Children’s museums are a popular field trip destination, and there are few better than the Chicago Children’s Museum . Students will love the hands-on nature of this museum, particularly the chance to dig for dino bones! Another favorite: the opportunity to explore a three-story boat—without any of the seasickness! If you’re planning a day at Navy Pier, this must be a stop on your adventure.

5. Watch the Bard come alive at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

If you’re an English teacher and plan to teach Shakespeare this year, be sure to plan a trip to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater . We know that Shakespeare isn’t always easy for students to understand, but seeing one of the Bard’s plays come to life allows students to experience a play as it was intended—live.

6. Take an architecture boat tour.

Part of what makes Chicago such a wonderful city is the unique tapestry of architecture.  Chicago Architecture Foundation river tours explore the city’s architecture from the vantage point of the river. Because this excursion boards from the River Walk, it allows you to explore the sights and sounds of the recently renovated walkway—complete with a gelato stand. This would be ideal for older students.

7. Go wild at the zoo.

When it comes to zoos in Chicago, you’ve got choices. There is the Lincoln Park Zoo, but if you’re planning a field trip, opt for Brookfield Zoo. This zoo offers awesome experiences that will thrill your students. Tropic World allows you to walk through the monkey exhibit, while the Bird Encounter allows students to hand-feed parakeets.

8. Reach for the stars at Adler Planetarium.

Studying the planets in science class? Take a trip to Adler Planetarium . From exhibits suitable for preschoolers (a giant space-themed play place) to exhibits and movies suitable for high schoolers, this destination has something for all learners.

9. Discover farm life at Fair Oaks.

Granted, this field trip destination is outside of the city (it’s actually in Indiana), but it’s the perfect opportunity for city slickers and suburbanites to experience a real working farm. Take a bus tour to watch how milk travels from cow to carton. Students can also see calves being born, watch baby pigs play, and play in the several areas. Fair Oaks plans three-hour adventures plus a 30-minute lunch. (P.S. Bring extra spending money if you’re a cheese lover.)

10. Time travel to the Jurassic period.

General, Fieldtrip, Evolving Planet

Do your students love dinos? Take a visit to the Field Museum where your students can see a variety of dinosaur skeletons, including the world famous Sue! The museum experts can even create a tour customized to the age of your students. Chicago and Illinois residents are free, but even an out-of-state ticket is reasonable at $17.75 per person.

11. There’s nothing fishy about the Learning Labs.

A visit to the Shedd Aquarium is more than just watching fish swim in giant aquariums. A visit to the Shedd is as hands on as an aquarium can be! From touching the sting rays (a seasonal offering) to petting a real-life starfish, students can interact with several types of marine life. There is also a play area for young students (across from the penguins) and several learning labs for high school students.

12. Extract your own DNA at the DNA Learning Lab.

The University of Notre Dame offers some seriously cool field trips. In the DNA lab , students can extract their own DNA or learn about forensics by solving a pretend crime (a kidnapped leprechaun, to be precise!). Although this field trip is in South Bend, Indiana, it is a feasible day-long field trip for any school in the greater Chicago area. Ideal for high school biology classes.

13. Become an Iron Chef.

What’s more fun than getting your hands dirty in the kitchen? Learning the science behind what makes your favorite recipes so yummy! With multiple menu options available, your students will love this cooking lesson at  The Chopping Block.

14. Take flight at iFly.

Who doesn’t dream of flying? At iFly , you can! This STEM-enriched program first teaches students about the physics of skydiving. Students then undergo “flight training” before they get to experience their own skydive in a giant wind tunnel. BRB as I go get ready.

15. Let the field trip come to you.

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum boasts something unusual: They can bring the field trip to you! When you book a classroom-based field trip, curators from the museum bring science-based, hands-on activities to your students. All of the fun without any of the travel!

16. Design your own house with the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust.

Venture to nearby Oak Park to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust . Students will not only learn about the vision and design behind the Wright house but they will get the chance to doing a little designing of their own. The Trust even offers lessons plans so you can prep your students before the field trip. If you can’t make it to Oak Park, you can rent equipment and host a design workshop in your own classroom!

17. Channel your inner Bill Nye at the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Museum of Science and Industry , located in Hyde Park, is a tried-and-true field trip destination. Where else can you venture deep into the heart of a coal mine, explore the depths of the ocean on a U-505 submarine, or learn about genes through the world’s cutest farm animal (baby chicks)?

18. Learn about art through making art.

The National Museum of Mexican Art offers hands-on learning! The work of art your students make will be influenced by upcoming Mexican holidays, so your students will learn a lesson in both art and history. Grab your painting smock and head over to Pilsen.

19. See history from a beautiful perspective.

Interested in a trip to the  DuSable Museum of African American History  but not sure where to start? As a Smithsonian affiliate, the DuSable has you covered. Grab your lessons plans  and guide your students through the amazing history of African Americans, from the brave heroines of the Civil War to the number-crunching African Americans who changed the world of mathematics. Did we mention there’s also a “mobile museum” that can bring the history to your school?

20. Make a stand for peace at the Hull House Museum.

Did you know the Hull House was once Jane Addams’ home? It was also a safe haven for immigrants, a nursery school, a hub for the Women’s Peace Party, and a school for ESL and cooking. Visit the Hull House Museum and see first hand how Jane Addams’ work led to her Nobel Peace Prize.

21. Write your own story at The American Writers Museum.

A trip to The American Writers Museum is part museum (see and touch real typewriters), part writing lab, and part write0in. This is great for English teachers who want to help foster of love of writing in their students!

What Chicago field trip ideas did we miss? Come share in  our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook.

Plus, check out the Best Field Trip Ideas for Every Age and Interest (Virtual Options Too!)

You Might Also Like

The Ultimate Checklist For Setting Up Your 4th Grade Classroom

Everything you need. Continue Reading

Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. 5335 Gate Parkway, Jacksonville, FL 32256

The Homeschool Resource Room

creative ideas, practical advice, genuine support

40+ Fantastic Field Trips for Kids

This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for details.

40 fun and educational field trips . Check out these fantastic field trips ordered by category. Find likes and resources available in communities all over the US and virtual field trip resources too!

Ready to get your kids excited about learning? Take them out for a field trip! Check out these fun field trips listed by category:

• Art and Music

Virtual Field Trips

Science field trips.

1.Science Museum – Get hands-on with science at your local science museum or science center. Check for shows and special tours for kids.

2. Natural History Museum – See the history of science and learn about plants, animals, and the history of our natural world.

3. Planetarium – Look up for a tour of the starts and learn all about outer space with IMAX movies projected onto a dome.

4. Aquarium – Get up-close and personal with a variety of sea creatures at an aquarium.

5. Botanical Garden – Tour a beautiful botanical garden to see local and exotic plants.

6. Local Animal Sanctuary or Zoo – Animal lovers will love to visit their local sanctuary or zoo. Be sure to ask about demonstrations and animal feeding times!

7. Visit Local, State, or National Parks – Your park system has a lot to offer! Check the websites of your local, state, and national parks to find out about programs, tours, and the natural and historical landmarks you can visit.

Art and Music Field Trips

8. Art Museum or Gallery – Start here to get kids interested in art and culture. You’ll find everything from ancient artifacts to today’s contemporary art.

9. Art Walk or Outdoor Craft Fair – When the weather is nice, take a walk around a local art walk or craft fair. A great time to meet local artists and talk to them about their craft.

10. Orchestra – Don’t miss a trip to the orchestra or children’s orchestra. A field trip that both a budding musician and music novice will love.

11. Ballet, Play, or Concert  – Whether you’re watching community theater or seeing a Broadway show, a field trip to a performance is a must!

12. Tour Urban Art or Music – Search for urban art, street musicians, and outdoor art. A great way to explore and learn about your city.

13. Local Music Festival – Hit a festival and enjoy some music from your local musicians.

History Field Trips

14. Presidential Library – A fantastic field trip if you have one near you! Learn all about the president’s life and work. 14 Presidential Libraries

15. Renaissance Fair – What a fun way to get your kids into history! Look for local Renaissance or Medieval Fairs. List of Renaissance Fairs by State

16. Reenactment – Do you live by a historical reenactment site? Check your local tourist attractions to find all kinds of reenactments from Civil War battles to early American daily life.

17. Native American Historical Sites – Delve deeper into US history by visiting a Native American historical site near you. A list of sites from the National Park Service

18. Holocaust Museum – Learn about the history of the Holocaust and how the events still impact us today at one of our nation’s Holocaust Museums .

19. African American History Museum – Tour an African American History Museum in the US to learn about civil rights, culture, and history of black Americans.

20. Local Landmarks and Historical Sites – Learn this history of your town or city by finding local historical sites. A great place to start is your city or town’s library or visitor’s center for information.

21. Visit your State Capitol – Make a trip to your state capital to visit the Capitol Building and your state’s historical sites. Request information from the city’s tourism website for free guides and details about what to visit.

22. Memorials or Monuments – Do you have a National Memorial near you? Visit memorials or monuments to learn about the people and events that changed our country’s history.

Community Field Trips

23. Fire or Police Station Tour – A great way to learn about our community helpers and safety for young children.

24. Library Tour – Go behind-the-scenes in your local library to see how books are processed and repaired.

25. Farm – Learn about life on the farm, the food we eat, and farm animals when you visit a local farm and meet a farming family.

26. Farmer’s Market – Check out local produce grown by farmers in your area. A great time to meet a variety of people and learn about different jobs in your community.

27. Grocery Store Tour – Contact your local grocery store for a tour of the store! You’ll meet your local butcher, baker, see the big freezers, and the loading dock where deliveries are made. A great field trip to pair with the farm or farmer’s market to learn where our food comes from.

28. Recycling Center or Local Dump – A surprisingly fun and interesting tour. Learn all about where our trash goes after you put it in the bin. Also, check out our Garbage and Recycling unit !

29. Local Factory Tours – Contact a local factory for a tour. You’ll meet the factory employees and see how things are made, by hand or by machine.

30. Sporting Events – Root for your local teams or make a trip to a professional sporting event. Learn about all types of sports from baseball and basketball to swimming or rowing.

31. Dentist, Hospital, or Veterinarian Office Tour – Take a tour or schedule a presentation with your group at a local dentist’s office, hospital, or vet’s office. A great way to learn about these careers.

32. College Campus Tour – Checking out college campuses isn’t only for seniors! Tour your local campus, take a look at student exhibits or displays, or catch a game while you’re there!

33. Television or Radio Station Tour – Contact local stations or colleges for a tour of their studios.

If you want to travel somewhere a little more exotic, you can find a slew of virtual field trips free online.

Through Google Arts and Culture you can visit places all over the world including:

• 34. The White House
• 35. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 36. The Colliseum
• 37. The Eiffel Tower

38. You can also tour the Presidential Libraries through their individual websites. List of 14 Presidential Libraries from the National Archive

Head on over to Google Streetview to tour historical and natural sites around the world including:

• 39. Australian Parks and Wildlife
• 40. International Space Station
• 41. Machu Picchu
• 42. The Amazon River

Ashley helps parents who want to homeschool find the resources they need to successfully teach their children. Ashley is a former teacher, current homeschooler, published author, and designer behind Circle Time with Miss Fox printables as well as the creator of this website, The Homeschool Resource Room.

2 replies on “ 40+ Fantastic Field Trips for Kids ”

• Pingback: 10 FUN Alternatives to Summer School: Avoid the Summer Slide! – The Homeschool Resource Room
• Pingback: Homeschool Nature Study: 35 FUN Activities for Kids!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Discover more from The Homeschool Resource Room

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

20 Engaging and Educational Field Trip Ideas for Preschoolers

• brightwheel
• Child development

Field trips are momentous times in a preschooler’s life. Preschool field trips allow children to enjoy a change of scenery and spend time outside the classroom doing more hands-on learning.

In addition to the memories children create on field trips, they’re a valuable opportunity for educators to reinforce lessons. With the right planning and preparation, field trips for children can be an engaging, educational day for all involved.

Why are preschool field trips important?

Field trips are more than extra-curricular activities. They can be an integral part of a child’s early education. Preschool field trips afford many substantial benefits for children:

Broadens their education

Children are exposed to only so much in a classroom setting. Field trips allow children to get a richer picture of educational subjects by observing them outside of books, lessons, or videos.

Exposure to real-life experiences

In preschool, children are developing their understanding of life and the world around them. Field trips expose them to everyday life in a setting where their teacher can help them connect what they’re learning to what happens in the real places in their community. Experiential learning (authentic, first-hand, sensory-based learning) through field trips is a way for children to reflect on and apply their new knowledge.

Research shows academic improvement

Studies support the idea that field trips have real effects on a child’s education. Field trips are linked to improvements in academic performance. According to a study on youth educational trips by the Wagner Group and the U.S. Travel Association, adults who took educational trips when they were younger…

• Had better grades (59% of study respondents)
• Graduated from high school at a higher rate (95% of study respondents)
• Reported that educational trips had a positive impact on their education (89% of study respondents)

Expands their world

Field trips allow all children to experience more of the world. Whether they live in a busy city or a rural town, field trips introduce children to experiences and environments they may not have access to otherwise. Preschool teachers have the opportunity to make a child’s world a little larger with each field trip and show them new places, people, and adventures.

How to plan and prepare for preschool field trips

A lot of preparation goes into a successful field trip. For teachers and administrators, there are people, places, and schedules to coordinate weeks or months in advance.

Consider the below areas as you plan your trip:

Teaching moments

Sometimes preschool field trips are planned around a specific topic the class has been covering. Sometimes trips are simply a good learning opportunity that you’ll weave a lesson into. No matter which scenario you’re in as a teacher, it’s helpful to have your notes and activities prepared in advance.

How many adult chaperones will you need for the field trip? When you’re planning field trips for kids, it’s crucial to have a confirmed, appropriate number of chaperones based on the number of children attending. 

You can request family volunteers or set up a rotating schedule so families can plan ahead. Consider offering incentives like free lunches or gift cards and remind them it’s a great opportunity to have a meaningful experience with their child and get to know the other children and families in your program.

Plan to bring extra snacks in case meal times run late. Prepare to answer questions from parents about whether to pack a lunch or work out an eating arrangement at the field trip location. If you'll be serving meals on the field trip, prepare the food before and determine how you will transport it. Consider packing a cooler for any perishable foods that need to be kept cold, and pack plenty of water if there is no water available at your destination.

Transportation

Some preschool policies require that school vehicles are used for field trips. Before the trip, determine transportation needs, such as how many vans or buses will be needed and if parents are permitted to drive.

If there’s a cost associated with the trip, how will you secure funds from the school or handle payments from parents? Use your communication platforms to alert parents of any expenses they’ll need to cover as far in advance as possible.

Sometimes drop-off and pick-up schedules can be impacted by field trips. Create an agenda and itinerary that shows where the class will be and breaks down how long you’ll be at each location. This helps parents plan their day and gives school administration information they would need in an emergency. 

If any children have medication, medical equipment, or anything else that needs to be on hand for them, it needs to be accounted for in field trip planning. Bring any health and safety documents such as an accurate roster to count the children and emergency contact information. Teachers should also pack first aid kits and antibacterial hand wipes if there is no access to clean running water on your trip. 

Families' participation on field trips is a great way to include them in the curriculum and share a day in the life of the class. Check out our calendar template to keep families up-to-date with all major school events and spark new ideas for family engagement year-round. 

Field trip safety tips

Taking young children on a field trip can be an overwhelming experience without the right preparation. Field trips are very exciting, so be aware that the children may have extra energy or be more distracted. To have a fun, safe, and smooth trip, focus on safety measures before and during the excursion.

Before the field trip

• Review the schedule with the children and tell them what to expect 
• Give children safety guidelines and procedures to follow
• Assign pairs or small groups for headcount checks
• Involve children in checking the field trip supply checklist
• Instruct children to wear bright clothes or a certain color to make them easy to spot
• Prepare and bring a first aid kit

  During the field trip

• Do headcount checks frequently and always before leaving or entering any location
• Follow pedestrian rules carefully when walking such as using sidewalks and crosswalks and only crossing the street when traffic signals say it is safe
• For traveling by bus or van, check every seat before exiting
• Ensure children understand and follow the security and safety measures of the field trip location
• Continue practicing basic hygiene, such as washing hands or using hand wipes before eating
• Keep a copy of emergency contact lists with you at all times
• Take bathroom breaks together as a group

Field trip ideas for preschoolers

Choosing where to take the children in your preschool class is one of the most exciting parts of field trip planning. Here are 20 engaging and educational field trip ideas for preschoolers:

Apple orchards and pumpkin patches can show children how these foods are grown and offer a truly hands-on education as they pick their own.

Nature walk

Nature walks are an educational adventure that allow children to discover various plants, leaves, critters, and trees. It’s also great physical activity!

Farmer’s markets

A field trip to the local farmer’s market or grocery store can be an opportunity to teach children lessons about nutrition and where their food comes from.

Many children’s books are full of stories and illustrations of sea creatures, so the aquarium is sure to be a hit with preschoolers. They’ll get a chance to see these creatures up close and learn more about them.

A local bakery is another food-focused field trip that supports a small business and allows children to see how some of their favorite sweet treats are created.

Zoos are a common preschool class favorite! Children can visit and hear facts about a wide variety of animals, including birds, mammals, and reptiles.

Local library

Libraries are often a familiar place for young children, but a preschool field trip to the library gives children a chance to learn details about what a librarian does and the many types of books available to them.

Fire station

Preschoolers tend to love fire trucks. Use a field trip to a fire station to teach them about the work that happens behind the scenes and age-appropriate fire safety tips.

Local events

Sometimes the best educational events don’t need to be booked—they’re already happening in your community! From holiday celebrations and parades to the annual fair, local events can provide children with a wealth of learning opportunities.

Farmers have so much they can teach young children, from lessons about the way food is grown to how the animals are raised.

Children’s museum

Museums that cater specifically to young children are educational and interactive places that are ideal for preschool field trips. They also tend to change exhibits regularly, which means they’re a great choice for multiple trips.

Home improvement store

Show children how chairs, tables, and other items they use on a daily basis are built. Another way to do this is to find a local builder with a small shop who’s willing to give a workshop tour and demonstration.

If you have a child-friendly state park nearby, they make excellent field trip destinations. State parks are a beautiful place to teach about the great outdoors and ways to protect and respect our planet. 

Recycling center

Teach children the importance of recycling and how everyday items like plastic water bottles and aluminum soda cans are recycled. 

Local ponds are perfect for a low-cost, science and nature focused field trip. They’re often home to frogs, ducks, and aquatic plants, making great lesson topics for preschool children.

Around town scavenger hunt

Teach children about where they live with a scavenger hunt in your community. Downtown areas are usually ideal locations for this field trip activity.

Expose children to the performing arts with a preschool field trip to the local theater. This trip can teach them about storytelling on the stage, theater etiquette, and stage acting as a career.

Train station

Learning about different types of transportation expands children’s minds and view of the world. Add in a train ride to make it both engaging and educational!

Botanical garden

Botanical gardens are a stunning environment to teach children about the beauty of nature and various types of plant life.

Historic monuments

A field trip to an age-appropriate historic site can provide early lessons on important historical figures and events.

Post-field trip actions and education

Get the most out of your day away from the classroom by following up with children and their families after your field trip. Parents will appreciate knowing what their children learned and children will get a chance to relive the best moments of their trip.

To update families, consider including a brief summary of your field trip in your preschool newsletter . Ask children to share their favorite parts of the trip and include photos! 

Plan a memorable outing

There are plenty of details to consider and plan when it comes to executing preschool field trips. Taking a trip is a great opportunity for educators to build upon everything their children are learning in the classroom and engage them in hands-on, memorable experiences. 

Calendar Template for Early Education Programs

A template for creating a school year calendar for families.

Subscribe to the brightwheel blog

Recent Posts

• Navigating Childcare Grants and Other Funding Resources in Illinois April 16, 2024
• Power Up Your Curriculum: The Impact of Social-Emotional Learning on Young Learners April 15, 2024
• Navigating Childcare Grants and Other Funding Resources in Kansas April 12, 2024
• Navigating Childcare Grants and Other Funding Resources in Kentucky April 12, 2024
• Teaching Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder April 12, 2024

Posts by Tag

• Running a business (176)
• Child development (164)
• Curriculum (83)
• Staff development (47)
• Family engagement (40)
• COVID-19 (30)
• Financial health (28)
• Technology (27)
• Family communications (15)
• Small business funding (15)
• Staff retention (15)
• ECE career growth (13)
• For Parents (10)
• Diversity and inclusion (9)
• Enrollment (7)
• Staff appreciation (7)
• Marketing (6)
• Public policy (6)
• Staff hiring (5)
• ECE current events (4)
• Family retention (4)
• Salary guides (4)
• Leadership (2)

• Great Tech Gifts for Any Occasion
• The Best Gadgets for The Beach or Pool

The 19 Best Free Virtual Field Trips of 2024

Stuck at home? Travel virtually all over the world instead (but seriously, check out the Son Doong Cave)

• California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo
• The Ultimate Guide to Shopping Online
• The Ultimate Guide to Online Learning at Home
• The Ultimate Guide to Skype

When you can't get away, your kids still can by taking a virtual field trip to a museum, farm, zoo, or another fun location. We compiled our list of favorites to help you keep your kids engaged and entertained. Some of these are virtual tours (you can actively decide where to go on the tour) and others are video walkthroughs (just watch and learn), but all give you a great experience of the location.

Best Art-Centric Virtual Tour: The Met

A glimpse at some of the greatest works of art created.

Online exhibits on various topics.

There's only one view of the museum currently available.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is home to over 5,000 years of art from around the world. You can see some of it from the comfort of your home. Take a virtual stroll through part of the museum using Google Street View. There are also numerous online exhibits on topics like Coco Chanel, Vermeer, Catholic allegory in art, and more.

Best Tour of Space: NASA

The volume of space videos.

The approachable aspect of the videos.

So much more to see on the site.

It's not easily searchable unless you know what you're looking for.

This might be cheating a bit because it's really a collection of videos, but, oh boy, what a collection to tour! The Galleries open up an array of videos covering space topics from testing a parachute for Mars to moving water in space. Each video is a mini virtual tour that will awe kids and encourage interest in science and space.

Best Tour of the White House: Google Arts & Culture's The White House

Stunning 360-degree images.

See inside and outside the White House.

Offers views of 140 paintings.

Once inside a tour, it's hard to know what you're looking at.

No search functions.

Every President since John Adams has occupied the White House and now your children can visit it, too. Google Arts & Culture offers four museum views (three tours of The White House and one of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) plus a look at more than 140 paintings that grace (or have graced) the walls of the country's most famous abode. The 360-degree images let kids explore to their heart's desire.

Best Cave Virtual Tour: Son Doong Cave

Son Doong is beautiful.

The virtual tour includes lots of information.

Zoom into areas for a more detailed look.

No supplemental online activities.

Son Doong is the world's largest natural cave. Located in Vietnam, it features a subterranean river and the largest cross-section of any cave worldwide. National Geographic's virtual tour lets you explore the cave with full 360-degree views and immersive sounds. You can even zoom in one area to check out the campers in their tents. Son Doong is beautiful and worth a virtual visit.

Best National Park Virtual Tour: Yellowstone

Offers multiple tours.

Lots of historical information.

Amazing images.

No video tours.

Lots of written information that can turn off some kids.

Yellowstone offers seven virtual tours appropriate for older elementary and middle school ages. There's a lot of written information along with the images, and the tours aren't in video. However, the information is fascinating, and the photos are stunning.

From learning about old Fort Yellowstone to discovering park anomalies like Mud Volcano, these tours are a great way for kids to discover unique facts about America.

Best Natural History Tour: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

So many exhibits to see!

Easy, clickable maps.

Quick and easy to navigate.

It's not always easy to read the signs in the exhibits.

This iconic museum is dedicated to understanding the natural world and humanity's place in it. There's so much to see it can't possibly be listed here. However, the museum offers an online tour of most of its exhibits. Split this tour up into multiple lessons, so kids don't get overwhelmed.

Skip the ground floor and go straight to the first or second floors.

Best Aquarium Virtual Tour: National Aquarium

Easy to find exhibits.

Fun to explore using the 360-degree options.

Some scenes spin quickly, which can frustrate young learners.

Baltimore's National Aquarium features more than 20,000 aquatic animals. Kids can click and drag images to navigate their way around and use arrows, the map, or a scene list to explore various exhibits. Explore eight areas, such as the Amazon River, a tropical rain forest, and jellyfish.

Best Tours of the World: AirPano

Bright, well-produced videos and images.

Offers tours of numerous countries.

Includes video and still frame-images.

What's not to like?

AirPano has a variety of tours in China, Portugal, Switzerland, and more countries. Children can visit the Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge in China, an underwater cave in Indonesia, ski resorts in France, and more destinations around the globe.

What makes this site so good is that it offers narrations of several tours, provides closeups through interactive actions, and includes short chunks of written information that's easy for kids of most ages to read. The tours are also fairly short, which makes these tours great for younger kids, but older kids will still enjoy the trip.

Best Virtual Tour for Car Lovers: Lane Motor Museum

Totally unique tour.

An inside look that allows for deep diving into collections.

There's no way to tell what a specific vehicle is unless you know cars.

Scroll to the bottom of the link to watch a fun virtual tour of one of the most unique car museums in the world. Lane Motor Museum is home to an oddball collection of vehicles dating from the 1920s up to modern times.

Your child will love seeing amphibious vehicles, microcars, prototypes, and more. The tour is easy to click through and offers six angles to entertain viewers.

Best Tours of Nature: Nature Works Everywhere

Tours are narrated and easy to follow.

Provides student handouts, vocabulary, and discussion questions.

We wish there was a larger library of tours!

Explore nature around the world with Nature Works Everywhere's virtual tours. Visit the coral reefs of Palau, the deserts and grasslands of Africa, a rainforest (from a canoe's viewpoint), a renewable energy plant, and more.

The tours are narrated and give great, quick facts to help kids learn in simple, straightforward ways. All tours are appropriate for grades 3 through 12 but are marked with notes about the grades most likely to enjoy the tour.

Best Historical Tour: Ellis Island

A clear explanation of Ellis Island, how it worked, and why it was needed.

Includes children asking questions of tour guides.

The images in much of the tour are small in order to focus on the tour guides.

Ellis Island is a key piece of American history. This virtual tour offers lots of anecdotes and features actual guides from Ellis Island telling stories. Plus, it includes lots of pictures and views of the island.

It's more appropriate for fourth grade and up, mainly due to the litany of facts and complexity of the information provided.

Best Slime-Based Virtual Tour: Slime in Space

Nickelodeon

It's playful and educational.

Good production values.

Fun experiments.

It's a video, not an interactive virtual tour.

What happens to Nickelodeon's iconic slime when it's in space? That's the concept behind the Slime in Space virtual field trip. Featuring real astronauts and Nickelodeon celebrities, the 15-minute video shows kids how slime and water react in a microgravity environment 250 miles above the Earth. Along the way, it answers burning questions like, "Is slime a solid or a liquid?" and "Can you slime a person in space?" (The answer is: yes, very slowly.)

Best Virtual Zoo Tour: San Diego Zoo

Live cams of the animals.

A variety of educational videos.

Fun games and activities.

Fixed camera angles mean you're not always guaranteed to see the animals.

The San Diego Zoo is home to more than 3,500 animals of more than 650 species and subspecies. It's widely considered one of the best zoos in the world. But, if you can't make it to California, it has a robust virtual experience online.

You can peek in on the animals through live cams. There's also a variety of videos that teach kids about vultures or show them how to draw a tiger, for example. There are also zoo-related games and activities kids can do at home.

Best General Farm Tour: FarmFood 360

360-degree views of the farm.

Offers a free app for Android and iOS.

It can be hard to see things on a mobile device.

FarmFood 360 gives an inside look at the activities of a Canadian farm. Kids see 360-degree views of the farm as they learn about milk and cheese production, sheep farming, egg processing, and more.

There's an app available for Android and iOS devices, and it's compatible with some virtual reality headsets.

Best Virtual Planetarium: Stellarium

Realistic night sky simulation.

Mobile apps are available.

Includes a telescope control module for experienced astronomers.

Can be difficult to navigate.

The mobile apps aren't free, but the money supports the project.

Stellarium Web is an online planetarium created by two brothers. Offering an accurate and realistic view of the night sky, it lets you pan around and spot stars, satellites, and other celestial bodies.

It offers mobile apps for Android and iOS that aren't free. The money goes toward paying server and development costs for the two-person project.

Best Living-History Virtual Tour: Colonial Williamsburg

Next best thing to being there.

The virtual scavenger hunt.

The virtual tours are highly interactive.

Virtual tour models can load slowly.

Condensation or inclement weather can obstruct the webcam views.

Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum in Virginia that offers a glimpse at what life was like in the 18th century. Its virtual tour is highly interactive and includes videos, informational signs, and 3D models you can rotate.

With its various webcams, you can see the armory, courthouse, merchants square, and more. Colonial Williamsburg's website also offers a virtual scavenger hunt your kids can participate in as they tour the area.

Best European Museum Virtual Tour: The Louvre

It's the Louvre.

The website offers a list of online family-friendly activities.

The virtual tours include a map and an information button.

The website offers limited language options.

Sure, we'd love to jet off to France and tour its fabulous museums personally. But if that's not an option, the Louvre has several virtual tours available on its website. The offerings include exhibitions on the body in movement, founding myths, Egyptian antiquities, and more.

The Louvre also has a handy list of family-friendly online resources everyone can enjoy, including a Mona Lisa VR experience.

Best Factory Virtual Tour: M&M Factory Tour

Zoonar RF / Getty Images

Who doesn't love chocolate?

360-degree views of the factory.

It's short.

The Food Network teamed up with candy maker Mars to give M&M fans a virtual tour of one of its factories. During the short YouTube video, viewers can pan around as a tour guide explains how unrefined chocolate is turned into the little candies we know and love.

Best General Virtual Tour Resource: Discovery Education

An eclectic variety of virtual field trips.

Watch live or on demand.

Trips come with a companion guide packed with activities.

A schedule of when field trips go live would be nice.

Discovery Education offers a variety of virtual field trips for kids learning from home. The offerings change often but currently include an NFL experience, a doodling experience meant to encourage creativity, and a virtual field trip through the internet of things. You can watch the field trips live or catch the videos later on-demand.

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

• The 20 Best Free Learning Websites for Kids in 2024
• 19 Best Free Cloud Storage Services for Backup in 2024
• The 8 Best Camera Apps for iPhone and Android in 2024
• The 10 Best Free Online Classes for Adults in 2024
• The 10 Best Apartment Websites of 2024
• 7 Great Virtual Reality Travel Experiences
• The Best VR Apps for the iPhone in 2024
• The 6 Best Kid Coloring Apps of 2024
• The 12 Best News Podcasts of 2024
• 14 Safe Podcasts for Kids and Schools in 2024
• The 8 Best Free VR Games of 2024
• The 22 Best Chrome Extensions for Chromebooks in 2024
• The 16 Best Roku Channels of 2024
• 11 Best Free Movie Download Sites for 2024
• The 5 Best Housing Apps of 2024
• The 8 Best Learning Apps of 2024

Welcome to the MN Field Trip Library!

This is your best resource for activities & field trips.

The MN Field Trip & Activity Library is a free resource for schools & groups of all types, all sizes and all ages that helps PLANNERS like you find MN’s  BEST  field trips, activities, entertainers, camps and even livestream programs! Plus fundraising programs that can generate needed funding!

Work Directly With Providers, Attractions & Destinations!

Check out the many MN providers in the menus displayed above.   Best of all, we’re not a booking service, so you can work directly with each Provider!

We have 5 easy and free ways to find and engage with providers, destinations and entertainers. Click on any of the buttons below to learn more!

BASE CAMP • NORTHERN STAR SCOUTING

Field Trip Destination for Scout Troops, Schools, Youth Groups and even Corporate Team Building • Click Pic for more info

WILL BJORNDALL, WILL SINGS SONGS

Educational & Entertainment Programs for Schools, Libraries, Scouts & Youth Groups

DAZZLING DAVE, NATIONAL YO-YO MASTER

On Site Performances and Science/Phy Ed Classes – Click pic for more.

THE SCIENCE CREW

Bringing hands-on science experiences directly to you!

BIG ROCK CREEK - ST. CROIX FALLS, WI

Good Ole’ Fashioned Family Fun

SKYROCK FARM & CAROUSEL

Field Trip & Tour Group Destination • Click the pic for more info

MISSISSIPPI PARK CONNECTION

Field Trips on & about the Mississippi River • Click the Pic for more info

SNAPOLOGY OF PLYMOUTH & APPLE VALLEY

Located inside Urban Air Plymouth. For more info, click the pic!

Fundraising Programs Featuring American Products Only! • Click the Pic for more info

STEM Builders Learning Centers

On Site Classes • Summer Camps • Fundraising • Click the pic for more info

OWATONNA AREA ATTRACTIONS

NATIONAL FARMERS BANK – an amazing Owatonnas tour stop! Click the pic for more info.

Teddy Bear Band

Great Music for Kids… around for 35+ years! Click the Pic for more info!

The Museum of Russian Art

Experience TMORA • Click the Pic for more info

CHANHASSEN DINNER THEATRES

Tour Group Destination • Theatre Camps & Workshops • Click the pic for more info

CRAYOLA EXPERIENCE MALL OF AMERICA

Fun and educational field trips for school & youth groups! Click the Pic for more info

TAYLORS FALLS SCENIC BOAT TOURS

Scenic cruise tours & Field Trips for all ages on the spectacular St Croix River.

NATIONAL EAGLE CENTER

Student, Youth & Adult Classes & Programs • Special Eagle Viewing Events • Click the pic for more info

SHOREVIEW COMMUNITY CENTER

Have Fun at the Tropics Waterpark! Click the pic for more info.

SEA LIFE MALL OF AMERICA®

Field Trip & Tour Group Destination • Click the Pic for more info

HISTORICAL EXPERIENCES by Arn Kind

Customizing On-Site Programs for you • Supporting Minnesota Education Standards • Click the Pic for more info

GERTENS FUNDRAISING

Fundraising for every season. Click the pic for more info.

MINNESOTA CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

Field Trips & Family Programs • Outreach Programs • Click the Pic for more info

PARADISE CHARTER CRUISES & MINNEAPOLIS QUEEN

Field Trips, Charter Groups, Corporate Events & more… Click Pic for Video

NORTHROP MINNEAPOLIS

Educational Programs and Field Trips Grades 6-12 • Tour Group Performances • Click pic for more

KEVIN HALL - THE MAGIC MANIAC

Magician, Scientist, Teacher, Entertainer • Schools, Youth, Corporate • Click Pic for info

NICKELODEON UNIVERSE® MALL OF AMERICA®

Field Trip & Student Travel Destination • Educational Physics Program • Click the Pic for more info

SIDEKICK THEATRE

Performances for students, youth and adults! Click the Pic for more

INTERNATIONAL WOLF CENTER

Our WolfLink Virtual Learning Programs are now free to schools. Click here to learn more!

SCHUBERT CLUB MUSEUM

Offering field trips & tours of music-making through the centuries! Click the pic for more info.

TO FIND IF YOU’RE A DRAWING WINNER, CLICK THIS IMAGE

Did you sign up at a recent conference? Click the pic to see the winners and how to claim your prize if you won!

EAGLES NEST INDOOR PLAYGROUND

Hours of Interactive, Indoor, Physical Fun!

BRIAN RICHARDS, EDUCATIONAL SPEAKER & MAGICIAN

Educational & Entertainment Programs for Schools, Libraries, Scouts & Youth Groups • Click the Pic for more info

Announcements For Student & Youth Groups from our Latest Email Alerts!

• PLAN BETTER WITH THE MN FIELD TRIP GUIDE!

• GERTENS FUNDRAISING | Fundraise with Gertens Plant Cards!

• ANDERSON RACE MANAGEMENT | School 5k Fundraiser

• A TOUCH OF MAGIC | Everyone LOVES Bubble Parties!!!!

• TEDDY BEAR BAND | Get Their Attention!

SEALIFE AT MALL OF AMERICA | Come Join Our Turtle Rescue Team!

SIDEKICK THEATRE | Fantastical Fun Musical For All Ages

THE NEW BRIGHTON COMMUNITY CENTER | Eagles Nest Indoor Playground!

DAZZLING DAVE YO-YO MASTER | Students Love Dazzling Dave!

BLUE SUN SODA SHOP | Star Tribune Readers: Best MN Tour!

TRIPLE SHIFT ENTERTAINMENT | Pizza, Shoes & Pop – OH MY!

THE BAKKEN MUSEUM | Interactive exhibits for all ages.

CAN CAN WONDERLAND | Fun Field Trips

WILL SINGS SONGS | Book Now!

PAPA JOHNS TWIN CITIES | Make your next event CHEESY!

NINJA ANYWHERE | We Added More Event Dates!

ORBIT EARTH EXPO | Whole School Astronomy Experience!

APEX LEADERSHIP | Dare to Be Different

KINNI CREEK LODGE & OUTFITTERS | Book spring kayak trips NOW!

HISTORICAL EXPERIENCES | A REVOLUTION to end the School Year

Announcements for active adults & senior groups from our latest email alerts.

NATIONAL EAGLE CENTER | Enjoy SOAR: Spring Hatch in March

HOCOKATA TI | Learn about Dakota Culture!

NORTHROP | Encore Gala: Spring Cocktail Party

SAINT PAUL BREWING | On the site of the historic Hamm’s

CHANHASSEN DINNER THEATRES | Beautiful at CDT!

ESCAPE ROOM PARTIES | Exercise the BRAIN!

KINNI CREEK LODGE & OUTFITTERS | PLAN Spring kayak adventures NOW!

PARADISE CHARTER CRUISES | The Best Tours Include a Cruise!

VISIT OWATONNA | The Owatonna Mystery Tours

CAN CAN WONDERLAND | Something fun for everyone!

TAYLORS FALLS BOAT TOURS | Absolutely Elvis by Todd Anderson

AMAZING ENTERTAINMENT | We bring Laughter to your Group!

WHITE BEAR LAKE AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | Group Programs & Tours

RICH & RESISTORS | Music, Joy & Laughter!

TRIPLE SHIFT ENTERTAINMENT | Pizza, Pins & Pop! Oh My!

SKYROCK FARM AND CAROUSEL | Enjoy the Food, Fun and Magic!

DAZZLING DAVE NATIONAL YO-YO MASTER | Dazzling Dave’s Show is Perfect for ALL Generations!

STAGES THEATRE COMPANY | ROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL JR

Sign up to get the alerts our emails offer fresh news & announcements, give them experiences they will always remember.

Give them experiences they will never forget.

Contact Info

Click for Email Alerts

• Field Trip EXPO
• Summer Resource Fair
• Drawing Winners

Back Office

• Partner Program Pricing
• Partner Webpage Content
• Partner Form #1 – Written Content
• Partner Form #2 – Images & Updates
• Ad & Image Specs
• 2024 Alerts Schedule
• Alert Submission Form
• 2024 SRF Exhibitor Information
• 2024 EXPO Exhibitor Info
• Press Release Form
• Drawings & Winners
• Join us at Conferences

Recent Posts

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

STEM Journals, Activities & Experiments.

60 Free Fun Virtual Field Trips For Your Classroom 

Published by Shreiya | March 21, 2022

Imagine visiting the Taj Mahal or exploring the corals of the The Great Barrier Reef with your students without ever having to leave your classroom. That’s what Virtual Field Trips offer!

Virtual Field Trips allow students to navigate the world without leaving their seats or having to spend. These Free Virtual Field Trips, especially over the past few years when the world was closed, have been a game changer!

Virtual Field Trips have allowed students to travel to exotic locations and explore the world from the comforts of their home.

Table of Contents:

Virtual Field Trip for Preschool

Virtual Field Trip for Kindergarten

Virtual Field Trip for Students 5 years and above

A great addition to classrooms, Virtual Field Trips are an easy way to enhance learning and transform a boring classroom into an engaging learning experience.

They allow students to travel to far off, often inaccessible locations that are hard and expensive to reach.

With a host of exciting locations available, virtual tours open the doors of the world to their viewers and offer learning opportunities like never before.

One of the best options for Free Virtual field trips for preschool kids is the Zoo. There are plenty of zoos that offer kids on a virtual tour and let them explore what goes on inside a zoo.

A few options to consider are Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden , San Diego Zoo , Oregon Zoo , Houston zoo , Australia Zoo , Smithsonian’s National Zoo and PBS Zoo .

In case you wish to explore the African wildlife up-close, take an interactive tour with Explore Livecams or dive into the world of polar bears with Polar Bears International to learn about these majestic animals.

2. The Farm

This is the classic trip for preschool as well as kindergarten kids.

But this time around, instead of physically visiting, try to take an interactive virtual tour of the farm and let kids see how cows are milked, how cheese is processed and how eggs are picked.

Here are a few virtual field trips to consider in this category:

South Florida PBS

Farm Food 360

The Incredible Egg

Stonyfield Virtual Tour

The Dairy Alliance

American Dairy Association North East

3. The Aquariums

Another favourite with young kids, Virtual trips to Aquariums offer children to observe their favourite sea animals up-close and immerse themselves in the hidden worlds of water.

Monterey Bay Aquarium digital tour is great for getting close and upfront with Sharks – the masters of the Sea . Young kids are most intrigued by this epic predator!

But that’s not the only option available at Monterey Bay Aquarium. You can choose the Live Cams to enter the fascinating workload of Jellyfish, Sea nettles or simply view their Live open sea cam.

Georgia Aquarium also offers live cams to choose from. Other options to consider are National Aquarium , Seattle Aquarium , Shedd Aquarium , Ripley’s Aquarium , SEA Aquarium Singapore , and Odysea Aquarium .

4. Stories From Space

What could be more fun and entertaining than a free virtual field trip to the International Space Station where astronauts play the storytellers?

Stories From Space brings a vast collection of stories for kids, read aloud by astronauts to Help children understand what it is like being in space.

Related: While these virtual trips offer great learning experience, don’t forget to add in Hands-on Easy Preschool Activities to enrich your child’s learning.

5. Virtual Safari

Take preschoolers on a free educational tour to witness the natural wilderness of Africa with these virtual tours.

These safaris take you through the national parks of Kenya and Tanzania for an exhilarating experience.

Related: Check out Interesting and Weird ways Animals Sleep . We bet you and your kids will be amazed!

Virtual Field Trips for Kindergarten

6. national parks.

Now, you don’t need to travel far and wide to visit a national park. There are plenty of free virtual tours available.

The National Park Service offers a plethora of options for virtual tours of National Parks. Explore famous sites of Yellowstone National Park with its fabulous virtual field trips.

Head into the world of volcanoes with a virtual field trip to the National Park of Hawaii , indulge in wonders of the Grand Canyon and immerse virtually in hot springs with Arkansas Hot Springs National Park .

7. The Coral Reef

Dive into the coral reef with free virtual tours to uncover the secrets they are hiding. Bahamas Coral Reef , and Great Barrier Reef offer a great opportunity to explore the underworld.

You can also visit Coral Garden 360 virtual tour for a mesmerising experience.

8. Nature Conservancy

Nature Conservancy has a great collection of fun virtual field trips to excite every kid and adult.

From America’s Rainforests & Deserts to China’s great forests, Nature Lab from Nature conservancy has a virtual tour for everyone to make learning fun.

Related: Make time for learning while reading with these Community Helper Books for Kids .

9. The White House

A virtual field trip to the official residence of the President of the United Sates of America is nothing but exciting.

Google Arts and Culture offers an intriguing virtual tour to The White House for a one of a kind experience.

10. Planetarium

Stellarium Web offers free virtual field trips to the celestial world uncovering stars, planets and constellations.

Kids will love to take this educational virtual tour, explore the outer world and learn a tonne about space.

11. Son Doong Cave

This free virtual tour from National Geographic will let you explore the mysteries of the world’s largest cave -Son Doong, located in Vietnam.

Your potholders will love this interactive experience!

12. Carlsbad Caverns

Introduce students to natural history with this exhilarating virtual field trip to Carlsbad Caverns.

This highly informative and educative virtual tour is pure delight for students as well as teachers.

13. Boston Children’s Museum

Take a virtual trip to Boston Children’s museum to witness its kid-friendly exhibit. With three floors on display, there is plenty to explore in this virtual tour.

14. Space and Slime

Kindergarteners and young kids are a great fans of sensorial activities and slime is a hands-down favourite.

This crazy virtual tour gives students a peak into how slime behaves in microgravity. Astronauts at the International Space Station indulge kids in this fun experience to bring hands-on learning.

Virtual Field Trip For Students

15. butterfly conservatory.

The American Museum of Natural history offers one of a kind educational virtual field trip for students to its butterfly conservatory where kids can observe these fascinating insects and immerse themselves in hands-on learning.

16. Smithsonian

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History offers self guided virtual field trips to a variety of exhibits.

You can choose from permanent exhibits, past or current exhibits and even take narrated tours for a truly immersive, learning experience.

17. Art Museums

Another category that offers deep learning experiences is Art Museums. Visit The Louvre in Paris, without spending a penny and explore its rich exhibits.

Or take a free virtual tour to Van Gough in Amsterdam , Acropolis Museum in Athens , National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo and many more with Google Arts and Culture .

Another great choice is the Metropolitan Museum. Its virtual tours offer an immersive experience of Metropolitan Museum’s art and architecture exhibits with an award-winning series of six short videos.

Related: Learn how you can integrate Arts with Math to enhance learning.

18. Sport Stadiums

Take an interactive virtual tour to the sports stadium with your sports enthusiasts and explore New York Yankees Stadium up-close.

Next, fly to Texas and take a keen look at Cowboys Stadium Arlington with Google Earth and Brazil World Cup Stadium – Estádio do Maracanã , again powered by Google.

The experience will leave your sports fans exhilarating.

Related: Read about Real Sport Legends who etched their name in sports history with kid -friendly Biographies for Kids .

19. Recycling Center

Visit the Recycling Center to learn how a recycling centre works. Dig around landfills to get to know how lands-fills are constructed and managed.

These virtual tours for students are great for Earth Day and teach kids about recycling and taking care of their planet.

20. Empire State Building

After your students have learned all about the recycling center, let them take a bird’s eye view of New York with this fascinating virtual tour from the top deck of the Empire State Building.

The panoramic view is certain to capture everyone’s attention.

21. Access Mars

If you are looking for free virtual tours beyond the ordinary, then this one is for you! Nothing can be more exhilarating than exploring the surface of Mars with Mars Rover Curiosity.

This virtual field trip lets your students explore the Red Planet and act like real space explorers. Sounds exciting? We bet it is!

22. Tour of The Moon 4K

Now that your kids are on Mars already, make sure they pay a visit to our mother planet’s only natural satellite – The Moon.

This 4K resolution virtual tour is a treat to the eyes and a must watch for every space enthusiast.

23. Disney Park

While the educational virtual tours are great, you must add in some Sun virtual field trips to your list as well.

Visit Magic Kingdom Theme Park to lighten your kid’s mood and bring on the fun. And make sure to quiz kids with Disney Trivia .

24. Colonial Williamsburg

With five webcams featuring Raleigh Tavern, Armory, Courthouse, Capitol and Art Museums, this virtual field trip from the living history museum will take you on a time travel back to the old American Community.

A wonderful addition to History class and for kids interested in early American Community.

25. English Village Tour

Now that your kids have explored the Early American Community, it is time to visit 17th century English villages and discover how people lived then.

26. Turn Back The Clock

This museum exhibit from Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry takes its viewers through seven decades of history—from the beginning of the nuclear age to pressing policy questions our world faces today— this virtual trip covers it all!

This educational virtual trip on Doomsday Clock and how it has evolved to the risks we face today is surely captivating.

27. Discovery Education

Immerse children into outstanding virtual field trips powered by Discovery Education. You can choose a trip based on your student’s area of interest or simply to add onto your curriculum.

With a wide choice of virtual field trips spanning across more than ten areas of interest, this is definitely one of the most exhaustive resources for virtual field trips.

28. Buckingham Palace

You don’t need to fly to London to pay a visit to this marvellous historical palace anymore!

Take a virtual tour to experience the extravagance of the British palace and explore its breathtaking architecture.

29. British Museum

Peek into pre-history, explore Greek temples, investigate Indus Valley Civilisation and much more with the best of British Museum virtual trips.

There is plenty to explore here for every child (And adult!)

30. Google Arts & Culture

This is an exhaustive resource of more than 900 virtual trips to choose from! Let your class pick where they wish to pay a virtual visit depending on the genre they are planning to dive in.

Choose from History, Arts, Geography, Science and Technology, Natural History and be prepared to be amazed!

31. US Space & Rocket Center

Visit the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama and learn a tonne about space technology and aerospace.

32. NASA Virtual Tours

Let NASA take your students and kids on an expedition to the solar system and beyond. Uncover worlds, stars and cosmic mysteries near and far with NASA’s selection of virtual tours.

33. Eiffel Tower

Visit one of the Seven wonders and catch the bird eye view of the city of Paris with this virtual field trip.

34. Great Wall Of China

From the Eiffel Tower, hop onto the next wonder – The Great Wall of China and explore its deep history.

35. The Colosseum

You can’t leave the Roman colosseum behind when visiting magnificent historical structures.

This virtual walk in 4K across the arena floor and the infamous underground is captivating and informative.

Quick Tip: Challenge your little engineers to build Structures with Coins as you take a virtual tour.

36. Taj Mahal

Visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, India and explore the magnificence of the Mughal architecture and reveal the mathematical genius of this structure.

37. Stonehenge

Take a tour of the British heritage with Stonehenge virtual field trip. The 360 degree view is sure to enchant your kids.

Make sure you do not miss the live feed from Stonehenge on Solstice.

38. Py ramids

Take a 360 degree virtual field trip of the Pyramids for a scintillating experience of these Egyptian marvels.

39. Sistine Chapel

Marvel at Michelangelo’s creations as you explore the beautiful artwork on Sistine Chapel. Feast for eyes and all art enthusiasts.

40. Machu Picchu

Take a virtual field trip to the enchanting site of Machu Picchu to experience the panoramic views of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

41. National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

Dive into the world of Western History, Art and Culture with this virtual field trip. The museum exhibits an internationally renowned collection of Western art and artifacts.

42. Ellis Island

Take an interactive tour to Ellis Island where 12 million immigrants made their first stop in America between 1892 and 1954.

You never know if you can trace down your family history to Ellis Island Immigration Station.

43. Easter Island

Unravel the mystery of the giant stone sculptures of Easter Island and explore its rich archeological sites with this virtual walk.

44. Museo Galileo

Explore Galileo Galilei’s cool inventions with a virtual visit to Museo Galileo to be splendidly surprised with this great inventor of all times.

Related: Indulge your kids in fun Outdoor STEM Activities for Kids for hands-on learning experience.

45. Birthplace of Music

Take an interactive virtual trip to the World of Music History and visit the birthplaces of four of the most popular genres of music in the world today — classical, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and country.

Related: Learn the science of Sound with these Sound Activities for Kids .

46. Opera House

Travel to Sydney, Australia to view the splendid and opulence of the Opera House.

47. Mount Everest

This is a particularly interesting virtual trip that takes you to the base camp of the highest mountain in the world – Mt. Everest.

What could be better than getting a first hand view of the rugged camp from the comfort of your home!

48. Lincoln Memorial

Pay respects to the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln with a virtual visit to Lincoln Memorial.

49. Liberty Bell

Take a virtual walk to the iconic symbol of American Independence – Liberty Bell. An educational virtual field trip, this one is sure to add value to your history class and immerse students in a rich experience.

50. Titanic

Go on a trip (virtual, ofcourse!) to the majestic and infamous liner which sank on its maiden journey — Titanic and uncover the mysteries surrounding the ship.

51. Fort Jefferson

Visit the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas that is made of 16 million bricks. Fort Jefferson is an unfinished fortress located within Dry Tortugas National Park.

52. Buck Island Reef

Plunge into the Caribbean to explore Buck Island Reef with National Geographic. It is a great way to explore marine life in a 360 degree view without putting on your diving suit.

53. The Alamo

Explore the heritage of Alamo with a virtual field trip to The Alamo Church. There is 300 years of history to be uncovered at Alamo. Start with the virtual visit to the Alamo Church to understand the era and its beliefs.

54. National Constitution Center

Dive into educational virtual exhibits created by the National Constitution Center. From the constitutional conflicts of the Civil War to the ambition of Alexander Hamilton, there’s plenty to discover and learn.

55. U.S Census Bureau 

Take kids behind the scenes to discover and learn key details about the U.S Census Bureau and its programs.

This interactive virtual tour includes fun challenges for kids that make it highly engaging.

56. Mount Vernon

Explore the iconic landmark and former plantation of the first president of the United States – George Washington, with this fascinating virtual field trip. 

57. Mount Rushmore

Visit Mount Rushmore – the historical National Monument that commemorates America’s first 150 years of independence.

This interactive virtual tour is highly educational and offers a tonne of information for all history lovers.

58. The Manhattan Project

Take a virtual expedition to discover the science, sites, and stories behind the creation of the atomic bomb and examine the revolutionary science of nuclear energy in the Museum’s exhibits.

And uncover the country’s race to produce an atomic weapon in complete secrecy.

59. 360 Cities

Travel virtually to exotic locations without leaving your chair with this stunning collection of virtual field trips.

From underwater scenery to aerial landscape, there is so much to explore and learn from.

60. Basilica of Saint Peter

Dive into the rich history and brilliance of Saint Peter’s Basilica with a virtual walk. This church boasts stunning Renaissance architecture and is a feast for the eyes for every art lover. 

These virtual field trips are nothing but an exciting way to explore far off locations on any given day. They are convenient, cheap and easy ways to travel with students and kids and offer learning opportunities similar to an actual field trip.  

Useful Links

Grab Our Freebie! Spring Worksheets

Share This Post

70+ of denver’s best field trips.

While the kids might be at home learning online, it doesn’t mean you can’t get out for a stimulating field trip. Denver takes education to a higher level with endless outdoor adventures, interactive games and world-class cultural attractions. Where else can you track dinosaurs, check out Egyptian mummies, see vivid street art, hike around sandstone monoliths and take a treetop zip-line tour? The city also has plenty of  sensory-friendly experiences. Visit Denver has compiled this amazing resource!

NATURE AND SCIENCE

Denver is surrounded by natural wonders and diverse ecosystems, providing the perfect classroom for budding scientists.  

Run wild at the  Denver Museum of Nature & Science    and find everything from dinosaurs to Egyptian mummies, now featuring two new exhibitions:  The Art of the Brick,    famous artworks made out of LEGO® bricks, and  Dogs! A Science Tail,     an interactive look into what dogs are thinking; go on a safari at  Denver Zoo,    featuring the latest exhibition,  Nature Connects®, Art with LEGO® Bricks    with giant plant and animal sculptures ;   swim with sharks and pet stingrays at the  Downtown Aquarium;    learn about Colorado’s ecosystems at  Denver Botanic Gardens;    go on an inspiring  aviation tour,   including the   Wings Over Rockies Air & Space Museum;   see rescued lions, tigers, bears and wolves roaming freely at the  Wild Animal Sanctuary;    look for rare  black-footed ferrets  at  Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge;    track dinosaurs at  Dinosaur Ridge;    see if you can spot bison at   Buffalo Herd Overlook;   explore the vast world of invertebrates in a rain forest setting at  Butterfly Pavilion;    and don’t forget the dog thanks to these  pet-friendly  hotels and parks. 

OUTDOOR ADVENTURE 

Denver’s year-round outdoor playground needs no introduction. But here’s a cheat sheet on how to get some fresh air and pick up valuable skills. 

Go for an easy bike ride along the beautiful  South Platte River  that runs through downtown by renting a bike through  Confluence Kayaks    or take a tour with  Mile High Bike Tours    (ages 11 and up and accompanied by an adult); check out the  mile-high markers   in the city that are exactly 5,280 feet above sea level; hang out in the  green spaces  like  Washington Park  with its two lakes, gardens and mountain views; go for a hike among the stunning sandstone monoliths at  Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre;   learn to climb (all ages) on real Rocky Mountain cliffs only minutes from town with  Denver Climbing Co.;    and   take an inspiring  day trip  to check out  fall colors   and historical sites. If adrenaline-fueled activities are your thing,  Castle Rock Zip Line Tours    lets you soar on 1.5 miles of zip line at speeds of up to 50 mph, take a treetop zip-line tour 65 feet above Clear Creek with  Colorado Adventure Center,    or do it all at  Lawson Adventure Park & Resort    where you can zip line, traverse granite cliffs (thanks to Colorado’s only private via ferrata), roll down the mountain inside a giant ball and finish your adventures by rafting on Clear Creek. You can also spend a night in either cabins or yurts and do it again the following day.  Note: The adventure parks have minimum age and weight requirements.

HANDS-ON HISTORY

The city has a colorful past. These museums and cultural attractions provide exciting ways to get your hands on history. 

See what it’s like to be a firefighter at the  Denver Firefighters Museum;    go back in time at Denver’s oldest house at  Four Mile Historic Park;    learn about the  life and times  of  Titanic  survivor Margaret Tobin Brown at the  Molly Brown House Museum;    take an inspiring  African American heritage tour;  watch history come alive at  History Colorado Center    with cutting-edge activities like a virtual ski jump; hear the stories behind some of the state’s most prominent women at the  Center for Colorado Women’s History at Byers-Evans House Museum;    see classic and unique cars, airplanes and trains at the  Forney Museum of Transportation;    take an unforgettable  ghost tour  or check out the  haunted Cheesman Park;   go on a self-guided history adventure via the  Denver Story Trek;  and take a train ride at the  Colorado Railroad Museum.  

FINE ART & STREET ART

Seeing famous artwork up close and creating your own through workshops is essential for developing the right side of the brain. Here’s how to bring out your best. 

Get free admission to  Denver Art Museum,    known for its Indigenous art collection, every day for those under 18 and enjoy various activities and programs for kids; check out the  Museo de las Americas ,   the premier Latin American art museum in the Rocky Mountain region; see large-scale works of one of the most important American artists of the 20th century at the  Clyfford Still Museum    (free admission for children under 17; the museum is temporarily closed until Sept. 18); see inspiring and challenging contemporary art at  MCA Denver — Museum of Contemporary Art Denver    (free admission for children under 18) with special programs for teens; take on all kinds of DIY projects from leatherworking to jewelry making at  Upstairs Circus    (recommended for ages 9 and up; minors must be accompanied by an adult); express yourself through various arts-based classes and workshops for all ages at  The Art Garage;    and see why Denver is becoming a mecca for  street art  with mind-blowing murals all over town. For more about the “Love This City” mural above, read the  blog post  about local artist Pat Milbery of So-Gnar Creative Division.

MUSIC, FILM & LITERATURE

Take a break from textbooks by diving into literature from locally owned shops or seeing a movie on the big screen. Here’s how to expand your world.  

Enjoy a  drive-in movie  in the great outdoors; buy books at  Tattered Cover Book Store    or  BookBar;    take stunning images at these popular   photo ops;  take a comedy class for kids and teens at  Rise Comedy;    and get a glimpse of many of the big stars who’ve performed at  Red Rocks Amphitheatre  via the Colorado Music Hall of Fame (temporarily closed) located not far from the stage. 

FUN & GAMES

Now it’s time for recess. You deserve some playtime! 

Choose from five themed escape rooms for an unforgettable experience at  EscapeWorks Denver;    go bowling and play arcade games at  Lucky Strike Denver;    play various golf games and try the delicious food at  Topgolf    or play a round of mini-golf at  Urban Putt;    release some energy (and rage) by breaking various things at  SMASH*IT Breakroom    (must be at least 13); play board games at the  Game Lounge;    go on a scavenger hunt with  Let’s Roam;    spot  hidden elves  at the  Denver Museum of Nature & Science;    shoot at each other with foam-tipped arrows at  Archery Games Denver    (recommended for ages 10 and up; youth hours on weekend for those 7-12); throw axes, yes axes, at  DAGAR    (recommended for ages 10 and up); assemble a team and choose a mission in live-action escape rooms at  Puzzah!;    and create, discover and explore with unique exhibits and activities on nine acres at the  Children’s Museum of Denver at Marsico Campus    (newborns through age 8). 

Download this PDF for your kids to record where they went and what they learned. Send a picture of your completed form to [email protected] so they can see where you went and tag your social posts with #fieldtripDenver.

Please check with local businesses and attractions individually before you venture out for the latest COVID-19-related policy updates and hours of operation.

Author: Mile High Mamas

Related articles.

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Forgot your password?

Remember Me

No account? Sign up

Lost Password

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Already have an account? Login instead

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Backyard Summer Camp

Have the best summer ever in your own backyard!

15+ Field Trip Ideas for an Educational DIY Summer Camp

These field trip ideas are a fun treat that’s sure to add something special to your DIY summer camp at home.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associates participant we earn from qualifying purchases.

If you’re planning a DIY summer camp for your kids this summer, be sure to include a few family field trips!

They can be anything that gets you out of the house for a bit. A change of scenery is essential for beating boredom and using up that endless supply of energy.

Field trips are usually a mix of fun and educational. If that reminds you of school, our ideas are a bit of the same, but there’s so much more you can do when it’s just your family.

Check out our tips for making your trip fun and simple, then get inspired by our suggestions below.

Family field trip tips

• Plan your field trip to fit your weekly summer camp theme .
• Organize a few bigger items that need planning (the zoo), but make a list of places you can go on the spur of the moment too (the library).
• Look for discounts! Locally, our zoo is half-price on Wednesdays and our library has free passes to a history museum. Some places also offer reduced admission after a certain time of day.
• Some of the best things to do are free. Don’t feel like you need to make your family field trip into a big production.
• Although our list is mostly educational, don’t worry too much about that part. Kids are always learning!

Become a Happy Camper!

Subscribe to Backyard Summer Camp emails & get a free printable.

Fun field trip ideas

Museum or historical site.

Big museums that focus on art, science, or history are easy to find and provide hours of fun and learning. Don’t overlook a smaller local gallery or historical site. An old cemetery, church, or business can be educational too.

Arboretum or botanic gardens

An arboretum or botanic garden is a great way to explore nature and plants you might not see in your neighborhood. While some focus on local plants, others may grow plants from around the world.

Check the calendar to see if your location offers summer programs for kids, such as chats with an arborist or guided tours. If you’ll be outdoors, be sure to plan for the weather and lots of walking.

Local business or facility

Having your child tag along on your weekly grocery shopping trip can be a field trip! Give them tasks to do, such as finding items on the list or comparing prices to practice math.

For more unique ideas, visit your local post office, recycling center , government office, or factory to learn how things are made.

Planetarium

You can find a planetarium at a science museum or local university. They offer children an amazing glimpse at the night sky that you won’t find in your own backyard.

Zoo or aquarium

Zoos and aquariums offer kids (and adults) the opportunity to see wild animals up close in a safe environment. Look for facilities that are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums , which ensures animals are being cared for in the best ways.

Many zoos and aquariums have summer programs such as keeper chats or traveling exhibits.

Fire station

Visiting a fire station has a double benefit. First, it’s exciting to see fire trucks and meet firefighters in person. Second, letting kids meet and see first responders can help them understand that these people are there to protect them in an emergency.

Some stations even have special programs that teach kids fire safety. Contact your local fire station to find details.

Working farm

Both animal and crop farms may be open to the public for visits. Look for farms that offer pick-your-own produce or have special days for meeting the animals. Some may offer demonstrations and tours.

Visiting a farm not only exposes kids to the plants and animals there but gives them a connection to where their food comes from.

Escape room

Older kids and teens will enjoy the challenge of an escape room. Participants work together to find clues, solve puzzles, and get to the exit. This type of trip is even more fun if you bring along a few more friends.

Stage or movie theater

Keep cool in the heat and plan a few indoor field trips too. Get tickets to see a kid-friendly show at a local stage theater or catch a film in a movie theater. Several chains offer summer movie programs that screen older films at a discount.

Plan a few trips to your local public library this summer. Not only is it the best place to get books for summer reading , but many offer tons of other resources. Check with your library to find out about borrowing movies, board games, and other things.

Most also have a summer reading program with planned kids’ activities.

Volunteer organization

If you have older kids, signing up to volunteer is a great way to spend a summer day. Check with a food bank, animal shelter, and other nonprofits to find opportunities and requirements. They may have a minimum age and likely require parents to participate also.

Park, natural area, or water

When the weather is nice, plan a trip to a natural area. It could be as simple as visiting a park in a different neighborhood or a local pond or lake. For a bigger day trip, visit a state or national park.

For kids who love video games, plan to visit a retro arcade and introduce them to games you played as a kid. Arcades can get expensive fast, so plan ahead and set a budget, then be sure to jump in and have fun alongside your child!

Roller rink

For more retro fun, head out to skate at a roller rink. Kids of all ages will enjoy the challenge and it’s a creative way to get them moving.

Plan a special lunch or dinner at a restaurant you don’t visit often. You could try a new cuisine, practice fancy table manners at a casual place, or get silly and let the kids order dessert first!

Kids of all ages can benefit from exploring the world around them, especially by visiting places they’ve never been before. Add a few of these fun field trip ideas to your summer schedule or save them to include in your homeschool plans.

Play, craft, and learn all summer long

Plan your summer with the DIY Summer Camp Planner! Our step-by-step guide will help you organize a day, a week, or a whole summer of fun activities for your kids.

More fun ideas from Backyard Summer Camp:

• Summer Bucket List Ideas and Template
• 12 Imaginative Play Activities
• Printable List of Boredom Busters

Also popular with travellers

Gandikap: all you need to know before you go (with photos).

• Side Trips from Moscow Travel Guide
• Side Trips from Moscow Things To Do
• Side Trips from Moscow Hotels
• Side Trips from Moscow Restaurants
• Side Trips from Moscow Top Places
• Side Trips from Moscow Travel Tips
• Side Trips from Moscow News
• Side Trips from Moscow Gallery
• Side Trips from Moscow Sights

Log in with user name:

Log in with social media:

Get FREE email communications from Fodor's Travel, covering must-see travel destinations, expert trip planning advice, and travel inspiration to fuel your passion.

• Side Trips from Moscow
• Things To Do
• Restaurants
• Travel Tips

Fodor's Expert Review Church of the Intercession on the Nerl

Andrei's greatest creation and arguably the most perfect medieval Russian church ever built is less than 2 km (1 miles) from Bogolyubovo. On a massive limestone foundation covered with earth, the church sits near the confluence of the Nerl and Klyazma rivers and appears to be rising out of the water that surrounds it. Andrei built the church, completed in 1165, in memory of his son Izyslav, who was killed in a victorious battle with the Bulgars. Look for the unique carvings of King David on the exterior, the earliest such iconographic carvings in this region. Inside, the high, narrow arches give an impressive feeling of space and light. To get to the church from Bogolyubovo, walk a few hundred yards west of the monastery, down ulitsa Frunze and under a railway bridge; then follow the path through a field.

Quick Facts

Vladimir, Vladimir  Russia

What’s Nearby

Related forum posts.

• Destinations
• Things to Do
• Church of the Intercession on the Nerl
• Advertising

• Fodor’s Travel Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use. Copyright © 2024 by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Fodor’s is a registered trademark of MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved.

Trains Moscow to Elektrostal: Times, Prices and Tickets

• Train Times
• Seasonality
• Accommodations

Moscow to Elektrostal by train

The journey from Moscow to Elektrostal by train is 32.44 mi and takes 2 hr 7 min. There are 71 connections per day, with the first departure at 12:15 AM and the last at 11:46 PM. It is possible to travel from Moscow to Elektrostal by train for as little as or as much as . The best price for this journey is .

Get from Moscow to Elektrostal with Virail

Virail's search tool will provide you with the options you need when you want to go from Moscow to Elektrostal. All you need to do is enter the dates of your planned journey, and let us take care of everything else. Our engine does the hard work, searching through thousands of routes offered by our trusted travel partners to show you options for traveling by train, bus, plane, or carpool. You can filter the results to suit your needs. There are a number of filtering options, including price, one-way or round trip, departure or arrival time, duration of journey, or number of connections. Soon you'll find the best choice for your journey. When you're ready, Virail will transfer you to the provider's website to complete the booking. No matter where you're going, get there with Virail.

How can I find the cheapest train tickets to get from Moscow to Elektrostal?

Prices will vary when you travel from Moscow to Elektrostal. On average, though, you'll pay about for a train ticket. You can find train tickets for prices as low as , but it may require some flexibility with your travel plans. If you're looking for a low price, you may need to prepare to spend more time in transit. You can also often find cheaper train tickets at particular times of day, or on certain days of the week. Of course, ticket prices often change during the year, too; expect to pay more in peak season. For the lowest prices, it's usually best to make your reservation in advance. Be careful, though, as many providers do not offer refunds or exchanges on their cheapest train tickets. Unfortunately, no price was found for your trip from Moscow to Elektrostal. Selecting a new departure or arrival city, without dramatically changing your itinerary could help you find price results. Prices will vary when you travel from Moscow to Elektrostal. On average, though, you'll pay about for a train ticket. If you're looking for a low price, you may need to prepare to spend more time in transit. You can also often find cheaper train tickets at particular times of day, or on certain days of the week. Of course, ticket prices often change during the year, too; expect to pay more in peak season. For the lowest prices, it's usually best to make your reservation in advance. Be careful, though, as many providers do not offer refunds or exchanges on their cheapest train tickets.

How long does it take to get from Moscow to Elektrostal by train?

The journey between Moscow and Elektrostal by train is approximately 32.44 mi. It will take you more or less 2 hr 7 min to complete this journey. This average figure does not take into account any delays that might arise on your route in exceptional circumstances. If you are planning to make a connection or operating on a tight schedule, give yourself plenty of time. The distance between Moscow and Elektrostal is around 32.44 mi. Depending on the exact route and provider you travel with, your journey time can vary. On average, this journey will take approximately 2 hr 7 min. However, the fastest routes between Moscow and Elektrostal take 1 hr 3 min. If a fast journey is a priority for you when traveling, look out for express services that may get you there faster. Some flexibility may be necessary when booking. Often, these services only leave at particular times of day - or even on certain days of the week. You may also find a faster journey by taking an indirect route and connecting in another station along the way.

How many journeys from Moscow to Elektrostal are there every day?

On average, there are 71 daily departures from Moscow to Elektrostal. However, there may be more or less on different days. Providers' timetables can change on certain days of the week or public holidays, and many also vary at particular times of year. Some providers change their schedules during the summer season, for example. At very busy times, there may be up to departures each day. The providers that travel along this route include , and each operates according to their own specific schedules. As a traveler, you may prefer a direct journey, or you may not mind making changes and connections. If you have heavy suitcases, a direct journey could be best; otherwise, you might be able to save money and enjoy more flexibility by making a change along the way. Every day, there are an average of 18 departures from Moscow which travel directly to Elektrostal. There are 53 journeys with one change or more. Unfortunately, no connection was found for your trip from Moscow to Elektrostal. Selecting a new departure or arrival city, without dramatically changing your itinerary could help you find connections.

Book in advance and save

If you're looking for the best deal for your trip from Moscow to Elektrostal, booking train tickets in advance is a great way to save money, but keep in mind that advance tickets are usually not available until 3 months before your travel date.

Stay flexible with your travel time and explore off-peak journeys

Planning your trips around off-peak travel times not only means that you'll be able to avoid the crowds, but can also end up saving you money. Being flexible with your schedule and considering alternative routes or times will significantly impact the amount of money you spend on getting from Moscow to Elektrostal.

Always check special offers

Checking on the latest deals can help save a lot of money, making it worth taking the time to browse and compare prices. So make sure you get the best deal on your ticket and take advantage of special fares for children, youth and seniors as well as discounts for groups.

Unlock the potential of slower trains or connecting trains

If you're planning a trip with some flexible time, why not opt for the scenic route? Taking slower trains or connecting trains that make more stops may save you money on your ticket – definitely worth considering if it fits in your schedule.

Best time to book cheap train tickets from Moscow to Elektrostal

The cheapest Moscow - Elektrostal train tickets can be found for as low as $35.01 if you’re lucky, or $54.00 on average. The most expensive ticket can cost as much as $77.49.

Find the best day to travel to Elektrostal by train

When travelling to Elektrostal by train, if you want to avoid crowds you can check how frequently our customers are travelling in the next 30-days using the graph below. On average, the peak hours to travel are between 6:30am and 9am in the morning, or between 4pm and 7pm in the evening. Please keep this in mind when travelling to your point of departure as you may need some extra time to arrive, particularly in big cities!

Moscow to Elektrostal CO2 Emissions by Train

Anything we can improve?

Frequently Asked Questions

Go local from moscow, trending routes, weekend getaways from moscow, international routes from moscow and nearby areas, other destinations from moscow, other popular routes.

will mgmt tour again

MGMT Verified

Similar artists on tour.

Live Photos of MGMT

Concerts and tour dates

Fan reviews.

• Moscow concerts Moscow concerts Moscow concerts See all Moscow concerts ( Change location ) Today · Next 7 days · Next 30 days
• Most popular artists worldwide
• Trending artists worldwide

• Tourbox for artists

Search for events or artists

• Sign up Log in

• Get the app
• Moscow concerts
• Change location
• Popular Artists
• Live streams
• Deutsch Português
• Popular artists

MGMT  

• On tour: no
• Upcoming 2024 concerts: none

1,972,190 fans get concert alerts for this artist.

Join Songkick to track MGMT and get concert alerts when they play near you.

Find your next concert

Join 1,972,190 fans getting concert alerts for this artist

Similar artists with upcoming concerts

Tours most with, past concerts.

Loss Of Life: Exclusive Album Listening Event with MGMT

Just Like Heaven

AIA Glow Festival

View all past concerts

Formed in 2004, MGMT are a psychedelic rock group from Connecticut, US, formed around the core duo of Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. Their first release was the 2005 E.P “Climbing to New Lows” and they’ve released three studio albums since then.

Anyone who remembers the summer of 2008 will have their memories colonized by this band whether they realize it or not. The first MGMT album, “Oracular Spectacular” and especially the two smash hit singles “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” seemed to be the background radiation of everyone’s life and it made an absolutely dismal washout of a season feel like San Francisco in 1967 everywhere you went, even when it was bucketing down relentlessly, which it often did.

That’s just the effect that this band has even to this day, and that stems from the bands attitude as much as it does the music, hitching a stringent adherence to not giving a damn about what anyone else thinks to gorgeously catchy melodies and floaty psychedelia.

I’m not kidding about the not giving a damn part, the band were never about getting famous. What bunch of fame hungry chancers would do as Goldwasser and VanWyngarden did and perform their first gigs dressed as snowmen playing 45 minute versions of the theme from Ghostbusters?

Those shows were played explicitly to annoy their fellow students at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut where they formed, however after Goldwasser and VanWyngarden realized that they had legitimate musical chemistry they developed their brand of psychedelic pop and signed to Columbia Records in 2006. Since their debut the band have shied away from releasing the radio friendly singles that made their name and have released two albums of uncompromising, yet dizzyingly good psychedelic rock as a result and they’re only getting better from here on out.

Live reviews

PSA ANNOUNCEMENT: Their later cds, Congratulations and MGMT, are growers! Listen to them multiple times, in tracklist order, through headphones, in the dark! You won't regret it!

MGMT live is... for lack of better, more descriptive words... chill. The music is still spacey, avant-garde, and deliciously faux-retro. Just don't expect crazy stage shenanigans or wacky stage banter anymore (ok, it does get a bit weird sometimes).

Instead, keep an ear out for when they extend and embellished your favorite tracks. Pure audiogasm. My favorite bits are always when the music takes over, and James starts in on the glorious shredding. Ben, holed up in his electronic fortress, will always add this sort of cosmic texture to performances. All this will be topped off by Andrew distinctive singing. (I like to say he has a buttered baby bunny voice. No, I have no idea what the hell that really means either :) )

If you ever decide to see these guys, keep a couple of things in mind. 1) Kids and Time to Pretend sightings are incredibly rare these days. They have too much offer now! 2) Of Moons, Birds & Monsters and The Handshake live often evolve into this gorgeous rock-outs that make me wish it were on the cd. 3) Ladies, Andrew's gotten really good at not making eye contact. Time for us to give up :( 4) Best seats in the house? In front of James for showmanship, in front of Ben for techies.

If you're fortunate enough, the guys come out later to say hi to fans. They're all sweet as pie (except Matt, he's more like a rhubarb crumble, ha), I highly recommend it!! Hang out by any side door of the venue for a couple of hours.

Gooo. Go to see them. It won't be a "psychedelic rave" like people came to expect after so long. It'll be so much better.

Report as inappropriate

Opener (Matthew Dear) was okay, played for about 30 minutes from 8:15 - 8:45, MGMT came on about 45 minutes after he ended. MGMT played for about 70 minutes, songs and venue quality were good (played Electric Feel & Kids), but it simply felt short. It ended by 10:45 on a Saturday night, definitely expected them to play at least until 11, 11:15.

OMG!!! MGMT were awesome! I’m so glad I went to see them!!! Wow guys, that was the most magical show I’ve ever been to. Thank you so much. Everyone who is intreastes in going to see MGMT but have a doubt about it, PLEASE JUST GO!!!! You’ll be amazed by them I promise. xx

One the better shows I’ve been to in my life! They had absolutely amazing visuals and a very clean sound. I also enjoyed the vibes they put off and getting the crowd involved with the songs. MGMT is one of my favorite bands and my expectations were exceeded with their show.

Was awesome. The setlist was on point cause it literally had MGMT music for everyone. Visuals we fucking badass. Hated waiting forever door open at 6:30 and says on ticket show starts at 8 wtf. lol they came on at like 9:30 but it was well worth the wait.

Cancelled due to rain in Houston *cries* I was looking forward to this so much but alas!I hope they return again. Also because I need 30 words: Oracular Spectacular is still my favorite album of theirs but Little Dark Age is pretty good if hit or miss.

Brilliant MGMT show in Oslo friday night. The new songs suonded great live. The live set was visually beautiful, especielally during Little Dark Age.

We enjoyed it and looking forward to see the band again, hopefully soon!

Show muito foda! Recomendo!

Eles pareciam super a vontade no palco, tocaram todos os clássicos e se divertiram bastante com o público. Quem estiver em dúvida se deve ir num show do MGMT, não pense duas vezes, só vai.

amazing atmosphere, amazing songs, they were so full of energy and synchrony. one of the bests concerts i’ve ever been! i’m looking forward to see them again. a memorable night that i’m sure i won’t forget.

It's great. But the band showed up late, which was not really good. But the atmosphere in general are really good. That's all I want to say. And this sentence is just for holding the place to more than 30 words

Videos (16)

Photos (94)

Posters (168)

Find out more about MGMT tour dates & tickets 2024-2025

Want to see MGMT in concert? Find information on all of MGMT’s upcoming concerts, tour dates and ticket information for 2024-2025.

Unfortunately there are no concert dates for MGMT scheduled in 2024.

Songkick is the first to know of new tour announcements and concert information, so if your favorite artists are not currently on tour, join Songkick to track MGMT and get concert alerts when they play near you, like 1972190 other MGMT fans.

Last concert:

Last concert near you:

Popularity ranking:

• Dua Lipa (86)

Concerts played in 2024:

Touring history

Most played:

• New York (NYC) (31)
• Los Angeles (LA) (23)
• SF Bay Area (18)
• London (15)

Appears most with:

• Yeasayer (45)
• of Montreal (37)
• Kuroma (36)
• Grand Buffet (33)
• Vampire Weekend (31)

Distance travelled:

Similar artists

• Most popular charts
• API information
• Brand guidelines
• Community guidelines
• Terms of use
• Privacy policy
• Cookies settings
• Cookies policy

Get your tour dates seen everywhere.

• But we really hope you love us.

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Lifestyle Videos
• UK Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Betting Sites
• Online Casinos
• Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

Indie pop duo MGMT are all grown up: ‘This sounds whack to say now, but drugs are bad’

Nearly 20 years after releasing their coming-of-age anthem ‘kids’, ben goldwasser and andrew vanwyngarden are enjoying a surge in popularity thanks to their new album, plus a well-timed ‘saltburn’ cameo. the pair speak to mark beaumont about snubbing success in the noughties, leaving their party days behind – and why they haven’t booked a single show to capitalise on their revived fortunes, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

MGMT rose to fame with their seminal 2007 debut album ‘Oracular Spectacular’

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music

Get our now hear this email for free, thanks for signing up to the roisin o’connor’s email.

T he charm of Saltburn strikes again. After Sophie Ellis-Bextor found herself reborn as a global darling in the wake of Barry Keoghan giving his undercarriage a flamboyant airing to “Murder on the Dancefloor”, it is now MGMT ’s turn to reap the Salt -sync rewards.

“[Debut single] ‘Time to Pretend’ was used in that movie and somehow from that it turned into a TikTok trend,” says multi-instrumentalist Ben Goldwasser, clutching a white-flecked beard down Zoom, still bemused by online events. “I think that’s maybe our top streaming song at this point… It’s pretty wild.”

It’s not the Connecticut (via NYC) psych-pop band’s first TikTok rodeo. Out of nowhere in 2020 Goldwasser and bandmate Andrew VanWyngarden – the uncompromising duo behind the Noughties’ most cosmic dancefloor hits “Time to Pretend”, “Electric Feel” and “Kids” – unexpectedly racked up 600 million streams of their 2018 electro-noir track “Little Dark Age” after it was adopted as a trending sound on the platform.

Overnight it seemed these psych-pop Becks, who had seemingly fallen off the radar and into a fathomless black hole of sonic weirdness for the past decade, were granted a new lease of life. “It just feels like a continuation of the absurdity of our existence as a band,” Goldwasser says, “We’re just doing our thing and these things just kept coming to us. Now it’s like lightning just struck twice.”

“They’re like blessings from the Lord,” VanWyngarden laughs. “At times we’ve actively tried to find ways to break away from these three songs that we wrote when we were in college. It seems like we confused people by not trying to recreate those songs, ever.”

Predictable, MGMT’s career is not. When these Wesleyan University friends and Talking Heads/OMD/noise rock fans first emerged with their 2007 debut album Oracular Spectacular , they were the perfect modern psych proposition. Pictured on the sleeve as 25th-century tribal hippies, they captured the decade’s end with their hallucinatory hook lines and warped, intoxicating pop sonics akin to a pan-dimensional Klaxons.

With the world their oyster, though, they decided to acid-fry it. Their 2010 second album Congratulations reached No 2 in the US and is now considered something of a classic itself, but its shortage of infectious singles and its lengthy, uncompromising ventures into psych prog alienated fans of Oracular Spectacular ’s kaleidoscopic synth-pop. 2013’s MGMT went even further out there – and failed to make the UK Top 40.

Little Dark Age saw MGMT return to more concise and melodic songwriting – and critical favour. New album Loss of Life continues that trend. “In some ways, it’s funny for us,” Goldwasser says, “because our approach to making music, in a lot of ways, has remained the same. We don’t necessarily set out from the beginning to be like, ‘We’re going to make an experimental record and now we’re not’ or ‘we’re going to make a pop hit now.’ We just get together and do whatever comes out.”

VanWyngarden of MGMT performs during the 2017 Panorama Music Festival at Randall's Island in New York City

Loss of Life is still significantly weirder and wonkier than your average alt-rock album. In Saltburn terms, it has drunk deep from Wayne Coyne’s bathwater. There are bubbletronic noises, hallucinogenic space burbles, Beach Boys orchestrations, ghost trains rumbling past, and distorted poetry about liver and ale. “Bubblegum Dog”, a song about Nietzschean metaphors for inner anguish, sounds like David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” backed by a choir of android pooches. But the album’s madcap mentality is underpinned with accessible evocations of Velvets acid-folk, glam rock and synthpop. Take “Dancing in Babylon”. An amalgam of hypnagogic psychedelia and US drivetime radio rock, it resembles a cross between Tame Impala and Chicago. Goldwasser helpfully describes it as “like a cubist version of an Eighties power ballad. It’s fun to play with that stuff, to mix it up and jumble it together in different ways.”

Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Though its title suggests a grief-stricken collection, the album strikes an obtuse note midway between love and loss. The title track certainly confronts death and mortality, but VanWyngarden has imbued the album with personal moments of security and comfort. “Phradie’s Song”, like the two-year-old daughter for whom he wrote the melody, is named after his great-great-aunt Phradie Wells, a famed opera singer of the 1920s who gave it all up for the small-town schoolteacher life. “What I experienced when I became a father was a forced transition and forced adjustment into a new universe,” VanWyngarden says, venturing into a hippie-speak in tune with his music. “A new reality where I had to accept – and sort of mourn in a way – the loss of a few past selves in order to really give everything to this new being and feel what I think is a direct link to the purest love in the universe.”

A song such as “Nothing to Declare” seems to come from a place of emotional emptiness and stagnation but is rooted in warmth. Its protagonist is in a secure relationship, but still goes large on occasion. “They’re going out by themselves or smoking DMT and going on a deep journey or whatever,” VanWyngarden explains, clarifying that he doesn’t party that much these days himself. “Then you get home and you’re still swirling and tripping but you’re back in your home with your partner in this nest and there’s a newfound appreciation for coming back to it.”

Goldwasser and VanWyngarden of MGMT arrive at the 1st Annual US NME Awards in 2008

Meanwhile first single “Mother Nature” is kind of a sequel to “Time to Pretend”, in which the now fortysomething MGMT are struggling to “keep our balance over zero” and “holding onto love like a stone”. “That is telling the story of us,” VanWyngarden admits. “I’m always at some point trying to pull Ben back in and get him back on our journey because I know that we both believe in the music, but sometimes Ben really wants to drift off… Sometimes I feel guilt about bringing Ben into this world.”

Memorably, “Time to Pretend” was something of a self-fulfilling mockery. It pastiched the live-fast-die-young lifestyle of the young aspiring rock star, high on hard drugs and marrying a succession of disposable supermodels – a life the band embraced wholeheartedly: VanWyngarden dated models Camille Rowe and Andreea Diaconu and claimed their 2010 song “It’s Working” could be summarised as “Yeah, we went out there and we did a lot of drugs, and it’s not that great.” Now, on “I Wish I Was Joking”, he sings “drugs will sink your mind and steal your friends”.

A new leaf: the bandmates have left their live-fast-die-young party days behind them

Was that their experience? “In a lot of ways, yes,” Goldwasser admits. “Alcohol and drugs can be incredibly destructive,” says VanWyngarden. “They dramatically and permanently change people and their personalities. We’ve lost loved ones to drugs and alcohol and so that song is saying, ‘Yes, we’re a band that has been associated with psychedelic drugs and indie sleaze, we were roped into this world and now here we are telling it like it is, saying, ‘I know this sounds really whack to say, but drugs are bad.’”

Goldwasser turns modest. “We definitely enjoyed ourselves on the road and there was a certain amount of, ‘How long is this going to last? We might as well enjoy it while we can,’ but it’s not very sustainable,” he says. “Now that we’re in our forties, it’s not a very good look.”

The title of Little Dark Age , and much of that record, referenced the band’s concerns about Donald Trump’s first presidential term. Joe Biden, however, hasn’t brought Goldwasser any sense of relief. “Nothing bad about Biden,” he says, “but I feel like there’s been this dark cloud hanging over everything, regardless of who’s sitting in the chair. It feels like the very dark undercurrents that have been bubbling up in our country – and everywhere, pretty much – still feel very present and unresolved.”

Trump has a blueprint now for how he’s going to dismantle and restructure the US government if he becomes president

When I suggest that 2024 may see America’s last meaningful vote of his lifetime, Goldwasser looks resigned: “There are definitely countries where that has happened.” VanWyngarden likens the state of America to Mike Judge’s 2006 comedy film Idiocracy , about a dystopian future in which humanity has been dumbed down by technology. “There’s a lot of denial here right now about just how truly dangerous our situation is,” he says. “Trump has, like, a blueprint now for how he’s going to dismantle and restructure the US government if he becomes president. That’s not getting enough attention, really. People were focusing a lot on both candidates being senile.” He shakes his head. “It makes me want to run away to France.”

Despite feeling the profound benefits of TikTok, MGMT are equally dismayed at the requirements of streaming success, too. “It’s almost a joke how it’s the antithesis of what you did when you put out music in the Nineties,” says VanWyngarden. “Now it’s like, if you’re not whoring yourself out and selling your soul as much as possible, then you’re weird and something’s wrong with you. Now there’s this monster, huge app, Spotify, that pays artists a 1,000th of a penny per stream if they’re lucky and they’re telling you that the only way to really get your music out there is to promote this platform for free, make all this free advertising for our platforms and also do everything about your brand and your image. It’s really strange. I don’t like it.”

‘Little Dark Age’ saw MGMT return to more concise and melodic songwriting, and critical favour, with new album ‘Loss of Life’ continuing that trend

Not a band to court mainstream attention, relentlessly promote themselves or play by any billionaire’s rules, MGMT haven’t booked a single show to capitalise on their revived fortunes. They also recently left Columbia to release their music independently.

“This is sort of an experiment for us,” says VanWyngarden. “We’ve made four albums, and it was always: put our blood, sweat and tears into an album and then grind away on the road, really deplete ourselves, enter a new trough of comedown and second guessing and disillusionment, and then that’s where the next phase of creation starts. What we’re trying to do now is ride on the high of releasing something that we’re proud of, and we feel like it’s been generally a very positive response. And now we’re going to go make more music and not grind away on the road.”

Don’t put a full-on cultural comeback past them, though. Life, as a wise dude once sang, can always start up anew.

The single and video for ‘People in the Streets’ will be out later this month

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

Cookie banner

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy . Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use , which became effective December 20, 2019.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.

Filed under:

The Prime of Their Lives

The name MGMT brings a lot of things to mind: nostalgia, the peak of the indie rock era, and lately, ‘Saltburn’ and TikTok. But on Friday, they’re back with ‘Loss of Life,’ a new album that shows that however you think of them, they’re still capable of defying that.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: The Prime of Their Lives

“Time to Pretend” is the rock star Iliad and Odyssey , nestled in a four-minute pop song. Say yes to models, Paris, and heroin; no to jobs with offices and morning commutes. After its major-label release in 2007, the song oozed out of teenage bedrooms and across college quads, a kaleidoscopic escape from encroaching adulthood and a looming financial crisis. The lyrical debauchery was (mostly) tongue-in-cheek, but MGMT co-masterminds Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser offered a humbling summation of adulthood in the closing lines: Years will pass, you’ll miss the comfort of youth, and after enough trips round the sun, you’ll wind up dead in a bed somewhere. This was MGMT’s first single, the first track on its first album. What do you even say next?

Seventeen years after that debut album, I’m chatting with MGMT. VanWyngarden isn’t rocking Ray-Bans or a headband, and Goldwasser has some gray hairs I don’t remember from the Oracular Spectacular cover, but here they are, storied sound explorers of the Urban Outfitters generation. Our topic of conversation: feeling rough, feeling raw, in the prime of one’s life. Not us, though.

We’re talking about Barry Keoghan in Saltburn , particularly the scene in the can’t-help-but-talk-about-it 2023 film when Keoghan’s rich and libertine new friends convince him to slip out of his boxers and join them in a lavish English garden for an afternoon of psychedelics, presumably his first time. The opening seconds of “Time to Pretend” gurgle before Keoghan’s trunks hit the grass.

“That was the perfect scene for that song, when they’re naked in a field and happy, before most of the really messed-up stuff happens,” VanWyngarden says. “It made a lot of sense seeing the movie and knowing it was set in that era.”

A callback to the late aughts and early 2010s, Saltburn is the sort of film that leans heavily on its soundtrack to let you know exactly what the deal is. (Even if there are questions about exactly which year it was set in .) An awkward coming-of-age hookup scene? Bloc Party’s “This Modern Love”! A carefree road trip through the English country? “Mr. Brightside”! If you’ve seen Saltburn (or spent any time on social media the past two months), you know why VanWyngarden is relieved his song got used before “the really messed-up stuff.” So how did MGMT become shorthand for capricious millennial experimentation and live to tell the tale?

MGMT formed in 2002 when VanWyngarden met Goldwasser; the pair of musical free spirits were living in a party dorm at Connecticut’s famously free-spirited Wesleyan University. They bonded over niche indie rock bands like Royal Trux and Spacemen 3 and attended Bonnaroo together. At early campus shows, they’d do things like wear fur coats, pop champagne, and riff on the Ghostbusters theme for 20-plus minutes. VanWyngarden, tall and pretty with a mop of Julian Casablancas–tier hair, emerged as the de facto lead singer, sharing vocals and a bevy of instrumental and production duties with the curly-haired, bespectacled (and also tall and good-looking) Goldwasser. MGMT recorded a handful of demo projects before graduating in 2005. That year’s Time to Pretend EP featured proto-versions of the title track and a sticky, keyboard-driven jam called “Kids.” One night their freshman year, they wrote the riff in the dorms after, according to legend, deciding not to go out to try to get into a keg party.

After graduating, Goldwasser stayed behind near Wesleyan with a girlfriend, while VanWyngarden went off to Brooklyn, already a well-known incubator of Pitchfork -approved buzz bands. Upon arrival, VanWyngarden’s first “jobbish thing” was working the door at noisy, experimental shows thrown by legendary NYC promoter Todd P at art spaces like Williamsburg’s Glasslands. “There was a specific hole in the balcony overlooking the stage that I would leave partially smoked joints in so I would never have to bring them,” VanWyngarden remembers.

MGMT went months without playing a show, but when you’ve got MP3s like “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” bouncing around the internet, your old college band has a way of catching up to you. The Time to Pretend EP piqued the interest of Columbia Records A&R Maureen Kenny, and MGMT was back in business. Suddenly, VanWyngarden and Goldwasser had work prospects outside of dog walking and a reason to maybe start showering more.

“Right before we got signed, I was living in a cabin with no running water,” Goldwasser remembers. “I was completely filthy doing this construction job, a hippie style of building houses you’d insulate with straw bales and plaster.”

VanWyngarden jumps in: “Do you remember when I convinced you to come down to Park Slope, Brooklyn? You were walking down the street with dirty jeans and no shirt on.”

“Yeah,” Goldwasser replies. “I couldn’t get a taxi to pick me up.”

Hoping to spark ideas for their major label debut, MGMT sent Time to Pretend to producer Dave Fridmann, a legend in psychedelic circles for producing the Flaming Lips’ classic oeuvre.

“Wayne [Coyne] was like, ‘What’s that? It sounds cool,’” says Fridmann, recalling when the Flaming Lips frontman overheard Time to Pretend . “I was like, ‘ Right ? I don’t know what happens next, but let’s say yes.’”

“Time to Pretend” and “Kids” were several years old, and MGMT balked at including them on what would become Oracular Spectacular . By then, they were grazing in trippier pastures: “The Youth” evokes Odessey and Oracle –era Zombies, “4th Dimensional Transition” fits nicely alongside freak-folk contemporaries like Animal Collective, and “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters” ... oh boy. The way they drop an incredible falsetto chorus less than a minute in, never repeat it, then trail off into airy noodling forever haunts me.

But MGMT was still a pop band, right? Right?!? The Fridmann-assisted hi-fi rerecordings of “Time to Pretend” and “Kids” sure thought so. Toss in a dance-funk earworm called “Electric Feel,” and MGMT had a trio of potential singles in tow. If only their label’s C-suite had any idea.

“Columbia was in turmoil. They had just taken on new leadership,” Fridmann remembers. “They refused to put the record out in physical form. It’s one thing now to put a record out for streaming only, but back then it was like, We don’t believe in this . We don’t think this is gonna work .”

After dropping digitally in October 2007, Oracular Spectacular finally got its physical release January 22, 2008. It proved a slow-burning success, enough to overcome a middling 6.8 score from Pitchfork . As MGMT toured with kindred indie spirits like Yeasayer and Chairlift, the undeniability of those future singles came into focus.

“I remember seeing ‘Electric Feel’ live,” says former Chairlift multi-instrumentalist Patrick Wimberly, now a frequent MGMT collaborator. “We had been on tour with them for a while, but for some reason, one night at Mod Club, this small club in Toronto, it clicked. The lights were right, there were so many people there. You could feel the energy. That was the moment I realized, ‘Oh, this band is gonna be huge.’”

Oracular Spectacular entered the Billboard 200 albums chart on February 16, 2008—before “Time to Pretend” was even released as its first single—and hung around long enough to peak at no. 38 almost a full year later. As months passed, MGMT was picked as an opener for Radiohead and Paul McCartney. Oracular Spectacular ’s musical elasticity made MGMT an avatar of an increasingly online and genreless era: “We Fly High”–era Jim Jones rapped over the “Electric Feel” beat, and Katy Perry recorded a twee, acoustic cover of the same song. (Later, Frank Ocean would interpolate “Electric Feel” on his career-making mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra , and “Time to Pretend” appeared in the pilot of a buzzy HBO show called Girls .) Improbably, MGMT had conquered the mainstream. As a 20-year-old Travis Kelce, then playing football at the University of Cincinnati, tweeted in 2010:

“Ooo Girl!! Shock me like an electric eal!!! Haha MGMT-Electric Feel has been playing in my head all day!”

MGMT’s fame crested at the 2010 Grammys. Dressed like “mad scientists from the 1970s” (as VanWyngarden remembers), MGMT rolled into the Staples Center in downtown L.A., nominated for Best New Artist and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals. They lost the former to Zac Brown Band, and “Kids” dropped the latter to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.” As the evening went on, VanWyngarden sensed their beatnik selves didn’t belong.

“It’s not like you just win a Grammy because your music is better. You have to do active campaigns, go to certain parties, meet certain people, sell yourself. We weren’t doing that.” Still, MGMT took away some memories. VanWyngarden turned 27 at midnight after the Grammy ceremony and ran into Adele at an after-party, and through the mental fog of 14 years, he’s pretty sure she was among the many voices that sang him “Happy Birthday.”

By the time they walked the Grammy red carpet, MGMT had already finished recording its sophomore album. Columbia had visions of “Kids Part Two” and handed over the checkbook. “We were excited about the resources we had,” Goldwasser says. “We weren’t thinking, ‘How do we follow up our successful record?’” VanWyngarden is more blunt: “We took full advantage of a label that wanted another hit.”

Holed up in a big Malibu house, MGMT crafted Congratulations , a collection of prog-pop indulgences and arty non sequiturs. With a studio set up in the living room, VanWyngarden spent mornings sunbathing naked and learning how to surf. MGMT’s partying never reached Oasis-sized proportions (they admit to smoking a lot of weed and not much else), but they were beginning to embody the more clichéd aspects of the “Time to Pretend” protagonists. “Rick Rubin was [cohead of Columbia], so he dropped in a couple times,” VanWyngarden remembers. “Ben and I went for a ride in his car, and we played him an early version of ‘Song for Dan Treacy.’ He was just kind of like …” I watch VanWyngarden do his best impression of Rick Rubin nodding ambivalently to a weird surf-rock song about the singer of an obscure ’80s twee-punk band. “[Rubin] was probably thinking, ‘These guys are fucked.’”

Still desperate for follow-up success, Columbia pushed Congratulations hard. It debuted at no. 2 on the Billboard 200 but plummeted quickly. Lead single “Flash Delirium” bricked, as did two follow-up singles over the course of 2010. You’ll find contrarians today arguing it’s MGMT’s best album; to me, it’s two very talented musicians following an era-defining indie-pop album with … a perfectly fine prog LP. According to Pitchfork , Congratulations held steady (a second consecutive 6.8), but some tastemakers who had championed MGMT’s previous work began to turn.

There was Hipster Runoff , a sort of indie blogosphere Perez Hilton, known for its irony-slathered (and sometimes repellent) cultural criticism. Carles, the then-anonymous alt-bro blogger behind the site, would spin entire posts out of random photos of Tumblr-famous musicians with titles like ‘‘Is Wavves Ripping Off AnCo / the ‘Panda Bear Aesthetic’?” “I was habitually reading it before MGMT took off,” VanWyngarden says. “Continuing to read it once MGMT became a focus of the posts probably did bad things to my brain.”

Some MGMT-centric Hipster Runoff entries from the Congratulations era:

“Cheer Up, Andrew VanBroGardyn” “Andrew VanWyngarden Is Still Sad :-(” “Andrew VanWyngarden Rumored to Be Dead, Father Confirms He Is Still Alive #pray4AVW”

“We were dealing with the fallout of people accusing us of committing career suicide,” VanWyngarden says. “And we were going out and playing shows, and there was this weird energy. I remember one post was a photo of me at a festival in Austin, standing by myself, kind of looking depressed. The post was like, Oh, Andy, what’s the matter? I was like, ‘Oh my God, am I depressed?’”

Other critics were more blunt. “I remember a review of us playing [New York’s] Bowery Ballroom. The [writer] hated us so much, he called us ‘eminently punchable.’ I still think about those words!” VanWyngarden laughs it off now; back then, not so much. “Maybe it was annoying because we had this whole attitude of We weren’t trying to be famous, now we are! And people were like, ‘Fuck you.’”

Most of MGMT’s normie fans, the Travis Kelce faction, if you will, jumped ship once Congratulations set in. By the time MGMT’s self-titled third album dropped in 2013, even the weirdos’ patience was tested. “I’m waiting for everybody else to catch up to that record,” says Fridmann, who coproduced the album alongside MGMT. “Any musician who wants to try to figure out the chords and play along? Good luck.” A heady psych-rock album lacking big choruses, MGMT came and went with little more than a shrug.

The speculatory rush of indie’s blog era had waned by Obama’s second term, as the genre veered into smoother, pop- and R&B-influenced textures. When you think about it, VanWyngarden and Goldwasser kind of helped create a world they ultimately wanted no part of. Without those Oracular Spectacular singles, would we ever get the success of CHVRCHES or “Pumped Up Kicks”? At a Columbia photo shoot in 2013, MGMT met three sisters the label was apparently making big investments in. “Haim performed two songs while we were sitting at tables with white tablecloths. … We were posing alongside them, Adele, and John Mayer while my arm was in a sling and I was on pretty hard-core painkillers for shoulder surgery,” VanWyngarden remembers. “ What the fuck is going on? ”

One autumn morning in 2020, during the thick of the COVID-19 lockdown, VanWyngarden logged into Spotify for Artists and almost spat out his coffee. Streams were way up, preposterously so. Not for any of the Oracular Spectacular hits, but for “Little Dark Age,” the title track from the 2018 album that had finally gotten MGMT out of its Columbia contract.

It was TikTok. “Little Dark Age” had gone viral, its dystopian synth riffs soundtracking videos across the political spectrum: progressive responses to contemporary issues like trans rights and the murder of George Floyd, along with far-right military clips from users oblivious that the song was written in protest of the Trump presidency. Like TikTok in general, the whole trend felt chaotic and random, with assorted anime, manga, and gaming clips also driving the “Little Dark Age” mania. “We had a conference call with someone from TikTok, and they were talking about all these things someone who was smart with social media could do to capitalize on it,” VanWyngarden says. “We ended up not doing anything.”

In classic MGMT fashion, their inaction hardly mattered. “Little Dark Age,” a song that received almost no radio play upon release, currently has about 200 million more Spotify spins than “Time to Pretend.”

Whenever our conversation shifts to the present, VanWyngarden and Goldwasser sound very much at peace. On February 23, they’ll release Loss of Life , their fifth studio album and their first for the independent label Mom + Pop Music. Loss of Life is earthy and sincere and hits with a technicolor clarity unlike any previous MGMT project. Looking back, it’s kind of absurd that they lasted a dozen years on Columbia. “It felt like trying to correct the course of a very slow-moving dinosaur,” Goldwasser says. “Now, there’s a lot less overpromising and under-delivering,” says VanWyngarden. “It’s not ‘You guys are gonna be huge staahs !’”

Nothing on Loss of Life has reached virality, but given MGMT’s history, would it really be surprising if a surrealist bop like “Bubblegum Dog” popped off randomly in three years? For now, “Mother Nature,” a Loss of Life song that sounds like a literal ray of sunshine, has gotten more alternative radio play than anything since Oracular Spectacular . Simultaneously, “Time to Pretend” is enjoying a healthy post- Saltburn TikTok surge. Neither member is really sure how, but MGMT’s fan base is now legitimately multigenerational, with the streaming data to prove it. “There’s gonna be a camera crew that steps out in a couple weeks,” VanWyngarden jokes. “ This was a yearslong candid camera show. You really thought Gen Z liked your music?!? ”

There was a time when MGMT would have absolutely turned down a big check from a music festival to play Oracular Spectacular start to finish. That time was not last May.

MGMT hadn’t played a show in four years, but the band invested the bulk of its Just Like Heaven check back into its performance: a modern dance troupe did an off-Broadway performance to an extended intro of “Time to Pretend,” a children’s choir filled in the harmonies of “Pieces of What,” two people in cartoonish bobblehead costumes played the parts of Wesleyan-era MGMT, headbands and all.

“Hey, Ben, should we go to the big college kegger tonight?”

“I don’t even know if they’ll let us lowly freshmen in. I’d rather stay in and work on music for our new band, MGMT!”

Bobblehead Ben twiddles through some synthesizer notes and stumbles into the “Kids” riff. It’s hilarious and adorable. The Rose Bowl crowd erupts. Real-life Ben and Andrew walk out to play the real thing.

In our chat, Goldwasser thinks back to the Wesleyan days. “I remember feeling really insecure when we were making that music. We didn’t have a lot of confidence and didn’t really know what we were doing.” At Just Like Heaven, they got to cosplay their college selves, present-day self-assuredness intact. VanWyngarden sums it up: “Doing that on a huge stage in 2023 was magical.”

There will always be nostalgia, just as there will always be teenagers trying to write pop songs in their bedrooms. Just as in 2007, we’re fated to pretend.

Chris Payne is a New York–based culture writer. His first book, Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream Explosion: 1999-2008 , came out in 2023 on Dey Street Books.

“Blame the White Sox for Hip-Hop”

Biden’s budget, pretty privilege, and the horrors of ‘quiet on set’, pop culture tea.

• global">Global
• indonesia">Indonesia
• united_kingdom">United Kingdom

We got you covered. Don’t miss out on the latest news by signing up for our newsletters.

By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Download Our App

• dark_mode" data-event-name="menu_navigation" data-custom-event="null" class="dark-mode icon-type d-none d-lg-flex nav-item">
• login">Login
• sign_up">Sign Up
• search" data-event-name="menu_navigation" data-custom-event="null">
• Food & Beverage
• Movies & TV
• Tech & Gadgets
• Brand Ranking
• Brand Directory
• Hypebeast100

MGMT to Perform Live for the First Time in 4 Years at Just Like Heaven Fest 2023

The duo is also hard at work on a “fancy new album.”.

MGMT , the indie rock duo made up of singers Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, will be performing live for the first time in nearly four years. The band is slated to take the stage at the annual Just Like Heaven Fest, held at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California on May 13.

At the one-day event, MGMT will not only be making their long-awaited return but will also be delivering the first live performance of their debut album Oracular Spectacular in full for the first time.

What to Read Next

Justin Bieber Performs Live for the First Time in Two Years in Surprise Gig

Rihanna Performs First Concert in Eight Years at Pre-Wedding Party in India

A24 To Screen Classic Films in IMAX for First Time

Apple TV+ Raises Prices For the Second Time in One Year

Wales Bonner FW23 "Twilight Reverie" Brought Opulence to Paris Fashion Week

Lil Yachty to Release Fifth Studio Album ‘Let’s Start Here’ Later This Month

Zenith’s Defy Revival A3691 Is a Faithful Reinterpretation to Its Iconic 1971 Model

Kelela Crafts a Pulsing Party Hit With New Cut “Contact”

Balmain Taps Animal Kingdom With Latest B-EAST Sneaker Collection

For COS x YEBOAH, "Metamorphosis" Is the Message

BLUEMARBLE FW23 Sparkles at Paris Fashion Week

J.L-A.L_ Takes HOKA's Tor Ultra Boot Into the Wilderness

Givenchy's SS23 Campaign Shines a Light on Jamaican Artist Alkaline

New Balance’s Made in UK Umbrella Dresses the 991 in "Mocha Brown"

LOSS OF LIFE              OUT NOW

Latest Setlist

Mgmt on august 5, 2023.

Playón Progreso, Progreso, Mexico

Note: Setlist Incomplete. DJ set.

Popular Tracks

• Discount Codes

MGMT tease “fancy new album” set to be released in 2023

The band revealed the news when announcing they would perform debut album 'Oracular Spectacular' in full at the Just Like Heaven festival

MGMT are teasing a “fancy new album” that they say will be finished and released in 2023.

The New York-based duo last released an album with 2018’s  ‘Little Dark Age’ , and frontman Andrew VanWyngarden promised last summer that they would return with new music in 2022 .

That music didn’t materialise last year, but as the band were announced for the Just Like Heaven festival today (January 17), where they will perform debut album ‘Oracular Spectacular’ in full, they gave an update on new music.

“We will be returning to the stage for the first time in nearly four years on May 13th at Just Like Heaven Festival in Pasadena, and we’ll be doing a unique MGMT performance, featuring our entire first album,  Oracular Spectacular ,” the band wrote on Instagram.

“We’ve stocked up on rust remover and are constructing a state of the art elf workshop so as to attempt to provide the most experimental live show since we were wee lads playing hockey in the middle of songs etc.”

Of new music, they added: “Furthermore, keep checking back in with us because we’ve been making some fun new recordings and have a fancy new album (LOL) that should be finished at some point this year, which is the year 2023.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MGMT (@whoismgmt)

Since the 2018 release of ‘Little Dark Age’, the band have been largely quiet, though appeared in feature spots on  The Avalanches ‘  star-studded recent album ‘We Will Always Love You’  and  ColaBoyy’s track ‘Kid Born In Space’ .

In that time, VanWyngarden has also shared new music under his solo moniker Gentle Dom ,  covered Tones and I’s global smash ‘Dance Monkey’  and remixed  Metronomy  and  Club Intl .

Of progress on the new record, he told fans on Reddit last August: “There are irons in the fire and we have been busy. I had forgotten my login info, the mgmt drought ends this year.”

• Related Topics

You May Also Like

Conan gray: “i want this album to be a reminder that you can be so many things all at once” , the 10 best everglow songs, sydney sweeney doesn’t get why you’re obsessed with her: “i’m just being me”, ‘3 body problem’ review: deeply complex sci-fi that’s equally satisfying, ‘dragon’s dogma 2’ review: you can’t go wrong with this adventurous masterwork, more stories, ‘game of thrones’ star remembers young cillian murphy’s raw talent, every ‘super mario maker’ level has finally been beaten, watch eddie vedder bring out glen hansard and daughter olivia at teenage cancer trust show, ‘final fantasy 14: dawntrail’ delayed one week because of ‘elden ring’ expansion, mastodon’s troy sanders named regional little league coach of the year: “there’s nothing i love more”, nct dream play ‘fruit ninja’ in real life for ‘smoothie’ music video.

• Consequence

Get the latest news on MGMT, including song releases, album announcements, tour dates, festival appearances, and more.

Upcoming MGMT Festivals Appearances

Upcoming mgmt concerts near me.

MGMT on New Album Loss of Life and Old Songs Taking on Fresh Life: Podcast

The band also tells the wild stories behind new songs "Bubblegum Dog" and "Nothing Changes."

February 21, 2024

MGMT Release New Song "Nothing To Declare": Stream

The duo has shared the latest preview of their forthcoming album, Loss of Life

January 10, 2024

MGMT Release Long-Awaited "Bubblegum Dog" As Latest Preview of New Album: Stream

The band's new album, Loss of Life, arrives in February.

November 29, 2023

MGMT Announce New Album Loss of Life, Share "Mother Nature": Stream

The band's first album since 2018 is out February 23rd.

October 31, 2023

MGMT's New Album Might Be Finished

The band's Andrew VanWyngarden posted a photo to reddit that appears to be a pile of test pressings.

September 22, 2023

MGMT Tease "Fancy New Album" Dropping in 2023

The teaser announcement came alongside news of their appearance at Just Like Heaven 2023.

January 17, 2023

Just Like Heaven 2023: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, Future Islands Lead 2023 Lineup

M83, Hot Chip, Fever Ray, newly reunited The Walkmen, and more will also hit the one-day festival.

MGMT Release Mythical Live Album 11-11-11, 11 Years Later

The album documents the band's November 11th, 2011 performance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

November 11, 2022

Black Country, New Road Cover MGMT's "Time to Pretend": Watch

The cerebral band dabbles in indie pop.

February 8, 2021

• Album Streams
• Upcoming Releases
• Film Trailers
• TV Trailers
• Pop Culture
• Album Reviews
• Concert Reviews
• Festival Coverage
• Film Reviews
• Cover Stories
• Hometowns of Consequence
• Song of the Week
• Album of the Month
• Behind the Boards
• Dustin ‘Em Off
• Top Album of 2022
• Top Songs of 2022
• Top Films of 2022
• Track by Track
• Top 100 Songs Ever
• Crate Digging
• Top Albums of 2022
• Top TV Shows of 2022
• Top Albums of All Time
• Festival News
• Festival Outlook
• How to Get Tickets
• Photo Galleries
• Consequence Daily
• Kyle Meredith
• Stanning BTS
• The Story Behind the Song
• The What Podcast
• The Spark Parade
• Going There with Dr. Mike
• Consequence Uncut
• Behind the Boys Club
• Two for the Road
• 90 Seconds or Less
• Battle of the Badmate
• Video Essays
• News Roundup
• First Time I Heard
• Beyond the Boys Club
• Mining Metal

Theme Weeks

• Industrial Week
• Marvel Week
• Disney Week
• Foo Fighters Week

Follow Consequence

• facebook-rs

MGMT and Christine and the Queens’ ‘Dancing in Babylon’ Is a Ballad of Love, War, and Sandwiches

• By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

All’s fair in love, war, and sandwiches in MGMT ’s “Dancing in Babylon,” the indie duo’s new song with Chris of Christine and the Queens .

The new track— set to appear on Loss of Life , out Feb. 23 via Mom + Pop — is, at its core, a tender piano ballad, but with the kind of quintessentially strange undercurrents you’d expect from MGMT.  Andrew VanWyngarden and Chris combine beautifully on vocals as well, exchanging lines before hitting some sublime harmonies at the end of the bridge, “I wanna tell everyone I know/‘I love you’/I wanna touch the scars and break the chains/That hold you/But I won’t stop/Til the sun dips down.”

“Once we brought in Christine and the Queens , it went into this whole other space where it felt like ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ or a Roxy Music ballad. It’s all over the place,” VanWyngarden said.

“Dancing in Babylon” arrives with a video directed by longtime MGMT collaborator Ray Tintori. The visual opens with a man making himself a turkey sandwich and sitting down in front of a TV to play some kind of war video game. That kicks off a surreal, cosmic, and poignant tale of soldiers in love, the storyline seeming to collide with MGMT and Chris’ performance of the song.

Editor’s picks

The 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history, every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, eric trump says lenders he hit for half-billion dollars in father's bond scramble 'were laughing', fergie chambers is heir to one of america’s richest families — and determined to see the u.s. fall, 'the death of college sports will be fast and furious:' the scandal that could kill the ncaa, biden is building a ‘superstructure’ to stop trump from stealing the election.

Loss of Life marks MGMT’s fifth studio album and first in six years, following 2018’s Little Dark Age . It’s also the duo’s first album for Mom + Pop after leaving longtime label Columbia. In their interview with Rolling Stone , Goldwasser was upfront about the “psychological impact” of moving to an indie after so many years on a major label.

A Brief Look at Diddy's History of Controversies and Allegations

• History Rhymes
• By Andre Gee

Sean Combs' Homes Raided as Part of 'Sex Trafficking' Investigation

• By Cheyenne Roundtree and Nancy Dillon

'Kidz Bop' Could Never: Watch a Bunch of Children Cover Nine Inch Nails' Self-Loathing Anthem 'Wish'

• Fist... Bump?

Adrianne Lenker Offers a Candid Image of Hopefulness and Heartbreak on 'Bright Future'

• ALBUM REVIEW

Meet Skaiwater, the Rapper and Producer Who Caught Lil Nas X’s Attention

• By Jeff Ihaza

Most Popular

James marsden, taran killam and stars who signed brian peck letters of support "devastated" drake bell, says dan schneider, blake lively apologizes for mocking kate middleton 'photoshop fails' after princess reveals cancer diagnosis: 'silly post' has 'me mortified', body language experts believe this is the reason kate middleton was alone in her cancer announcement video, james madison’s record $53m in student fees tops all public schools, you might also like, ‘x-men ’97’ hits 4 million views in five days, new book ‘audrey hepburn in paris’ tells the story of her style evolution & more, the best yoga blocks to support any practice, according to instructors, real change for child actors as adults, they have box-office clout, shohei ohtani denies knowledge of interpreter’s gambling.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Breakthrough TOUR title eludes Cameron Young once again

Finishes second at valspar for seventh tour runner-up.

Change Text Size

When will Cameron Young win on the PGA TOUR?

It’s a question he’d prefer not to speculate around, but his runner-up at the Valspar Championship marks yet another close call for the uber-talented, elite-driving Wake Forest alum.

Young finished solo second at the Valspar, two strokes back of Peter Malnati, for his seventh career runner-up finish on TOUR without a victory. Young, 26, has been known for some time as one of the best players yet to win on TOUR, and this week furthers that narrative.

Young shared fifth place into the final round at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course, but he surged into serious contention with birdies on Nos. 11, 12 and 14 on a Sunday defined by leaderboard volatility. He shared the lead with Peter Malnati (11-under) with two holes to play Sunday, facing an 18-foot birdie try at the par-3 17th hole. But Young missed, Malnati made birdie in the group behind, and Young pulled his tee shot well left at the par-4 finishing hole – leading to a nearly stifled angle for his approach where he did well to get onto the green, but then three-putted from 51 feet. Malnati closed with a par for a two-stroke victory at 12-under 272.

Cameron Young regains share of lead with birdie on No. 12 at Valspar

Young admitted his final tee shot was “a bad time for a pull,” but he took positives from the week overall, his third top-10 in eight starts this season. He’s 8-for-8 in made cuts as well, as his high-potential game continues to build consistency.

“I think I kept myself in it mentally really well today,” said Young, who carded rounds of 69-69-68-68 at the Copperhead Course. “I hit a couple shots I was really proud of late … I think I handled my own thoughts really well and, for me, that’s a big win regardless of the outcome.”

Young’s runner-up resume is eclectic: 2021 Sanderson Farms Championship, The Genesis Invitational 2022, 2022 Wells Fargo Championship, The Open Championship 2022, 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic, 2023 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, and now the 2024 Valspar Championship. He has finished runner-up across various course styles and conditions, in different times of the year, and now in four consecutive years.

The solace: he’s close, and a breakthrough seems inevitable. He’ll keep plugging away.

“Honestly, I realized I wasn’t going to win pretty quickly, and I have a four-hour drive home with a 1- and a 2-year-old,” Young said afterward. Safe to say his mind will be elsewhere before long.

Australian rapper The Kid Laroi brings 'The First Time Tour' to Iowa in July. Get tickets.

Australian rapper and singer The Kid Laroi is stopping at Vibrant Music Hall in July as part of his 2024 tour, "The First Time Tour."

The Kid Laroi, or Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard, will perform at the Live Nation-owned venue on July 7 with Glaive, of the “ hyperpop revolution ” as the Los Angeles Times described it, and alt-R&B artist Chase Shakur .

With more than 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Laroi has collaborated with artists like Justin Bieber to BTS superstar Jungkook. Some of Laroi’s biggest hits have been “Stay,” “Without You” and “Too Much.”

The rapper shared his story and challenges with mental health in the documentary “Kids Are Growing Up: A Story About a Kid Named Laroi” released on Prime Video earlier this year.

How to get tickets for The Kid Laroi in Waukee

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. July 7. Tickets are available to purchase on Friday, March 29 at 10 a.m. at livenation.com .  

Paris Barraza is a trending and general assignment reporter at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at  [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.

Mega Millions jackpot over $1 billion for 6th time ever: When is the next lottery drawing?

The Mega Millions jackpot finally topped $1 billion after months of growing steadily, now the fifth-largest prize in the game's history.

The jackpot currently sits at an estimated $1.1 billion with a cash value of $528.8 million after there were no winners in Friday's drawing.

No one has won the Mega Millions jackpot wince December 2023 , when two tickets in California shared the $394 million prize. The largest jackpot ever won in the Mega Millions lottery was in August 2023, when a single ticket won the  $1.602 billion prize out of Neptune Beach, Florida .

With the current jackpot, the Mega Millions has now exceeded $1 billion six times .

Ready to try your luck and win big? Here's what to know about the upcoming Mega Millions drawing on Tuesday.

How do you play the Mega Millions? A guide on tickets, choosing numbers and odds to win

When are Mega Millions drawings?

Mega Millions drawings are held in Atlanta every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET.

The next drawing will be March 26.

Meanwhile, the next Powerball drawing is Monday night, with a jackpot of $800 million.

What were the last Mega Millions winning numbers?

The winning numbers from the Friday, March 22, drawing  were 3, 8, 31, 35 and 44. The Mega Ball was 16 and the Megaplier was 3X .

While there were no overall jackpot winners from Friday's drawing, there was a Match 5 + Megaplier winner in Virginia and March 5 winners in California, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska and Texas.

Winning lottery numbers are sponsored by  Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network .

What is the Megaplier?

Most states offer the  Megaplier  feature, which increases non-jackpot prizes by two, three, four and five times.

It costs an additional $1 per play. Before each regular Mega Millions drawing, the Megaplier is drawn. From a pool of 15 balls, five are marked with "2X," three with "4X" and one with "5X."

How to play Mega Millions

Tickets to Mega Millions cost $2 per play. There are nine total ways to win a prize, from the jackpot to $2. 

Pick five numbers from 1 to 70 and one Mega Ball number from 1 to 25.

Choose Easy Pick or Quick Pick to have the terminal randomly pick numbers for you. You win the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers in the drawing.

Players can add the  "Megaplier"  for $1 which can increase non-grand prize winnings by two, three, four or five. The Megapiler is drawn before the Mega Millions numbers on Tuesday and Friday.

There are 15 Megapiler balls in all:

• 2X , five balls
• 3X , six balls
• 4X , three balls
• 5X , one ball

What are the largest Mega Millions jackpots ever?

Here are the  five largest Mega Millions  jackpots ever won, according to the lottery:

• $1.602 billion from one winning ticket in Florida in August 2023
• $1.537 billion from one winning ticket in October 2018 in South Carolina
• $1.35 billion from one winning ticket in January 2023 in Maine
• $1.34 billion from one winning ticket in July 2022 in Illinois
• Current jackpot: $1.1 billion

Where to buy Mega Millions tickets

Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets.

You can also order tickets online through  Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network , in these U.S. states and territories: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Texas, Washington D.C. and West Virginia. The Jackpocket app allows you to pick your lottery game and numbers, place your order, see your ticket and collect your winnings all using your phone or home computer.

Jackpocket is the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Gannett may earn revenue for audience referrals to Jackpocket services. Must be 18+, 21+ in AZ and 19+ in NE. Not affiliated with any State Lottery. Gambling Problem? Call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY); 1-800-327-5050 (MA); 1-877-MYLIMIT (OR); 1-800-981-0023 (PR); 1-800-GAMBLER (all others). Visit  jackpocket.com/tos  for full terms.

Andrew VanWyngarden, one of the MGMT figureheads, is currently collaborating with of Montreal's Kevin Barnes, with plans to release a record in 2008 under the name Blikk Fang. MGMT was on tour with Of Montreal in late 2005 (and again in 2007) and VanWyngarden appeared on stage during some performances on of Montreal's summer '06 tour.

About. Brooklyn experimental rockers MGMT released their self-titled third album in 2013 while continuing to play headlining concert dates and festivals all over the world. Fans scooped up tickets to hear songs like "Kids," "Electric Feel," and "Congratulations." The band's singular style of psychedelic noise-pop, which integrates plenty of ...

Unfortunately there are no concert dates for MGMT scheduled in 2023. Songkick is the first to know of new tour announcements and concert information, so if your favorite artists are not currently on tour, join Songkick to track MGMT and get concert alerts when they play near you, like 1894548 other MGMT fans. 2023. 2022.

Nearly 20 years after releasing their coming-of-age anthem 'Kids', Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden are enjoying a surge in popularity thanks to their new album, plus a well-timed ...

MGMT has announced details of its first album in six years, Loss of Life, which will be the duo's debut release for new label Mom + Pop after a decade-plus run at Columbia Records.Due Feb. 23 ...

The name MGMT brings a lot of things to mind: nostalgia, the peak of the indie rock era, and lately, 'Saltburn' and TikTok. But on Friday, they're back with 'Loss of Life,' a new album ...

MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser are releasing their new album 'Loss of Life' February 23, ... We're not saying we're not going to tour again, but we don't have anything ...

Sarah Kearns. Scott Kowalchyk/Cbs/Getty Images. MGMT, the indie rock duo made up of singers Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, will be performing live for the first time in nearly four years ...

MGMT's Loss of Life is expected to arrive in full on February 23rd, 2024 via Mom+Pop. Take a listen to "Mother Nature" below. Take a listen to "Mother Nature" below. Tags

MGMT is a psychedelic pop duo with a new album, Loss of Life, featuring exclusive artwork by John Baldessari. Explore their music, merch and more.

There are no upcoming events. 1. Little Dark Age. 2. When You Die. Find concert tickets for MGMT upcoming 2024 shows. Explore MGMT tour schedules, latest setlist, videos, and more on livenation.com.

MGMT have announced their fifth album and first in six years, Loss of Life, due February 23 via Mom+Pop (), which marks their first album since leaving Columbia.The album was made with past ...

MGMT are teasing a "fancy new album" that they say will be finished and released in 2023. The New York-based duo last released an album with 2018's 'Little Dark Age', and frontman Andrew ...

MGMT Release Mythical Live Album 11-11-11, 11 Years Later. The album documents the band's November 11th, 2011 performance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. November 11, 2022.

We're not saying we're not going to tour again, but we don't have anything booked. Later on they mention wanting to do a residency at the Vegas Sphere. As of now…they don't plan to tour. Kind of a bummer if they they don't, so far the new album feels like something that would go incredibly hard live. Maybe they'll do a few shows ...

Rick Wakeman Announces Farewell Tour. Digging back even further on Reddit, it does seem likely that MGMT will release a new album this year. VanWyngarden said as much himself in a comment from Dec ...

All's fair in love, war, and sandwiches in MGMT's "Dancing in Babylon," the indie duo's new song with Chris of Christine and the Queens. The new track— set to appear on Loss of Life ...

MGMT are one of the definitive bands of the late-aughts indie-pop boom. ... Once again, we're on the forefront. ... We made an album influenced by the fact that we canceled our tour, and we're ...

Official MGMT YouTube

By 2009, MGMT could count Paul McCartney among their growing stable of fans, and they landed a spot opening for the ex-Beatle at Boston's Fenway Park. On tour, the five-piece group has been known to augment the flower-power vibe of their music by projecting repeated colorful, kaleidoscopic images and other random visuals on a backdrop behind ...

MGMT on Vevo - Official Music Videos, Live Performances, Interviews and more...

MGMT (/ ɛ m-dʒ i-ɛ m-t iː /) is an American rock band formed in 2002 in Middletown, Connecticut.It was founded by singers and multi-instrumentalists Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser.Alongside VanWyngarden and Goldwasser, MGMT's live lineup currently consists of drummer Will Berman, bassist Simon O'Connor, and guitarist and keyboardist James Richardson.

MGMT is a psychedelic pop band which formed in 2002 in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. The band consists of Andrew VanWyngarden (lead vocals, multiple instruments) and Ben Goldwasser (multiple instruments, vocals). The duo was signed to Columbia Records in 2006 and have since released four albums: "Oracular Spectacular" (2007 ...

Finishes second at Valspar for seventh TOUR runner-up. Young's runner-up resume is eclectic: 2021 Sanderson Farms Championship, The Genesis Invitational 2022, 2022 Wells Fargo Championship, The ...

Australian rapper and singer The Kid Laroi is stopping at Vibrant Music Hall in July as part of his 2024 tour, "The First Time Tour." The Kid Laroi, or Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard, will ...

Brandon Chreene, the diner responsible for snapping the new photos of the power couple at Nobu Malibu, told the outlet, "Taylor walked into Nobu Malibu at around 4 p.m.She looked more phenomenal ...

Peter Staples/ATP Tour . Jannik Sinner's opening match in Miami is suspended by rain midway through the first set. By ATP Staff. Play is suspended until Saturday in Jannik Sinner's second-round match against Andrea Vavassori at the Miami Open presented by Itau due to rain. In the all-Italian clash, third seed Sinner leads Vavassori 3-2, 40/40

Tickets to Mega Millions cost $2 per play. There are nine total ways to win a prize, from the jackpot to $2. Pick five numbers from 1 to 70 and one Mega Ball number from 1 to 25.

Three of the biggest names in Christian music - TobyMac, MercyMe, and Zach Williams - are teaming up once again for an unforgettable concert tour. With chart-topping hits, passionate lyrics, and a commitment to spreading God's love through music, TobyMac, MercyMe, and Zach Williams take the stage to perform fan favorites and deliver an uplifting experience that will leave you feeling inspired.

Tickets: for Fred again.. @ Spark Arena | Wed, 27 Mar 2024, 6:30 pm | Browse ticket types & offers | View seating map