Discovery Children's Museum

DISCOVERY Children's Museum fills three stories and 26,000 square feet of Symphony Park, next to The Smith Center downtown, with nine hands-on galleries built for kids 12 and under. The signature piece is The Summit, a 70-foot tower of 12 climbing levels spanning all three floors. Around it sit the rebuilt Water World and its lessons in desert water conservation, Toddler Town for the 5-and-unders, Fantasy Festival with its life-size pirate ship and castle, the kid-scale sustainability town of Eco City, and a proper maker space in DISCOVERY Lab. Families routinely burn two to four hours here, and it's all indoors, which makes it the best heat-or-rain escape in the city for the stroller set.

The fine print worth knowing: admission is $20 for out-of-state visitors, $15 with a Nevada ID, $12.50 on a military ID, and $5 through Museums for All with an EBT, SNAP or WIC card. Everyone from age 1 up needs a ticket, adults included. It's closed most Mondays outside school breaks, plus Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year's Day. There's no restaurant beyond snacks, and adults arriving without a child leave an ID at the desk, a child-safety policy worth applauding. Parking in the DISCOVERY garage is free once you validate at the front desk. Teens and adults without kids will find little here. That's by design.