Exploring Minneapolis & St. Paul
We took a wonderful weekend trip up to the capitol of Minnesota with my kids grandparents to explore our 46th state! It was so nice to spend a weekend exploring with them. Here is what we accomplished in a short weekend!
This trip took place August 2024.
We are so close to getting all 50 states, we are always kind of browsing ideas for how to see the last few. When we saw that Ben Rector was having a concert in Minneapolis on a weekend where we had no kids sports and there was a cheap $90 Delta flight – we took advantage of it. We decided to see if my kids grandparents would want to come along and join us – and it turned into a super fun weekend!
We flew out late Friday evening, and with a quick, direct flight, arrived around 8:30pm. Got a rental car and took off to the Residence Inn right in the center of downtown (and free with points!)
Day 1
The first morning, we took a nice walk along the river, checking out the old mill and stone bridge. There was a great farmers market going on as well which we enjoyed. This particular day, they also had a whole art fair which was HUGE!
In the early afternoon, we made a stop at the Sculpture Park and walked along the paths.
Finally – we spent most of the rest of the afternoon at the Mall of America. This place is crazy. It was SO crowded. My kids don’t even really understand malls, as none of the malls near us have any crowds at all. It was fun for them to see this. The parking lot is enormous and it’s incredibly crowded. The first thing we saw was some kind of National Yo-Yo competition. Very entertaining. We spent most of the time taking the kids to the indoor theme park. We bought them some kind of wristband which they used to ride a few rides each. Most of the lines were not too bad, but they did go into the log flume and probably waited an hour. There isn’t anything posting how long the waits are, and it was kind of tiring and frustrating. But – overall, was certainly an experience.
In the evening, we headed to watch the Ben Rector concert. He was doing a series where he played with local orchestras, so we got to see him perform with the Minnesota Orchestra. The location was amazing and the concert was incredible. Hearing the orchestra play with him was one of the best concerts we’ve been to. Cannot wait to go see him perform again.
Day 2
Next day we woke up to head out for some more adventures! We went straight to Minnehaha State Park to see the waterfall. There was a little path you could walk down to be closer to the falls, but you could also see from above as well.
Next – we wanted to check out one of the many lakes nearby. We had done some research looking for one that had a nice beach, food to eat and tables to sit at. We found one called Lake Nokomis. It was great, having everything we wanted.
After lunch, we headed out to Como Park Zoo. This was a smaller, and cheaper zoo (aka free!) than the Minneapolis Zoo. It had a really nice property, and tons of animals. Highly recommend! We got to watch a sea lion show, and saw lots of great animals.
Finally, we made a drive to St. Paul to check out the cathedral and capitol building.
Final Thoughts + More Things To Do
We loved Minneapolis! The city was beautiful, walkable and exceptionally clean! We had a lot of other things on our list to check out, but ran out of time. Here are some of the things I would do next time…
- Mill City Museum
- Eat at Matt’s diner for a Juicy Lucy
- Hmongtown Marketplace – Asian craft and food market
- Visit Stillwater to see charming downtown, historic lift bridge and good ice cream shops
- Fort Snelling State Park
- Wabash Caves