Children's Museum of Tacoma

The Children’s Museum of Tacoma is built for children roughly ten and under: hands-on rooms where the point is to touch things, climb on things and make a mess. It sits on Pacific Avenue downtown, a few blocks from the museums that adults usually plan around.

The unusual thing here is the price. Admission is Pay As You Will — a donation, not a ticket. Greentrike, the nonprofit that runs the museum, notes that this is the only admission model of its kind among children’s museums nationally, and that it has been recognised with a national award from the Association of Children’s Museums.

That makes it the cheapest wet-day option downtown by a wide margin, and the easiest one to leave early if a small person runs out of patience.

When to go

Public hours are Friday to Sunday, 10am–5pm, which is worth checking before you build a weekday plan around it. Members get Monday mornings and the hour before opening on Saturday.

There is a low-sensory hour on Monday from 3 to 5pm, outside public hours, for children who find the museum too much at full volume. The Monarch Diaper Bank also runs inside the building on Saturdays from 11am to 2pm.

Where it fits in a day

The museum is a few blocks from the Washington State History Museum and the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, and a short walk from Museum of Glass. Our rainy Sunday guide pairs it with the aquarium at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.

For older children who want a museum rather than a climbing frame, Tacoma Art Museum and the History Museum are both within walking distance.