Family Adventure at the Virginia Living Museum

A few months ago I packed up the kids and headed to Virginia for the weekend. I have a best friend that lives near Newport News and family that lives close to Virginia Beach. I really enjoy taking road trips with my two kids!

The Virginia Living Museum is located in Newport News, Virginia and is open 7 days a week, year-round. They’re closed during major holidays. The museum has 250+ animals on exhibit that you can visit and learn about. All of them are native to the state and it was really fun to learn more about them.

During our visit we saw river otters, lizards, snakes, owls, sea birds, fish, beavers, foxes, coyotes, etc. There is a touch-tank for the kids and I personally enjoyed seeing the seahorses, jellyfish and the river otters. Yes, you will see marine life and animals who live on land.

My son is 4 years old and loves dinosaurs, so were pleasantly surprised that they have an outdoor area there called the Dinosaur Trail. On this trail you’ll see replica dinosaurs like T-Rex and his prehistoric friends. Little J was quite happy to see the T-Rex since that’s his favorite dino. On this trail there are “dig pits” where the kids can dig for “fossils” and “bones”.

Princess G is 10 1/2 years old and she really enjoyed seeing the river otters and beavers. We’ve been to zoos and wildlife parks many times, but the beavers have always been out-of-sight. This time around she got to see one up close and that totally made her day.

We spent about 2 1/2 hours at the museum checking out all of their exhibits and had a great time. Afterwards we went out for lunch and then we hit a local area waterpark for some splash-time fun.