6 Best Sights in Providence, Rhode Island

The 14,000-square-foot outdoor ice rink, right in the heart of downtown Providence, is twice the size of the one at New York City's Rockefeller Center. The facility is open for skating and ice bumper cars daily, late November–mid-March, and skate and helmet rentals are available. In summer, kids love driving the bumper cars, roller skating (and roller disco!), and bubble soccer (trying to score while wearing a giant bubble). The center also hosts movies, summer concerts, festivals, and other events.

The city's wealthiest lived along this Colonial thoroughfare, dubbed "the mile of history," during the 18th and early 19th centuries—and most of the original wood-frame structures have been beautifully restored as homes for today's families. Benefit Street passes by the campuses of Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Of particular interest are the 1707 Stephen Hopkins House on the corner of Benefit Street and Hopkins Street, a former governor's home open for tours; the Providence Athenaeum at 251 Benefit St., a onetime haunt of Edgar Allan Poe; and the John Brown House museum on the Brown University campus.

This offbeat gem on the Johnson & Wales University campus celebrates the joy of cooking and eating throughout human history. An authentic 1920s diner is one of the high points, and there are examples of cookbooks, menus, and restaurant advertising, along with exhibits about cooking in ancient times, eating in transit, and cooking competitions ranging from the county fair to the Culinary Olympics.

The vibrant, interactive, hands-on learning environments here are geared to children ages 1 to 11 and their families. Favorite exhibits and activities include Water Ways, ThinkSpace, Maker Studio, and Coming to Rhode Island, which encourages kids to imagine the experience of immigrating to the Ocean State. Littlewoods, for toddlers, has a tree house, bear cave, and a slide. Kids can also explore an outdoor climbing structure and imitate burrowing creatures in Underland.

This museum houses more than 100,000 objects ranging from ancient art to work by contemporary artists and designers from around the world. Highlights include Impressionist paintings, costumes, textiles, decorative arts, Gorham silver, Newport furniture, an ancient Egyptian mummy, and a 12th-century Buddha—the largest historic Japanese wooden sculpture in the United States. Artists represented include major figures in the history of visual art and culture, including Cézanne, Chanel, Copley, Degas, Hirst, Homer, LeWitt, Matisse, Manet, Picasso, Rothko, Sargent, Turner, Twombly, van Gogh, and Warhol—to name a few. Particularly significant are the displays of works by current and past RISD faculty and students. Stop by the museum's Café Pearl for a bite to eat.

Plan a full day to take in this regal 435-acre Victorian park where you can picnic, see diverse plant life at the indoor-outdoor Botanical Center, rent a swan-shape paddleboat, ride a Victorian-style carousel, and stargaze in a planetarium. The 40-acre zoo—one of the nation's oldest—has African elephants, Masai giraffes, zebras, red pandas, snow leopards, moon bears, gibbons, tree kangaroos, and harbor seals in natural settings. Howler monkeys, Chilean flamingos, giant river otters, a giant anteater, toucans, and more inhabit the Rainforest exhibit, opened in summer 2018. In October, more than 5,000 creatively carved pumpkins are illuminated for the well-attended Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, which can be viewed from a walking trail or zip line ride. In Carousel Village, a short walk from the zoo, kids love the classic horses and other creatures on the carousel, pony rides, and train excursions (all individually priced).