Branson is known for its shows and for Silver Dollar City. However, There’s a lot more to do there. There are all kinds of attractions and stuff for everyone in the family.
One of the first attractions we did was the Runaway Mountain Coaster. You each get your own ‘car’. It takes you about a half a mile up the mountain and then you coast down through curves and turns. I thought I could do it all without hitting the brake at all. I did end up putting on the brakes a little bit. It was a lot of fun and well worth doing.
The girls also went on the Copperhead Mountain Coaster near Inspiration Tower. They said the Runaway Coaster was more fun, but the Copperhead cost a little less.
I took the girls to Bigfoot Amusement area. It was largely individual rides and attractions. Hattie went on the Gravity Bomb. It takes you up 200′ and then drops you at a true free fall until you are near the ground. Then it brakes. I have to admit, I was a little too chicken to try this.
While we were there, we road the go-karts. It was a good time. If you kept the accelerator down, you could do 4 wheel skids around the corners. The bad part was if someone was a little slower in front of you, it was difficult to pass safely. I would also recommend doing this if you can. It was a lot of fun.
We went to a craft store and a lot of thrift stores. Marty and the girls wanted to stop at every thrift store we saw. I teased them that somebody wouldn’t have room to back with us because of all of the stuff they bought.
A fun family event we did was go to the Escape Branson. It’s an escape room. They lock you in a room for an hour with furniture and pictures and stuff in the room. You have to solve puzzles to find the code to get out. They will give you clues if you get stuck. We were able to solve the clues with only a couple of minutes to spare. I don’t think they normally do this, but the guy told us we could come back and solve another room for free. We came back a day later and did that. These are fun for families to work together on.
I and the girls went to Branson’s Wild World. It was a zoo and Aquarium. I thought it was very well done. It wasn’t so huge that it took a whole day to go through, but it had some really cool animals. I paid for Hattie and her friend to go in and sit with New Guinea Singing Dogs. They thought that was pretty cool. We spent a couple of hours there and had a really good time. Plus it wasn’t terribly expensive. I really recommend this if you have a couple of hours to spend there.
One evening as the sun was setting, we went down to the lake and just took pictures. You could get some really good pictures there. Marty really enjoyed that.
One of my favorite places we went to was Dogwood Canyon. It was about 40 minutes away from Branson, but it was well worth the drive. It was a beautiful canyon with a small river that ran the length of it and several waterfalls that flowed into it. They had buildings on site that had a museum inside and a paved trail through the canyon.
I could have spent a half day there, but Hattie wanted to do other things. They have a restaurant and a chapel on site. I highly recommend this place!
I want to talk a bit about the food at Branson. We went to the Grand Buffet restaurant. It was one of the best buffets as far as taste. A lot of buffets have a lot of food, but the food is just so-so. Here, the food was quite good. I would also recommend the Hardluck Cafe. The waiters and waitresses take turns singing as you eat. They are all good singers. Also, the food there is great!
At one place we ate, Hattie got a burger that she said was probably the best burger she ever had. Near the Escape Branson was an authentic Greek restaurant. We ate there and it was one of my favorite meals in Branson. You won’t lack for good food in Branson.
There are a lot of other things you can do there that we didn’t have time for. You can go fishing. You can ride a zipline. They had one zipline off of Inspiration Tower that was a half-mile long and the girl said it took about 45 seconds to get to the end of it. I didn’t work up the nerve to try it.
If you spend a week in Branson and have enough money, you won’t run out of things to do. You definitely won’t do all there is to do either.
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