Activities for Kids

Buckle Up! 10 Hot Spots for Car-Crazed Kiddos

Push the pedal to the metal at these hot spots perfect for pint-sized car enthusiasts.

By Melissa Heckscher February 24, 2016

Does your kid go “Vroom, vroom” with anything even remotely resembling a car? Do you find yourself tripping over mountains of Matchbox cars or trying to make room in your home for yet another Hot Wheels track? Well, it’s time you hit the road and take your budding racecar driver someplace where the cars are bigger than boxes and where he can learn the history behind his favorite set of wheels. Inspire your little auto aficionados at one of these car-themed destinations.

Corvette Factory Tour and Museum – Bowling Green, Ky

Kids over seven can see the what goes into making “America’s Sports Car” in this mile-long walking tour of the Corvette Assembly Plant. Watch robots welding steel, see workers marrying the Corvette body with its chassis, and marvel as glistening new cars roll off the assembly line (If you can’t get to Bowling Green, check out this video peek inside the factory). The adjacent museum is worth a look— not just for the more than 75 Corvettes on display and the interactive KidZone, but for the sinkhole that swallowed up several cars in 2014, leaving a 60-foot long hole in the ground that museum officials decided to keep on display. The sinkhole inspired the museum’s “Corvette Cave” exhibit, which lets visitors experience simulated sinkhole event for themselves inside the “Thunderdome.”

Online: Bowlinggreenassemblyplanet.com and Corvettemuseum.org

photo: Corvette Museum