Five tips for budget-friendly summer fun options in Wichita this year

While kids may want their summers to stretch on longer, families don’t have to stretch their wallets looking for things to do. There are so many free- and low-cost summer fun options for area families to take advantage of that even the adults might not want the summer to end.

Here are five tips that offer hundreds of mostly free opportunities to make myriad memories on the cheap. Some of these tips can be used by kid-free families too.

Sign the kids up for the Sunflower Summer

Sunflower Summer is essentially a digital passport that provides free passes to more than 200 attractions throughout the state

While some participating attractions already have free admission, most do not so this program means big savings on ticket prices for Kansas families. Since being rolled out in 2021, Sunflower Summer has grown both in popularity and in the number of participating Kansas attractions, which allow one free visit through the program.

Kansas families with kids ages preschool through seniors need to download the app to get free passes. Up to two adults can get in for free with kids who have a free pass. The adult passes are transferable, so out-of-state grandparents or other adults who want to take participating kids can take advantage of the savings too.

The attractions cover almost every kind of interest and pastime: state parks and geographical wonders like Monument Rocks and Little Jerusalem, outings to a Wichita Wind Surge game and Derby’s Rock River Rapids, various zoos and wildlife parks, and underground sites like Strataca in Hutchinson and the tunnels of Ellinwood. Participating museums range from the more serious like the Amelia Earhart museums in Atchison and the Eisenhower Presidential Museum in Abilene to quirky and novel museums like Eyegore’s Curiosities and Monster Museum in Cawker (home to the World’s Largest Ball of Twine) and a barbed wire museum in La Crosse.

For details and a complete list of participating attractions, visit sunflowersummer.org.

Check out attraction passes from your local library

The Wichita Public Library recently started a program where patrons can check out family passes for up to seven days to visit 13 area attractions. Libraries in several communities around Wichita, including Andover, Derby, Goddard, Mulvane and McConnell Air Force Base offer a similar program.

A comprehensive list of the passes and which Wichita library branches have them, along with details on each attraction’s passes, is on the library’s website in its Library of Things section (wichitalibrary.org/things). Customers can also place a hold on the pass online. Tip: The library has a few passes for the more popular attractions set aside in its “Lucky Day” collection, where items can’t be put on hold. So, if you’re visiting a branch and looking for a pass for a particularly popular attraction, be sure to ask a librarian. It might be your lucky day.

Take advantage of free or reduced admission days or programs

Some local attractions waive admission fees on select days, with the tab being picked up by a donor gift, and some have special discount days.

In Wichita, the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum is free every Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. and Old Cowtown Museum is also free on Sundays, except for select themed days.

The Wichita Wind Surge minor league baseball team has a Two for Tuesday promotion, which allows anyone with a Dillons reward card or app to get two tickets for the price of one every Tuesday home game.

On Tuesdays in July, Sedgwick County Zoo brings back its Twilight Tuesdays programming, with $5 admission all day and a 5:30 p.m. concert by a local band, which is included with admission. The zoo also has extended hours those Tuesdays, from 9 a.m.-8:30 p.m.

Several Wichita attractions also participate in the Blue Star Museum and Museums for All programs, which are nationwide. Through the Blue Star Museum program, which runs from Armed Forces Day on May 18 through Labor Day on Sept. 2, active-duty military members and their families can visit participating attractions for free. About 25 Kansas sites, including more than a handful in Wichita, participate in the Blue Star program (arts.gov/blue-star-museums-map).

The Museums for All program (museums4all.org) provides free or reduced admission to anyone receiving food assistance by showing their EBT card and photo ID. Sixteen Kansas attractions, including six in Wichita, participate.

Enjoy the arts for free outdoors

Partake of the arts, whether its sculptures, performances or concerts, for free this summer in and around Wichita.

Check out the two latest additions to the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection (ulrich.wichita.edu) on the Wichita State University campus. New Mexico-based artist Doug Coffin, known for his monumental, brightly painted steel and mixed media sculptures, installed the collections’ 87th and 88th pieces in April. Both Spirit Totem: Sun and Moon are located at the Duerksen Amphitheater, which is also the site of a new mural by GLeo, the Colombia-based artist who painted the large mural on the Beachner Grain Elevator near 21st and Broadway.

Other outdoor, public art can be found in the Wichita Art Museum’s sculpture garden and in downtown Wichita, where several murals are painted.

This year’s Shakespeare in the Park production is “Taming of the Shrew,” with Friday-Sunday performances May 24-June 9 (no performance Sunday, May 26) at five parks in Wichita, Park City and Derby, with the final performance being held indoors at University Friends Church. All performances start at 7 p.m. Bring chairs, blankets and bug spray. For more information and a complete schedule, visit facebook.com/wichitashakespearecompany; the inclement weather line is 316-655-2017.

The Metropolitan Ballet is giving six performances of the “Wizard of Oz” Thursday, June 6, through Sunday, June 9, in area parks in Mulvane, Maize, Augusta, Haysville and El Dorado with a concluding performance at 7 p.m. in College Hill Park in Wichita. Find the complete schedule at metropolitanballetwichita.com.

Music will fill the air and streets in downtown Wichita from the Bloomberg carillon, located in the tower of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, 204 S. Main, with lunchtime concerts at noon May 24 and July 1.

(At the time this article was compiled, schedules for some of Wichita’s other free summer concert series, including Bradley Fair’s Thursday concerts in June, were not yet released.)

Look for special outings at always or nearly free attractions

Check the websites of free attractions to find programming or other events that can make your visit more special.

For example, watch the animals being fed at the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit in Riverside Park at noon any day, or learn about native plants during hour-long Wandering Wildflower Walks held at 6 p.m. the last Thursday of the month at the Great Plains Nature Center, 6232 E. 29th St. North. For a complete schedule of GPNC programs, visit htgpnc.org.

Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, which is free to visit on Sundays, has some free events planned for the summer, including cursive writing workshops and a two-day weekend birthday party for Wichita.

The cursive writing workshops run 1-3 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, June 25 and 26, for ages 7-12, and 1-3 p.m. Thursday and Friday, June 27 and 28, for ages 13 and older; email edu@wichitahistory.org or call 316-265-9314 to reserve a spot.

The historical museum will host a free birthday party with some special programming to celebrate Wichita turning 154 from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, July 20-21.

Another money-saving tip for families: While the Wichita Art Museum charges adult admission for special, traveling admissions like this summer’s “Annie Leibovitz/Work” exhibition, those exhibitions are free for college students with IDs and youth 18 and younger.